Physical interpretation of fracture characteristics determined in testing charpy specimens by impact bending

We demonstrate the possibility of using new physically substantiated characteristics of toughness of the metal and the embrittling action of a stress concentrator suggested earlier for the analysis of brittle fracture of standard Charpy specimens. We describe a procedure for the evaluation of the degree of embrittlement of a metal in impact tests. It is shown that the threshold values of the specific work of fracture KCV used to reject the metal must be corrected depending on the level of strength of steel. For low-, medium-, and high-strength steels, we propose physically substantiated threshold values of KCV. © 2001 Plenum Publishing Corporation.