EH36 steel for shipbuilding - fracture documentation for CTOD test (plate thicnkness 50mm), a0/W = 0.5

The basic method of ductility designation of structural steels is the Charpy impact test. The test consists of a single strike of the specimen using a Charpy pendulum. Its result is the value of work necessary to break a specimen at a test temperature. Despite its many advantages, such as its short implementation time and low costs, it has its disadvantages, in particular:
• strong influence of notch geometry on the test result, which means that impact strength cannot be considered as an unambiguous material property,
• milled notches are not repeatable because the cutter wears,
• regardless of the thickness of the material being tested, samples of the same size are used.
Due to these disadvantages, for very responsible ship and ocean engineering constructions, such as: continuous longitudinal coamings of the largest container ships, or supporting components of drilling platforms, tests are carried out basing on fracture mechanics. For shipbuilding industry, CTOD (Crack Tip Opening Displacement) is, the most often, desired value. The test CTOD is performed by slowly bending the specimen with record of the slit opening. Before performing the test, it is necessary to know the material properties (from a tensile test). The final stage of the test is the measurement of the initial fatigue fracture geometry.
The dataset contains the photographic documentation of fracture and measurement of fatigue precrack for a0/W = 0.50 specimen.