A steel used for an engineering application has a specified yield strength of 1000 MPa and a plane strain fracture toughness of 150MPa.
(a) Calculate the minimum dimensions required to carry out a 'valid' plane strain fracture toughness test
(b) Estimate the weight of the single edge cracked bend specimen and of the compact specimen of this steel which would have sufficient dimensions to provide valid plane strain fracture toughness. (See the Appendix section for K calibrations for different specimen geometries.) Assume that a/W = 0.45.
(c) Estimate the load capacity of the mechanical testing machine you would need to carry out the fracture test.
(d) If the available testing machine has a load capacity of 200 kN, do you need to alter the dimensions of the specimens to obtain a valid Kic? If so, what will you do?