Influence of Material Thickness on the Ductile Fracture of Steel Plates for Shipbuilding

In the shipbuilding industry, the risk of brittle fractures is relatively high because some units operate in arctic or subarctic zones and use high thickness (up to 100 mm) steel plates in their structures. This risk is limited by employing certified materials with a specific impact strength, determined using the Charpy method (for a given design temperature) and by exercising control over the welding processes (technology qualification, production supervision, and non-destructive tests). However, for offshore constructions, such requirements may prove insufficient. For this reason, regulations employed in constructing offshore structures require conducting crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) tests for steel and welded joints with thicknesses exceeding 40 mm for high tensile strength steel and 50 mm for other steel types. Since classification codes do not accept the results of CTOD tests conducted on specimens of sub-sized dimensions, the problem of theoretically modelling the steel construction destruction process is of key importance, as laboratory tests for notched elements of considerable thickness (100 mm and higher) are costly and problems stemming from high loads and a wide range of recorded parameters are not uncommon. The aim of this research is to find a relationship between material thickness and CTOD value, by establishing and verifying a numerical model that allows recalculating a result obtained on a sub-size specimen to a full-size specimen for a ductile fracture mode. This work presents results and conclusions from numerical modelling and compares them with laboratory test results of the elastic-plastic properties of high thickness steel, typically used in offshore applications.