Fracture Toughness, Structural Alloys Systems

Answer by author It has been shown that for type 301 stainless steel that notched/unnotched tensile ratios of unity or higher indicate sufficient resistance to brittle fracture for structural applications. Definite correlations between notched/unnotched tensile ratios, axial fatigue data of complex welded joints and fatigue data of actual tanks have been obtained on the 300 series stainless steels. It is felt, however, that sufficient information is not presently available to quantitatively state the notched/unnotched tensile ratio required to insure sufficient toughness in other alloy systems such as the aluminum base alloys. 

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