Constitutive laws of materials in dynamics—outline of a programme of testing on small and large specimens for containment of extreme dynamic loading conditions

A sound foundation of stress and/or strain criteria for the mechanical design of fast breeder reactor structures capable of bearing extreme dynamic loading conditions, passes through the experimental determination of dynamic mechanical properties of materials in end-of-life conditions with respect to the damaging processes to which the structures are submitted.Calculation codes must be implemented by constitutive equations describing the dynamic mechanical response of the materials, without the knowledge of which any calculation code is liable to important inaccuracies which provoke the use of high safety coefficients and, often, the uncertainty as to the effective capability of the structures to withstand the accidental loads.The results of a screening programme of dynamic tensile tests performed on AISI 304 and AISI 316 austenitic stainless steels using small specimens (7 mm²) showed that the dynamic response of such steels at temperatures of 400 and 550°C is not univocal, passing from a substantial dynamic hardening behaviour to a dynamic softening behaviour, probably due to residual microstructural differences caused by the transformation processes.From the discussion of the results obtained, follows the development of a testing programme on small (up to 20 mm² cross section) and large specimens (up to 5000 mm² cross section) focused on: (i) developing and calibrating dynamic constitutive equations founded on basic physical aspects, for uniaxial and multiaxial loading conditions under particular deformation and loading histories; (ii) verifying in dynamics the existing yielding criteria, hardening rules and failure theories; (iii) investigating by means of a high-load apparatus (5 MN) the influence of near real-size thickness, welding, defects and notches, on dynamic strength and deformation capability of large reactor structures.