The susceptibility of SA-508-II and SA-533B to reheat cracking-evaluation of empirical and theoretical predictive methods

The primary objection of this program was to evaluate, by means of actual welding tests, the various empirical and theoretical methods for predicting reheat cracking in 508-II type and 533B type nuclear pressure vessel steels. The program concluded that the “Threshold Value Criterion” method is a generally good way to evalute 508-II materials. The program also found that SA 533B materials are less prone to reheat cracking than 508-II type materials, but 533B is not immune to this type of cracking.