Monthly QRM Presentation

Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited

Addressing some issues in Drop Weight Testing

– A material science approach

Presented by –
Manish Bhadauria
SO/C – NPCIL
RQAC, HAZIRA
 Objective
The main objective of this presentation is to give a technical insight to the fundamental questions
which arises during witnessing of drop weight testing along with standard testing procedure.
For ex.-

Why some metals exhibit transition temperature while others do not ?

Why single pass weld bead is used during sample preparation and not
the double pass weld bead?

No DWT required for

SS304L, but it is essential
for 20MnMoNi 5 5(Mod.)
for characterisation of
material.
_______Why??______
 Introduction
• ASME Section III requires material specifications(some materials) that
utilize both NDTT and Charpy V-notch test data.
• Coupling NDTT and Charpy V-notch test data a results in so called
“Reference temperature (RTNDT)”.
• RTNDT is greater than or equal to NDTT.
• At RTNDT +33 °C, three Charpy V-notch specimen must exhibit minimum of 68J
and 0.89mm of lateral expansion.

Reference Documents- NDTT- The temperature

at which the material
shows almost no ductility
For Drop weight testing , ASTM E-208 standard is followed

For Charpy V-notch testing , ASTM E-23 standard is followed

Ductile to Brittle Transition temperature
The temperature at which there is a pronounced decrease in a
material’s ability to absorb force without fracturing. At this
point, a material transitions from ductile to brittle. Also known
as DBTT.

Liberty Ship {S.S. Schenectady,1943} failure

 DWT Testing Procedure
• Drop weight test is conducted by subjecting
each of series of specimens of a given
material to a single impact load at selected
temperatures to determine the maximum
temperature at which there is break or no-
break condition.
• The impact load is provided by the guided
free fall weight whose energy depends on
the yield strength of material.
• A weld deposit is placed at the centre of
specimen and notched to provide the
initiation source.
Ductile to Brittle Transition temperature
• Exhibited in bcc metals (ex. low carbon
steel).
• Become brittle at low temperature or at
very high strain rates.
“The presence of a ductile to brittle transition temperature
implies there are insufficient (ductile) deformation modes at
low temperatures in BCC metal to support plastic
deformation and therefore fracture occurs to release
energy/load.”

What do we mean by insufficient deformation modes at low temperature ?

Answer to this question lies behind the knowledge of crystal structure and phenomenon of slip.
 Crystalline Structure
• More than 90% of naturally occurring and
artificially prepared solids are crystalline.
(Minerals, sand, clay, limestone, metals,
carbon (diamond and graphite), salts ( NaCl,
KCl etc.), all have crystalline structures.)
• A crystal is a regular, repeating arrangement
of atoms or molecules.
• The majority of solids, including all metals,
adopt a crystalline arrangement to achieve SEM image of a platinum surface showing
the regular alignment of atoms
physical stability because in the crystalline
arrangement, the particles pack efficiently
together to minimize the total
intermolecular energy.
 Crystal Structure
• A face-centered cubic crystal structure
will exhibit more ductility (deform
more readily under load before
breaking) than a body-centered cubic
structure.
• HCP lattices (like cobalt and zinc) are BCC structure
closely packed, but not cubic. HCP
metals like cobalt and zinc are not as
ductile as the FCC metals.
• Gamma-iron, silver, gold, and lead
have FCC structures.

FCC structure
 FCC metals not exhibiting NDT

BCC FCC

***BCC dislocations' movement is thermally activated while (relatively) FCC dislocations' movement needs
significantly smaller activation.

***This leads to BCC materials becoming brittle at low temperatures while FCC staying ductile irrespective of
temperature - but probably not at 0 Kelvin since an atom still has to be moved. However that there is an
activation energy for FCC slip, only it is much less.
Effect of welding conditions on Drop-
Weight Specimen
 Effect of welding conditions on Drop-Weight Specimen
• Litrature survey [1] has been carried out for SA508,
quenched and tempered low alloy steel [Pressure
vessel steel] in order to find out the effect of
welding on the drop weight test (P-2 SPECIMEN).
• It was found that there is a significant difference in
behaviour between two pass bead and one pass
bead specimens.
• In two pass bead specimen, extension of crack in ‘no
break’ is very small and crack is arrested in HAZ.
• In one pass bead specimen, crack extension gradually
increases and finally reaches the ‘break’ condition with
decreasing temperature.
Distribution of Hardness in HAZ

Single pass bead specimen Two pass bead specimen

 Distribution of Hardness in HAZ
• Two pass bead shows a complex hardness distribution as compared to Single pass
bead.
• In the two pass bead specimen, softening of HAZ of the first pass bead is marked just
under HAZ of second pass bead.
The softening of HAZ of the first pass bead in
the two pass bead specimen is caused by the
tempering resulting from the second pass
welding.

This tempering action induces toughness in the

local region and hence this zone plays a
important role as a barrier against crack
propagation.
 Effect on DWT test Results
• In Litrature [1], tests has been conducted for both single pass and two pass weld
technique and following has been observed:

NDT temperature found to be 11 One pass technique gives more

deg. C lower for two pass consistent NDT temperature values
technique. while two pass technique gives
significant scatter in test result data.

Crack starter weld bead HAZ provides a tougher zone

in crack path during drop weight testing, especially if
two pass technique is employed because two pass
technique provides the overlapping HAZs.
 References
1. Drop-weight Test for Determination of Nil-ductility Transition Temperature. By
American Society for Testing and Materials. Pg. No. 58.

2. “Materials Science and Engineering”, Book by William Callister.

3. Weman, Klas (2003). Welding processes handbook. New York: CRC Press LLC.
Thank You