Low-cost J-R curve estimation based on CVN upper shelf energy

J-R curve testing is costly and difficult. The results may also sometimes b e unreliable. For less demanding structures, J-R curve testing is therefore not practical. The only way to introduce tearing instability analysis for such cases is to estimate the J-R curves indirectly from some simpler test. The Charpy-V notch test provides information about the energy needed to fr acture a small specimen in half. On the upper shelf this energy relates to ductile fracture resistance and it is possible to correlate it to the J-R c urve. Here, 112 multispecimen J-R curves from a wide variety of materials w ere analysed and a simple power-law-based description of the J-R curves was correlated to the CVNUS energy. This new correlation corresponds essential ly to a 5% lower bound and conforms well with the earlier correlations, reg ardless of the definition of the ductile fracture toughness parameter.