Numerical prediction of the fracture of a thick pressurized shell subjected to a liquid nitrogen shock

Abstract The probabilistic elastoplastic stress criterion for cleavage fracture is used in the frame of the local approach to fracture to analyse a fracture experiment in which a one meter long cylinder, with a longitudinal straight crack, was submitted to a thermal shock by liquid nitrogen. The computation, which gives the variation of the probability of fracture with time during the cooling transient, leads to predict a value for the most probable fracture time which is very close to the experimental one. The LEFM approach, which would predict a later initiation time can be improved by incorporating the probabilistic criterion in the frame of the small scale yielding analysis.