Comment on “Effect of carbide distribution on the fracture toughness in the transition temperature region of an SA 508 steel”

Critical cleavage stress values and carbide sizes obtained in a recent work by Lee et al. [Acta Mater. 50 (2002) 4755] are recalculated using 2D and 3D finite element simulations and new constitutive law, instead of small scale yielding assumption and likely improper choice for the behavior of SA 508 steel. A new model based on the weakest link concept with the determined carbide size distribution (CSD) is succesfully applied to predict KJc measurements obtained on SA 508 steel and on a similar material (22NiMoCr3-7).