Abstract:
To meet the demand for fracture toughness evaluation of CLF-1 steel used in key structural components of fusion reactors under limited sampling conditions after neutron irradiation, a geometrically scaled miniature single-edge bend (MSEB) specimen was designed, and a corresponding fracture toughness testing procedure was established. The objective of this work is to determine whether the MSEB specimen can effectively predict the fracture toughness of standard single-edge bend (SEB) specimens while maintaining a high crack-tip constraint condition. Fracture tests were conducted on MSEB specimens with different crack sizes and on standard SEB specimens at room temperature and 300 °C. The
J-resistance (
J-Δ
a) curves and the conditional crack initiation toughness (
JQ) were obtained. Combined with elastic–plastic finite element analyses, the local crack-tip stress states of specimens with different sizes were compared, and the consistency of crack-tip constraint between MSEB and standard SEB specimens was verified. Furthermore, a crack-tip constraint quantification method based on the characteristic strain energy density (
wc) was introduced to systematically evaluate the effects of specimen size and temperature on fracture toughness. A quantitative linear relationship between
wc and
JQ was established, enabling a unified characterization of the local constraint parameter and the global fracture toughness. In addition, the
JQ value of the standard SEB specimen was predicted by the intersection method of the crack-driving force curve and the fracture failure curve, and the prediction was validated against the experimental result. The results show that, at room temperature, the
J-Δ
a curves and
JQ values of MSEB specimens with different crack sizes are highly consistent with those of standard SEB specimens, indicating a weak size effect. At 300 °C, however, the scatter of fracture toughness for MSEB specimens increases significantly, and the
J-Δ
a curves and
JQ values of standard SEB specimens are markedly higher than those of MSEB specimens. A clear linear relationship between
wc and
JQ is observed at both temperatures. The predicted
JQ values of standard SEB specimens agree well with the experimental averages, with relative errors of 0.78% and 10.85%, respectively. These results demonstrate that the MSEB specimen, combined with the
wc-based constraint quantification method, can effectively predict the standard-size fracture toughness of CLF-1 steel and provides a reliable technical approach for the fracture toughness evaluation of irradiated materials using small specimens.