Japanese Research Activities on Offshore Fracture Mechanics Applications

Abstract

The brittle fracture, for its catastrophic nature, is one of the most important factors for designing offshore structures especially operating in the cold sea. Fracture mechanics method can provide a useful tool to maintain the reliability of structural integrity. This paper gives descriptions on a proposed method for fracture assessment with experimental verifications, and also informations from some recent Japanese research activities associated with the application of fracture mechanics to the offshore structures, i.e. initial defect size evaluation, a practical method for evaluation of the local strain in strain concentrated structural components, effect of strain rate on fracture toughness and fracture toughness of weldments.