• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.640-647
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• 2004

In order to perform elastic-plastic fracture mechanical analyses, fracture resistance curves for concerned materials are required. The unloading compliance method and the DCPD(Direct Current Potential Drop) method have been widely used for measuring the crack length and the extension for a standard specimen fracture resistance curve test. However it is difficult to apply the unloading compliance method to a real pipe fracture resistance curve test. The objective of this paper is to propose the calibration equation between the normalized crack length and the normalized electric potential, and to apply to pipe fracture experiments. For these, finite element analyses were performed with various current input locations and crack front configurations. Also the 4-point bending jig was manufactured for a pipe test and the DCPD method was used to measure crack extensions and crack lengths for a pipe test. The calculated crack length by the DCPD method agreed with the measured crack length within 5% error.