The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is currently funding a Joint Industry Project (JIP) to investigate the effects of specimen size on the fracture toughness of structural steel within the ductile to brittle transition temperature (DBTT) regime, with a view to establishing the pragmatic limits to miniature specimen sizes. The overall aim of the project is to provide codified standard procedures and guidelines for testing miniature fracture toughness specimens, particularly those which could be manufactured from boat or scoop samples extracted from pipelines, pressure vessels, etc., without causing significant damage. A range of steels, including a well characterised A533B-1 material, the 'Euro' material (DIN 22NiMoCr37) and a conventional BS1501:213 material are being investigated with a view to extending existing databases to include progressively smaller test specimen sizes. The current paper concentrates mainly on the 'Euro' material.
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