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HIDA databank — its development and future
International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpvp
HIDA databank Ð its development and future S. Concari a,*, A. Fairman b a
ENEL Produzione SpA, Laboratorio di Piacenza, via Nino Bixio 39, 29100 Piacenza, Italy b ERA Technology Ltd, Cleeve Road, Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 7SA UK
Abstract Task 15 of the European Commission supported HIDA Project (BE1702) has involved the preparation of a post-processed databank to contain information on creep and fatigue crack growth characteristics on the materials studied in the project. It also includes information on plant operator experiences relating to component cracking/failure under steady loading and plant cycling conditions. The HIDA Databank is one of the few databanks initiated in this ®eld of activity. The HIDA Databank has been released on CD as two computer ®les based on Microsoft w Access 97 software and has a purpose built Graphical User Interface to allow easy addition of data and examination of existing information. The data included in the HIDA Databank are: (1) plant and research experience information collected from HIDA Task 2 (non-HIDA data); (2) HIDA test data generated from laboratory and feature tests; and (3) test specimen characteristics, product or component properties. The HIDA Databank also contains some post process parameters such as lower and upper bound scatter bands (as derived from the test data). The crack growth data stored in the databank has been used to develop the HIDA procedure for defect assessment and has also assisted in re®ning existing assessment methodologies. The HIDA Databank also acts as a data source for the Knowledge Based System developed in the HIDA project. This paper outlines the main development of the HIDA Databank and brie¯y considers how it will be used and developed in the future in order to act as an independent source of information on creep and fatigue crack growth, and component behaviour, in high temperature plant. q 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. Keywords: Creep and fatigue crack growth data; Component cracking/failure in high temperature plant; HIDA databank; High temperature defect assessment; Graphical user interface (GUI); Knowledge based system (KBS)
1. Introduction High-Temperature Defect Assessment BE1702 (HIDA BE1702) was a European Commission supported Brite Euram project completed at the end of 1999. The project was aimed at improving and validating methodologies for high temperature defect assessment, and for developing a uni®ed European procedure. As many of the papers presented in this and the ®rst HIDA Conference (1998) show, the information collected and produced within the HIDA project includes data from tests performed within the project itself together with a large body of published and unpublished data collated from industrial and research experience, outside the project. All these data were entered into the HIDA Databank speci®cally developed for this purpose, and designed to
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 130-0523-525-219; fax: 139-0523-525387. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Concari). 0308-0161/02/$ - see front matter q 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. PII: S 0308-016 1(01)00120-X
allow easy storage and retrieval. The HIDA Databank acts as an independent user-friendly source of information on creep and fatigue crack growth and component behaviour in high temperature plant. It has also been made fully compatible with the Knowledge Based System (KBS) developed within the same project, to which it now acts as a basic databank. This paper describes the completed HIDA Databank and its possible future development. 2. HIDA data Data collected within the HIDA project are mainly referred to materials applied in the industry for high temperature utilisation, for which the heterogeneity of the data related to these materials is very large. These include boiler tubing and piping steels 2.25Cr1Mo and AISI 316 Stainless Steel, and the 1CrMoV (forged 1 cast) turbine rotor and casing steels. It also covers ASTM P91 steel (which is a recently developed material with
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S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 1. Structure of HIDA DB.
excellent properties for advanced applications), for which only limited crack growth data are available, currently. Data have been collected from three different sources: 1. HIDA test work, 2. Component cracking in high temperature plant 3. Data from other research projects (both laboratory test data and data which appear in the open literature). Data on component cracking has been collected from Europe and elsewhere [1]. Furthermore, a large amount of research data on creep and high temperature fatigue crack growth on the materials has been gathered from 14 research/ industrial organisations in Europe and Japan [2]. These data include crack growth in base metal, weld metal and heat affected zone, and cover a wide range of test specimen geometries and sizes, test temperatures and loading conditions. The data collected, in particular the plant cracking data, are very heterogeneous because of the variation in material, component type/geometry and other such factors. The HIDA Databank is thus quite complex.
3. Basic software The storage of a large body of heterogeneous data in a databank would have represented a major problem only a few years ago, in that it would have necessitated the development of specialised software on a dedicated computer. However, these days, many database packages are available in the market at relatively low cost and these have good capability for matching different necessities. Such applications allow the storage of large quantities of heterogeneous data on a standard Personal Computer (PC) and can work across a range of different operating systems. Furthermore, the packages can be linked to an of®ce network to allow usage by multiple users. Among the database applications that are available to buy off-the shelf, Microsoft Access (which is a relational database), was chosen for the HIDA Databank since the program is relatively versatile, commercially widespread and can work on any common PC, where Microsoft Windows 98 or NT is installed. The choice of Access has also been in¯uenced by the compatibility with other Microsoft Of®ce programs (Word, Excel, etc.), which simpli®es the importing and exporting of data to and from other data sources.
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
4. The databank structure The HIDA Databank is basically composed of two Microsoft Access ®les Ð these contain all the data collected within the HIDA Project and a Graphical User Interface (GUI). The two ®les are installed onto a CD. The link between the two ®les is set assuming the CD driver of the user PC is pre-set to map the D: drive; although connection between the two ®les can be simply restored if a different CD driver name is used, or if installation onto the hard disk is preferred. According to Microsoft Access properties, the data are grouped into different tables where each ®eld (column of the spreadsheet) describes one property of the object and each record (line of the spreadsheet) collects all the properties describing the same object.
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Each table is connected to other tables by links that can be of different type: ² one to one type, one record of table A is connected to one record of table B and one record of table B is connected to one record of table A, ² one to many, one record of table A is connected to many records of table B while one record of table B is connected to one record of table A, ² many to many, one record of table A is connected to many records of table B and one record of table B is connected to many record of table A (in this case an auxiliary intermediate table is inserted). The relational structure of the HIDA Databank is graphically presented in Fig. 1. Among the different tables, three
Fig. 2. Opening form of HIDA DB user interface.
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S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 3. General information form of HIDA DB user interface.
of them can be considered as the main tables for the identi®cation of the objects included. These three tables are component, product and specimen. In the component table, each record describes one of the metallic bodies considered within the project (e.g. a piece of pipe (eventually including a weld) from which specimen for tests within HIDA are taken, a serviced component of an industrial plant described within one case of Task 2 industrial experience, etc.). Service history and product (by means of an auxiliary table for a many to many correlation) are the tables linked to the component table. In the product table, each record describes one metallic body being considered homogeneous from both chemical composition and thermal±mechanical history viewpoint (e.g. a pipe of one known heat, from which one or more of the pieces in the ®rst example above were taken, etc.). Chemical composition, component (through the auxiliary table), source and specimen are the tables connected to the product table. In the specimen table, each record describes one specimen taken from a body described in the product table. Product, specimen drawing and six test tables (tensile tests, creep tests, impact tests, fracture toughness tests, creep crack growth tests and fatigue crack growth tests) are connected to specimen. Some tests tables connected to
specimen are in addition linked to related auxiliary tables including tests stream data (creep stream, tensile stream, creep crack growth stream and fatigue crack growth stream) and all tests tables are linked to the testing environment table that contains the information about test conditions. Another table called material properties is included in the HIDA Databank. This table is not directly connected to the other tables, but its content is derived, by means of HIDA Data Analysis performed in the project on data included in the other tables. The parameters included in the material properties table are the ones that are input into the HIDA KBS to calculate the crack growth rates. 5. User interface Microsoft Access is a user-friendly tool for database management that allows the user to extract from a database all the information required in a simple way (given a basic knowledge of the software). The HIDA Databank on the other hand is a product that can be utilised both for data consultation and insertion of additional data by users that are not expert with Microsoft Access. This has been achieved by means of a purpose built GUI. The GUI is auto-executed by opening the HIDA
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
1035
Fig. 4. Product form of HIDA DB user interface, including chemical composition subform.
Databank, within Microsoft Access. It enables the standard database functions to be executed using a series of push buttons and easy to follow dialogue boxes, whilst maintaining the complex internal relationships of the databank structure.
The GUI is composed by a series of Forms; buttons that allow passing from one form to another (if clicked on link all forms). The opening form (`Questionnaire form' see Fig. 2)
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S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 5. Component form of HIDA DB user interface, including service history subform.
Fig. 6. Component/product form of HIDA DB user interface.
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 7. Specimen forms of HIDA DB user interface.
Fig. 8. Test environment form of HIDA DB user interface.
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S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 9. CCG data entry form of HIDA DB user interface.
Fig. 10. Select CCG form of HIDA DB user interface.
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
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Fig. 11. FCG data entry form of HIDA DB user interface.
shows the main menu that gives the possibility to: ² access the six main forms where data are stored corresponding to HIDA Databank tables (one or two tables in each form), ² go to Developer notes where some help info for HIDA Databank are described, ² exit the HIDA Databank. The six main forms screen-shots of the GUI are provided in Figs. 3±8. From the forms of Testing Environment (Fig. 8), it is possible to access the forms related to the various tests
and to the form with material properties. For each kind of test, two forms are available. The ®rst one accessible is mainly related to the input of data relevant to each test (data entry form), whilst the second one (select data) is oriented more to data examination and in this additional form, the test results are included together with main information related to component, material and testing environment. Tests form screen-shots are provided in Figs. 9±15. By means of these forms, apart from making data entry a simple task, the GUI also provides added functionality to the HIDA Databank including facilities in which to query data, plot a graph and import/export
1040
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 12. Tensile data entry form of HIDA DB user interface.
data to and from Excel spreadsheets, or other data formats. Thus, the user can easily gain access to the hundreds of creep and fatigue crack growth test results stored in the HIDA Databank, or to information collated on component behaviour in high temperature plant, at the touch of a button. 6. Conclusions and future development The HIDA Databank is one of the ®rst databanks in this ®eld of activity. The availability of such a product represents a signi®cant advantage over paper records Ð thanks to its ¯exibility for further processing, and to its easy accessibility of data provided by the GUI. The
product is complete and compatible with the HIDA KBS. There is now a plan to further re®ne the draft HIDA Procedure by including sensitivity analysis and probabilistic assessment. This is envisaged to lead to the re®nement of the HIDA Databank. The HIDA Databank already contains lower and upper bound bands on the data. Developments in terms of sensitivity analysis will lead to advice on the effect of using various data bounds on component life prediction. The fact that much of the data included has already been validated through the HIDA procedure, and that the HIDA Databank is now commercially available, should provide greater con®dence when undertaking a crack growth assessment in a high temperature plant.
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 13. Creep data entry form of HIDA DB user interface.
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S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 14. Impact test data entry form of HIDA DB user interface.
Fig. 15. Fracture toughness test data entry form of HIDA DB user interface.
References [1] Fedeli G. A survey of European industrial experience within the HIDA project. Mater High Temp 1998;15(3±4):239±42.
[2] Al-Abed B, Shibli IA. Scatter bands in creep and fatigue crack growth rates in high temperature plants materials data. Mater High Temp 1998;15(3±4):143±9.
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpvp
HIDA databank Ð its development and future S. Concari a,*, A. Fairman b a
ENEL Produzione SpA, Laboratorio di Piacenza, via Nino Bixio 39, 29100 Piacenza, Italy b ERA Technology Ltd, Cleeve Road, Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 7SA UK
Abstract Task 15 of the European Commission supported HIDA Project (BE1702) has involved the preparation of a post-processed databank to contain information on creep and fatigue crack growth characteristics on the materials studied in the project. It also includes information on plant operator experiences relating to component cracking/failure under steady loading and plant cycling conditions. The HIDA Databank is one of the few databanks initiated in this ®eld of activity. The HIDA Databank has been released on CD as two computer ®les based on Microsoft w Access 97 software and has a purpose built Graphical User Interface to allow easy addition of data and examination of existing information. The data included in the HIDA Databank are: (1) plant and research experience information collected from HIDA Task 2 (non-HIDA data); (2) HIDA test data generated from laboratory and feature tests; and (3) test specimen characteristics, product or component properties. The HIDA Databank also contains some post process parameters such as lower and upper bound scatter bands (as derived from the test data). The crack growth data stored in the databank has been used to develop the HIDA procedure for defect assessment and has also assisted in re®ning existing assessment methodologies. The HIDA Databank also acts as a data source for the Knowledge Based System developed in the HIDA project. This paper outlines the main development of the HIDA Databank and brie¯y considers how it will be used and developed in the future in order to act as an independent source of information on creep and fatigue crack growth, and component behaviour, in high temperature plant. q 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. Keywords: Creep and fatigue crack growth data; Component cracking/failure in high temperature plant; HIDA databank; High temperature defect assessment; Graphical user interface (GUI); Knowledge based system (KBS)
1. Introduction High-Temperature Defect Assessment BE1702 (HIDA BE1702) was a European Commission supported Brite Euram project completed at the end of 1999. The project was aimed at improving and validating methodologies for high temperature defect assessment, and for developing a uni®ed European procedure. As many of the papers presented in this and the ®rst HIDA Conference (1998) show, the information collected and produced within the HIDA project includes data from tests performed within the project itself together with a large body of published and unpublished data collated from industrial and research experience, outside the project. All these data were entered into the HIDA Databank speci®cally developed for this purpose, and designed to
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 130-0523-525-219; fax: 139-0523-525387. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Concari). 0308-0161/02/$ - see front matter q 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. PII: S 0308-016 1(01)00120-X
allow easy storage and retrieval. The HIDA Databank acts as an independent user-friendly source of information on creep and fatigue crack growth and component behaviour in high temperature plant. It has also been made fully compatible with the Knowledge Based System (KBS) developed within the same project, to which it now acts as a basic databank. This paper describes the completed HIDA Databank and its possible future development. 2. HIDA data Data collected within the HIDA project are mainly referred to materials applied in the industry for high temperature utilisation, for which the heterogeneity of the data related to these materials is very large. These include boiler tubing and piping steels 2.25Cr1Mo and AISI 316 Stainless Steel, and the 1CrMoV (forged 1 cast) turbine rotor and casing steels. It also covers ASTM P91 steel (which is a recently developed material with
1032
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 1. Structure of HIDA DB.
excellent properties for advanced applications), for which only limited crack growth data are available, currently. Data have been collected from three different sources: 1. HIDA test work, 2. Component cracking in high temperature plant 3. Data from other research projects (both laboratory test data and data which appear in the open literature). Data on component cracking has been collected from Europe and elsewhere [1]. Furthermore, a large amount of research data on creep and high temperature fatigue crack growth on the materials has been gathered from 14 research/ industrial organisations in Europe and Japan [2]. These data include crack growth in base metal, weld metal and heat affected zone, and cover a wide range of test specimen geometries and sizes, test temperatures and loading conditions. The data collected, in particular the plant cracking data, are very heterogeneous because of the variation in material, component type/geometry and other such factors. The HIDA Databank is thus quite complex.
3. Basic software The storage of a large body of heterogeneous data in a databank would have represented a major problem only a few years ago, in that it would have necessitated the development of specialised software on a dedicated computer. However, these days, many database packages are available in the market at relatively low cost and these have good capability for matching different necessities. Such applications allow the storage of large quantities of heterogeneous data on a standard Personal Computer (PC) and can work across a range of different operating systems. Furthermore, the packages can be linked to an of®ce network to allow usage by multiple users. Among the database applications that are available to buy off-the shelf, Microsoft Access (which is a relational database), was chosen for the HIDA Databank since the program is relatively versatile, commercially widespread and can work on any common PC, where Microsoft Windows 98 or NT is installed. The choice of Access has also been in¯uenced by the compatibility with other Microsoft Of®ce programs (Word, Excel, etc.), which simpli®es the importing and exporting of data to and from other data sources.
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
4. The databank structure The HIDA Databank is basically composed of two Microsoft Access ®les Ð these contain all the data collected within the HIDA Project and a Graphical User Interface (GUI). The two ®les are installed onto a CD. The link between the two ®les is set assuming the CD driver of the user PC is pre-set to map the D: drive; although connection between the two ®les can be simply restored if a different CD driver name is used, or if installation onto the hard disk is preferred. According to Microsoft Access properties, the data are grouped into different tables where each ®eld (column of the spreadsheet) describes one property of the object and each record (line of the spreadsheet) collects all the properties describing the same object.
1033
Each table is connected to other tables by links that can be of different type: ² one to one type, one record of table A is connected to one record of table B and one record of table B is connected to one record of table A, ² one to many, one record of table A is connected to many records of table B while one record of table B is connected to one record of table A, ² many to many, one record of table A is connected to many records of table B and one record of table B is connected to many record of table A (in this case an auxiliary intermediate table is inserted). The relational structure of the HIDA Databank is graphically presented in Fig. 1. Among the different tables, three
Fig. 2. Opening form of HIDA DB user interface.
1034
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 3. General information form of HIDA DB user interface.
of them can be considered as the main tables for the identi®cation of the objects included. These three tables are component, product and specimen. In the component table, each record describes one of the metallic bodies considered within the project (e.g. a piece of pipe (eventually including a weld) from which specimen for tests within HIDA are taken, a serviced component of an industrial plant described within one case of Task 2 industrial experience, etc.). Service history and product (by means of an auxiliary table for a many to many correlation) are the tables linked to the component table. In the product table, each record describes one metallic body being considered homogeneous from both chemical composition and thermal±mechanical history viewpoint (e.g. a pipe of one known heat, from which one or more of the pieces in the ®rst example above were taken, etc.). Chemical composition, component (through the auxiliary table), source and specimen are the tables connected to the product table. In the specimen table, each record describes one specimen taken from a body described in the product table. Product, specimen drawing and six test tables (tensile tests, creep tests, impact tests, fracture toughness tests, creep crack growth tests and fatigue crack growth tests) are connected to specimen. Some tests tables connected to
specimen are in addition linked to related auxiliary tables including tests stream data (creep stream, tensile stream, creep crack growth stream and fatigue crack growth stream) and all tests tables are linked to the testing environment table that contains the information about test conditions. Another table called material properties is included in the HIDA Databank. This table is not directly connected to the other tables, but its content is derived, by means of HIDA Data Analysis performed in the project on data included in the other tables. The parameters included in the material properties table are the ones that are input into the HIDA KBS to calculate the crack growth rates. 5. User interface Microsoft Access is a user-friendly tool for database management that allows the user to extract from a database all the information required in a simple way (given a basic knowledge of the software). The HIDA Databank on the other hand is a product that can be utilised both for data consultation and insertion of additional data by users that are not expert with Microsoft Access. This has been achieved by means of a purpose built GUI. The GUI is auto-executed by opening the HIDA
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
1035
Fig. 4. Product form of HIDA DB user interface, including chemical composition subform.
Databank, within Microsoft Access. It enables the standard database functions to be executed using a series of push buttons and easy to follow dialogue boxes, whilst maintaining the complex internal relationships of the databank structure.
The GUI is composed by a series of Forms; buttons that allow passing from one form to another (if clicked on link all forms). The opening form (`Questionnaire form' see Fig. 2)
1036
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 5. Component form of HIDA DB user interface, including service history subform.
Fig. 6. Component/product form of HIDA DB user interface.
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 7. Specimen forms of HIDA DB user interface.
Fig. 8. Test environment form of HIDA DB user interface.
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S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 9. CCG data entry form of HIDA DB user interface.
Fig. 10. Select CCG form of HIDA DB user interface.
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
1039
Fig. 11. FCG data entry form of HIDA DB user interface.
shows the main menu that gives the possibility to: ² access the six main forms where data are stored corresponding to HIDA Databank tables (one or two tables in each form), ² go to Developer notes where some help info for HIDA Databank are described, ² exit the HIDA Databank. The six main forms screen-shots of the GUI are provided in Figs. 3±8. From the forms of Testing Environment (Fig. 8), it is possible to access the forms related to the various tests
and to the form with material properties. For each kind of test, two forms are available. The ®rst one accessible is mainly related to the input of data relevant to each test (data entry form), whilst the second one (select data) is oriented more to data examination and in this additional form, the test results are included together with main information related to component, material and testing environment. Tests form screen-shots are provided in Figs. 9±15. By means of these forms, apart from making data entry a simple task, the GUI also provides added functionality to the HIDA Databank including facilities in which to query data, plot a graph and import/export
1040
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 12. Tensile data entry form of HIDA DB user interface.
data to and from Excel spreadsheets, or other data formats. Thus, the user can easily gain access to the hundreds of creep and fatigue crack growth test results stored in the HIDA Databank, or to information collated on component behaviour in high temperature plant, at the touch of a button. 6. Conclusions and future development The HIDA Databank is one of the ®rst databanks in this ®eld of activity. The availability of such a product represents a signi®cant advantage over paper records Ð thanks to its ¯exibility for further processing, and to its easy accessibility of data provided by the GUI. The
product is complete and compatible with the HIDA KBS. There is now a plan to further re®ne the draft HIDA Procedure by including sensitivity analysis and probabilistic assessment. This is envisaged to lead to the re®nement of the HIDA Databank. The HIDA Databank already contains lower and upper bound bands on the data. Developments in terms of sensitivity analysis will lead to advice on the effect of using various data bounds on component life prediction. The fact that much of the data included has already been validated through the HIDA procedure, and that the HIDA Databank is now commercially available, should provide greater con®dence when undertaking a crack growth assessment in a high temperature plant.
S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 13. Creep data entry form of HIDA DB user interface.
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S. Concari, A. Fairman / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 78 (2001) 1031±1042
Fig. 14. Impact test data entry form of HIDA DB user interface.
Fig. 15. Fracture toughness test data entry form of HIDA DB user interface.
References [1] Fedeli G. A survey of European industrial experience within the HIDA project. Mater High Temp 1998;15(3±4):239±42.
[2] Al-Abed B, Shibli IA. Scatter bands in creep and fatigue crack growth rates in high temperature plants materials data. Mater High Temp 1998;15(3±4):143±9.