Development and Use of Beremin Local Criterion for Cleavage Fracture in the Steel Industry

Abstract
This paper describes the use of Local Approach to Fracture in the French steel industry. The criteria used to model cleavage fracture of steels are briefly presented. Various applications covering a wide range of steels are reviewed. These applications illustrate the advantages of the Local Approach, such as scatter prediction, the ability to finely relate microstructure to mechanical properties and to take into account materials with heterogeneous microstructures such as welds. Finally, current developments of the method are presented. These developments will allow a quick and easy implementation of this procedure which will become accessible to industrial laboratories.