6. Conclusion

Impact tests were developed at the beginning of the 20th century, and were then used primarily as acceptance tests to guarantee the quality of steels. They were subsequently used to determine ductility transition curves and temperatures. Their instrumentation has enriched the results obtained.

The disadvantage is that they give indications that cannot be rigorously transposed to real structures. Fracture mechanics provides the tools to solve this problem. It enables us to assess the size of critical defects propagating under a given loading. This is the subject of the Toughness measurement tests dossier. Fracture mechanics