Impact fracture energy of steel welded connections in fire and post-fire

Charpy impact tests were conducted on steel welded connections at elevated temperatures and at the ambient temperature after heating and cooling processes. The elevated temperature tests were conducted to examine the Charpy impact energies under the blue brittleness temperature (100–300 °C) of steel. V-notch specimens quarried from steel base metal, weld metal, and heat-affected zone of the welded connection were heated and subjected to Charpy impact tests. In the ambient temperature tests after the heating and cooling processes, the heated specimens were either air cooled in a furnace or quenched with water. The test results show that the Charpy impact energies do not decrease in the blue brittleness temperature, and the quenched welded connections demonstrated very low Charpy impact energies.