ABSTRACT The INTHERPOL testing facility, developed at EDF R&D is designed in order to perform pure thermal fatigue test on tubular specimen under mono-frequential thermal load. INTHERPOL specimens consist of a 300 mm length and 400 mm diameter pipe comprising a circumferential welding located at a distance of 200 mm from the bottom of the specimen. According to the test considered, the models can have various types of industrial surface finish and various configurations of welded joints. Thermal cycling is carried out on a 70 mm broad sector of the internal surface of the specimen. The cold shock is generated by the pulverization of a cold-water spray while the hot shock is obtained by submitting the cooled surface to an intense infrared radiation. Four tests have been carried out with a thermal amplitude of 120 to 140°C and a cycle's duration ranging of 5 to 8 seconds on mock-up including several surface finish. Each fatigue test is stopped periodically in order to detect the initiation and the evolution of the cracks by intermediate die penetrant inspections. During the test, the temperature is measured by using thermocouples. The recorded temperatures are used as input data to perform finite element simulations in order to obtain the stress and strain fields necessary to interpret experimental results
