A cast stainless steel may experience an embrittlement when it is exposed to approximately 30

for long period. In the present investigation, The three classes of the thermally aged CF8M specimie n are prepared using an artificially accelerated aging method. Namely, after the specimen are held for 300, 1800 and 3600hrs. at 43

respectively, the specimens are quenched in water to room temperature. Load versus load line displacement curves and J-R curves are obtained using the unloading compliance method.

values are obtained following ASTM E 813-87 and ASTM E 813-81 methods. In addition to these methods, JIC values are obtained using SZW(stretch zone width) method described in JSME S 001-1981. The results of the unloading compliance method are

=485.7 kJ/m

for virgin material,

of the degraded materials associated with 300, 1800 and 3600hrs are obtained 369.25 kJ/m

, 311.02 kJ/m

, 276.7 kJ/m

, respectively. The results of SZW method are similar to those of the unloading compliance method. Through the elastic-plastic fracture toughness test, it is found that the value of

is decreased with increasing of the aging time. The results obtained through the investigation can provide reference data for a leak before break(LBB) of reactor coolant system of nuclear power plants.