Abstract: The brittle fractures of hull structures occurred in the early of last century caused much attention on the evaluation of hull fracture.To avoid structure failure,a concept of "crack arrest" was proposed and a series of crack arrest evaluation techniques were developed.Most of these tests focused on thin and mid-thickness steel plates.With the development of large container ships in recent years,crack arrest evaluation techniques of steel plates with thickness over 50mm become more important.The development of relative evaluation techniques is summarized in this paper.