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There is continuing interest in defining a fracture parameter which is capable of characterising the ductile crack growth resistance o~" a material under conditions of large scale plasticity. The aim of this study is to assess the capability of a numberof, elastic-plastic fracture parameters for the case of a C-Mn steel. The fracture parameters considered are: the crack opening displacement at the original crack tip (CTOD); the crack opening angle at the growing crack tip (CTOA); and the crack opening displacement at the growing crack tip (6°). The parameters were assessed by determining experimentally whether they were affected by changes in test specimen size and geometry in cases where there was no change in the crack tip constraint. Changes in the latter were assessed from changes in the CTOD at crack initiation (CTOD i). Only 6~ was capable of characterising the crack growth resistance, as unlike both CTOD~ and 6a, dCTOD/da and CTOA were dependent on specimen geometry.