The influences of stress triaxiality on ductile fracture have been investigated for various specimens and structures. With respect to a transferability issue, recently, the interests on local approaches reflecting micromechanical specifics are increased again due to rapid progress of computational environments. In this paper, the applicability of the local approaches has been examined through a series of finite element analyses incorporating modified GTN and Rousselier models as well as fracture toughness tests. The ductile crack growth of nuclear carbon steels is assessed to verify the transferability among compact tension (CT) specimens with different in-plane size. At first, the basic material constants were calibrated for standard CT specimens and used to predict fracture resistance (J-R) curves of larger CT specimens. Then, the in-plane size effects were examined by comparing the numerically estimated J-R curves with the experimentally determined ones. The assessment results showed that the in-plane size effect should be considered for realistic engineering application and the damage models might be used as useful tool for ductile fracture evaluation.