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Title: Effect of stainless steel weld overlay cladding on the structural integrity of flawed steel plates in bending. Series 1

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5761819

The Heavy-Section Steel Technology (HSST) Stainless Steel Cladding Evaluations were undertaken to study the interaction of stainless steel cladding on the inside surface of a reactor pressure vessel with flaws initiating and propagating in base metal. With the more recent focus of safety studies on overcooling type transients, for which the behavior of small flaws is important, stainless steel cladding may have a key role in controlling the propagation and/or arrest of propagating flaws. A complicating factor in understanding the role of stainless steel cladding in this setting is the scarcity of data on its fracture toughness as a function of radiation dose and the fabrication process. The initial phase of the HSST evaluations addresses this question by testing the response of 51-mm-thick flawed plates clad with single-wire, submerged-arc weld overlays of different toughness levels. The tests completed indicate that cladding of moderate toughness had a limited ability to enhance the structural arrest toughness of a beam in bending. The specimen design and fabrication techniques employed for this first completed series of tests resulted in flaw and specimen configurations that prevented adequate control of the stress state at pop-in of the hydrogen-charged electron-beam welds. As a result, analyses of the tests by two approximate techniques and by the ORMGEN-ADINA-ORVIRT finite-element programs were not completely consistent.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-84OR21400
OSTI ID:
5761819
Report Number(s):
NUREG/CR-4015; ORNL/TM-9390; ON: TI85010349
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English