Mesos-scale modeling of irradiation in pressurized water reactor concrete biological shields

Conference · Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2016

OSTI ID:1254799

Le Pape, Yann ^[1]; Huang, Hai ^[2]

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1. ORNL
2. Idaho National Laboratory (INL)

Neutron irradiation exposure causes aggregate expansion, namely radiation-induced volumetric expansion (RIVE). The structural significance of RIVE on a portion of a prototypical pressurized water reactor (PWR) concrete biological shield (CBS) is investigated by using a meso- scale nonlinear concrete model with inputs from an irradiation transport code and a coupled moisture transport-heat transfer code. RIVE-induced severe cracking onset appears to be triggered by the ini- tial shrinkage-induced cracking and propagates to a depth of > 10 cm at extended operation of 80 years. Relaxation of the cement paste stresses results in delaying the crack propagation by about 10 years.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1254799
• Resource Relation: Conference: 9th International Conference on Fracture Mechanics for Concrete and Concrete Structures, Berkeley, CA, USA, 20160529, 20160601
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

irradiation
concrete
numerical model
meso-scale
neutron
swelling
damage