Fracture mechanics evaluation for at typical PWR primary coolant pipe

Conference · Tue Apr 01 04:00:00 EST 1997

OSTI ID:489296

Tanaka, T ^[1]; Shimizu, S; Ogata, Y ^[2]

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1. Kansai Electric Power Company, Osaka (Japan)
2. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., Kobe (Japan)

For the primary coolant piping of PWRs in Japan, cast duplex stainless steel which is excellent in terms of strength, corrosion resistance, and weldability has conventionally been used. The cast duplex stainless steel contains the ferrite phase in the austenite matrix and thermal aging after long term service is known to change its material characteristics. It is considered appropriate to apply the methodology of elastic plastic fracture mechanics for an evaluation of the integrity of the primary coolant piping after thermal aging. Therefore we evaluated the integrity of the primary coolant piping for an initial PWR plant in Japan by means of elastic plastic fracture mechanics. The evaluation results show that the crack will not grow into an unstable fracture and the integrity of the piping will be secured, even when such through wall crack length is assumed to equal the fatigue crack growth length for a service period of up to 60 years.

• Research Organization: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (United States). Div. of Engineering Technology; Electricite de France (EDF), 69 - Villeurbanne (France); Battelle, Columbus, OH (United States)
• OSTI ID: 489296
• Report Number(s): NUREG/CP--0155; CONF-9510432--; ON: TI97004806
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CRACK PROPAGATION
FRACTURE MECHANICS
HEAT TREATMENTS
LEAKS
PIPES
PRIMARY COOLANT CIRCUITS
PWR TYPE REACTORS
STAINLESS STEELS