• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.1-18
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• 2017

Metal fatigue is an important aging mechanism that material characteristics can be deteriorated when even a small load is applied repeatedly. An accurate fatigue evaluation is very important for component structural integrity and reliability. In the design stage of a nuclear power plant, the fatigue evaluations of the Class 1 components have to be performed. However, operating experience shows that the design evaluation can be very conservative due to conservatism in the transient severity and number of occurrence. Therefore, the fatigue monitoring system has been considered as a practical mean to ensure safe operation of the nuclear power plants. The fatigue monitoring system can quantify accumulated fatigue damage up to date for various plant conditions. The purpose of this paper is to describe the fatigue monitoring procedure and to introduce the fatigue monitoring program developed by the authors. The feasibility of the fatigue monitoring program is demonstrated by comparing with the actual operating data and finite element analysis results.