• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.275-282
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• 2001

The reactor pressure vessel is usually cladded with stainless steel to prevent corrosion and radiation embrittlement. Number of subclad cracks may be found during an in-service-inspection due to the presence of cladding. It is specified, in ASME Sec. XI, that a subclad crack is characterized as a surface crack when the thickness of the clad is less than 40% of the crack depth. This condition is provided to keep the crack integrity evaluation conservative. In order to refine the fracture assessment procedures for such subclad cracks under a pressurized thermal shock condition, three dimensional finite element analyses are applied for various subclad cracks existing under cladding. A total of 36 crack geometries are analyzed, and the results are compared with those for surface cracks. The resulting stress intensity factors for subclad cracks are 6 to 44% less than those for surface cracks. It is proven that the flaw characterization condition as specified in ASME Sec. XI can be overly conservative for some subclad cracks.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.286-291
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• 2000

The reactor pressure vessel is usually cladded with stainless steel to prevent corrosion and radiation embrittlement, and number of subclad cracks have been found during an in-service-inspection. Therefore assessment for subclad cracks should be made for normal operating conditions and faulted conditions such as PTS. Thus, in order to find the optimum fracture assessment procedures for subclad cracks under a pressurized thermal shock condition, in this paper, three different analyses were performed, ASME Sec. XI code analysis, an LEFM(Liner elastic fracture mechanics) analysis and an EPFM(Elastic plastic fracture mechanics) analysis. The stress intensity factor and the Maximum $RT_{NDT}$ were used for characterizing. Analysis based on ASME Sec. XI code does not completely consider the actual stress distribution of the crack surface, so the resulting Maximum allowable $RT_{NDTS}$ can be non-conservative, especially for deep cracks. LEFM analysis, which does not consider elastic-plastic behavior of the clad material, is much more non-conservative than EPFM analysis. Therefore, It is necessary to perform EPFM analysis for the assessment of subclad cracks under PTS.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.1139-1146
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• 2001

The reactor pressure vessel(RPV) is usually cladded with stainless steel to prevent corrosion and radiation embrittlement, and a number of subclad cracks have been found during an in-service-inspection. These subclad cracks should be assured for a safe operation under normal conditions and faulted conditions such as pressurized thermal shock(PTS). Currently available integrity assessment procedure for an RPV, ASME Code Sec. XI, are built on the basis of linear fracture mechanics (LEFM). In PTS condition, however, thermal stress and mechanical stress give rise to high tensile stress at the cladding and elastic-plastic behavior is expected in this area. Therfore, ASME Code Sec. XI is overly conservative in assessing the structural integrity under PTS condition. In this paper, the fracture parameter (stress intensity factor, K, and RT(sub)NDT) from elastic analysis using ASME Sec. XI and finite element method were validated against 3-D elastic-plastic finite element analyses. The difference between elastic and elastic-plastic analysis became significant with increasing crack depth. Therfore, it is recommended to perform elastic-plastic analysis for the accurate assessment of subclad cracks under TPS which causes plastic deformation at the cladding.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.2219-2227
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• 2002

In a nuclear power plant, reactor pressure vessel (RPV) is the primary pressure boundary component that must be protected against failure. The neutron irradiation on RPV in the beltline region, however, tends to cause localized damage accumulation, leading to crack initiation and propagation which raises RPV integrity issues. The objective of this paper is to estimate the integrity of RPV under hot leg leaking accident by applying the finite element analysis. In this paper, a parametric study was performed for various crack configurations based on 3-dimensional finite element models. The crack configuration, the crack orientation, the crack aspect ratio and the clad thickness were considered in the parametric study. The effect of these parameters on the maximum allowable nil-ductility transition reference temperature ($(RT_{NDT})$) was investigated on the basis of finite element analyses.