Investigation on Constraint Effect of a Reactor Pressure Vessel Subjected to Pressurized Thermal Shocks

Abstract

The integrity of a reactor pressure vessel (RPV) related to pressurized thermal shocks (PTSs) has been extensively studied. This paper introduces the method of using fracture mechanics for the integrity analysis of a RPV subjected to PTS transients. A 3-D finite element (FE) model is used to perform thermal and fracture mechanics analyses by considering both elastic and elastic-plastic material models. The results show that the linear elastic analysis leads to a more conservative result than the elastic-plastic analysis. The variation of the T-stress and Q-stress (crack tip constraint loss) of a surface crack in a RPV subjected to PTSs is studied. A shallow crack is assumed in the RPV and the corresponding constraint effect on fracture toughness of the material is quantified by the K-T method. The safety margin of the RPV is larger based on the K-T approach than only based on the K approach. The J-Q method with the modified boundary layer formulation (MBL) is used for the crack tip constraint analysis by considering elastic-plastic material properties. For all transient times, the real stress is lower than that calculated from small scale yielding (SSY) due to the loss of crack tip constraint.