Papers by Keyword: Nuclear Pressure Vessel

Abstract: To understand the effect of a single overload on the fracture behavior in welded joints, the stress and strain field at the crack tip in a safe-end dissimilar metal welded joint in nuclear pressure vessel is simulated and analyzed by using the elastic-plastic finite element method in the paper, in which the mechanical heterogeneity in welded joint is emphatically considered. The investigating results indicate that the tensile plastic strain at crack tip increases, but the tensile stress decreases as a single overload increases, and the influence of a single overload on tensile strain is larger than one on tensile stress, which provide a theoretical basis for quantitatively estimating the crack growth rate of environmentally assisted cracking in the welded structural material of pressure vessel and piping in the nuclear power plant.

Abstract: As part of the requirement to demonstrate safe operation of the steel reactor pressure vessels for the UK Magnox fleet, surveillance samples were installed at the time of construction. These were representative of the steels and weld metals used for the manufacture of the vessels. The history of sample removal and mechanical property testing is briefly reviewed. The factors leading to changes in the fracture resistance and tensile properties will be discussed. The link is described between the mechanisms leading to changes in mechanical properties and the statistically based approach adopted to predict values of fracture toughness for the neutron dose and temperatures at key vessel locations. Predictions are compared with test results obtained from samples removed from a decommissioned reactor and also surveillance and accelerated radiation samples removed towards the end of reactor life.