Abstract
The structural and leakage integrity of steam generator tubes should be sustained all postulated loads with appropriate margin even if a crack is present. During the past three decades, for effective integrity evaluation, several limit load solutions have been used world-widely. However, to predict accurately load carrying capacities of specific components under different conditions, the solutions have to be modified by using lots of experimental data. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new burst pressure estimation scheme based on fracture mechanics analyses for steam generator tube with an axial or circumferential through-wall crack. A series of three dimensional elastic-plastic finite element analyses were carried out and, then, closed-form estimation equations with respect to both J-integral and crack opening displacement were derived through reference stress method. The developed engineering equations were utilized for structural integrity evaluation and the resulting data were compared to the corresponding ones from experiments as well as limit load solutions. Thereafter, since the effectiveness was proven by promising results, it is believed that the proposed estimation scheme can be used as an efficient tool for integrity evaluation of cracked steam generator tubes.
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