Failure simulation of nuclear pressure vessel under severe accident conditions: Part II – Failure modeling and comparison with OLHF experiment

Abstract

This paper proposes strain-based failure model of A533B1 pressure vessel steel to simulate failure, followed by application to OECD lower head failure (OLHF) test simulation for experimental validation. The proposed strain-based failure model uses simple constant and linear functions based on physical failure modes with the critical strain value determined either using the lower bound of true fracture strain or using the average value of total elongation depending on the temperature. Application to OECD Lower Head Failure (OLHF) tests shows that progressive deformation, failure time and failure location can be well predicted.