Abstract
The probabilistic fracture mechanics (PFM) analysis code PASCAL (PFM Analysis of Structural Components in Aging LWR) has been developed at JAEA to evaluate the conditional failure probability of a reactor pressure vessel (RPV) containing a flaw under transient conditions such as pressurized thermal shock (PTS). Some functions of PASCAL have been improved such as the Monte Carlo method, the probability of crack detection (POD) by inspection and the graphical user interface (GUI). Using the improved PASCAL, case studies on some parameters for some typical PTS transients have been performed. When the crack existence probability for the Marshall- and PNNL-type distributions is considered, the failure probabilities are approximately the same order of magnitude. The effect of chemical composition of the vessel material was studied through a comparison of conditional failure probabilities for some transients. The effect of POD for inspection was also compared and evaluated in terms of the inspection effectiveness and frequency.
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