Probabilistic Structural Integrity Analysis of Boiling Water Reactor Pressure Vessel under Low Temperature Overpressure Event

Abstract

The probabilistic structural integrity of a Taiwan domestic boiling water reactor pressure vessel has been evaluated by the probabilistic fracture mechanics analysis. First, the analysis model was built for the beltline region of the reactor pressure vessel considering the plant specific data. Meanwhile, the flaw models which comprehensively simulate all kinds of preexisting flaws along the vessel wall were employed here. The low temperature overpressure transient which has been concluded to be the severest accident for a boiling water reactor pressure vessel was considered as the loading condition. It is indicated that the fracture mostly happens near the fusion-line area of axial welds but with negligible failure risk. The calculated results indicate that the domestic reactor pressure vessel has sufficient structural integrity until doubling of the present end-of-license operation.