Abstract
Nuclear power can be used for power generation, space heating, and other fields, producing a limited level of greenhouse gases and no atmospheric pollutants. However, the safety of nuclear reactors is always a public concern. The reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) play an important role in the safe operation of a nuclear power plant. When a defect is inspected in the RPV, complex analytical evaluation procedures, including fatigue analysis and fracture assessment, are necessary to ensure the structural integrity of the defective component. Based on the RSE-M, a quick evaluation approach for RPVs with defects exceeding acceptance standards is proposed in this work to reduce the computational complexity and analysis time. The flaw evaluation is simplified by adjusting the inspection period based on the analysis of fatigue crack growth. The new method was applied to the RPVs with embedded defects and underclad semi-elliptical defects, respectively. The proposed evaluation approach was verified by the case of a typical RPV cylinder containing an embedded crack, where all possible transients during the operation of nuclear power plants are considered. During the allowable residual life obtained of 5-years, failure would not occur in the defective component via the conventional method, which gives confidence to the availability of the new approach. Consequently, the proposed method can be a valid reference for the structural integrity assessment of nuclear reactor components with defects exceeding acceptance standards.
Highlights
Nuclear energy is widely admitted as a virtually carbon-free energy source and is predicted to provide a major solution to global warming (Apergis et al, 2010; Akhmat and Zaman, 2013)
It can be seen that the parameter n influences the allowable residual life more obviously than the af
A quick evaluation approach was proposed for defects in reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) which exceed the allowable flaw size
Summary
Nuclear energy is widely admitted as a virtually carbon-free energy source and is predicted to provide a major solution to global warming (Apergis et al, 2010; Akhmat and Zaman, 2013). The use of nuclear energy has been paid more attention in recent years, such as electricity (Gao et al, 2013), residential and industrial space heating (El-Genk and Tournier, 2003; Xu et al, 2021), and seawater desalination (Nisan et al, 2003). The reliability of the reactor pressure vessel is of great importance because it would directly influence the safety and operation of the nuclear power plant. During the manufacture and operation of reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) in nuclear power plants, it is difficult to avoid all the defects, which causes potential threats to the structural integrity of RPV
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