Review of the International Atomic Energy Agency International database on reactor pressure vessel materials and US Nuclear Regulatory Commission/Oak Ridge National Laboratory embrittlement data base

Abstract

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has supported neutron radiation effects information exchange through meetings and conferences since the mid-1960s. Through an International Working Group on Reliability of Reactor Pressure Components, information exchange and research activities were fostered through the Coordinated Research Program (CRP) sponsored by the IAEA. The final CRP meeting was held in November 1993, where it was recommended that the IAEA coordinate the development of an International Database on Reactor Pressure Vessel Material (IDRPVM) as the first step in generating an International Database on Aging Management. The purpose of this study was to provide special technical assistance to the NRC in monitoring and evaluating the IAEA activities in developing the IAEA IDRPVM, and to compare the IDRPVM with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) - Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Power Reactor Embrittlement Data Base (PR-EDB) and provide recommendations for improving the PR-EDB. A first test version of the IDRPVM was distributed at the First Meeting of Liaison Officers to the IAEA IDRPVM, in November 1996. No power reactor surveillance data were included in this version; the testing data were mainly from CRP Phase III data. Therefore, because of insufficient data and a lack of power reactor surveillance data received from the IAEA IDRPVM, the comparison is made based only on the structure of the IDRPVM. In general, the IDRPVM and the EDB have very similar data structure and data format. One anticipates that because the IDRPVM data will be collected from so many different sources, quality assurance of the data will be a difficult task. The consistency of experimental test results will be an important issue. A very wide spectrum of material characteristics of RPV steels and irradiation environments exists among the various countries. Hence the development of embrittlement prediction models will be a formidable task. 4 refs., 2 figs., 4 tabs.