Status of boiling water reactor structural integrity programs at the General Electric Company

Abstract

The General Electric Company is actively involved in a variety of programs whose objective is to evaluate and improve the technology related to structural integrity of Boiling Water Reactors. This work covers many technical disciplines that fall broadly under the title of Applied Mechanics and includes the technologies of solid mechanics, structural dynamics, elasticity, plasticity, and fluid dynamics. General Electric programs are directed at qualification of the predictive methodology, design bases and criteria used to evaluate and confirm the structural design margins of the Boiling Water Reactor Nuclear Steam Supply System. This includes the reactor pressure vessel, piping, fuel, core structures, and auxiliary equipment within General Electric's scope of supply. Focus of these programs includes identification, measurement and refinement of operational and postulated accident-type loads; prediction of structure and component response; study of damage mechanisms; and development of failure criteria, evaluation methods and design rules. In this report, some specific activities and accomplishments during the last few years are summarized in order to provide a broad overview of the wide range of technical issues and programs undertaken. These activities have been grouped into areas of: I — Dynamic Modeling and Structural Analysis; II — Fatigue and Fracture Evaluations; III — Structural Capability Tests; and IV — Flow Induced Vibration Experiments.