Abstract
During the 2012 outage at Doel 3 and Tihange 2 Nuclear Power Plants, a large number of quasi-laminar indications were detected in the reactor pressure vessels, mainly in the lower and upper core shells. The observed indications could subsequently be attributed to hydrogen flaking induced during the component manufacturing process. As a consequence, both units remained core unloaded pending the elaboration of an extensive Safety Case demonstrating that they can be safely operated. The Structural Integrity Assessment of the RPVs, through the Flaw Acceptability Analysis, aimed at demonstrating that the identified indications do not jeopardize the integrity of the reactor vessel in all operating modes, transients and accident conditions. This demonstration, presented in this paper, has been done on the basis of a specific innovative methodology inspired by the ASME XI procedure but adapted to the nature and number of indications found in the Doel 3 and Tihange 2 RPVs.
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