Summary of International PFM Round Robin analyses among Asian Countries on reactor pressure vessel integrity during pressurized thermal shock

Abstract

The international Round Robin (RR) activity was performed by the Probabilistic Fracture Mechanics (PFM) sub-committees of the Atomic Energy Research Committee of the Japan Welding Engineering Society (JWES) in conjunction with Korean and Taiwanese research groups. The purposes of this program are to establish reliable procedures for evaluating the fracture probability of reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) during pressurized thermal shock (PTS) and to maintain the continuous cooperation among Asian institutes in the probabilistic approach to nuclear safety.This paper describes the outline of the problems and summarizes the results from all participant countries. The RR activity consists of two parts; deterministic analyses on stress and temperature in the reactor pressure vessel wall during PTS, and probabilistic analyses on vessel fracture probability due to PTS transients. The differences caused by the selection of analyzing programs and some input parameters will be discussed.