Thermal Fatigue Evaluation Method Based on Power Spectrum Density Functions Against Fluid Temperature Fluctuation

Abstract

Fluid temperature fluctuates at an incomplete mixing area of high and low temperature fluids in nuclear components. It induces random variations of local temperature gradients in structural walls, which lead to cyclic thermal stresses. When thermal stresses and cycle numbers are large, there are possibilities of fatigue crack initiations and propagations. It is recognized that there are attenuation factors depending on fluctuation frequency in the transfer process from fluid temperature to thermal stresses. If a frequency of fluctuation is very low, whole temperature of the wall can respond to fluid temperature, because thermal diffusivity homogenizes structural temperature. Therefore, low frequency fluctuations do not induce large thermal stress due to temperature gradients in structures. On the other hand, a wall surface cannot respond to very high frequency fluctuation, since a structure has a time constant of thermal response. High frequency fluctuations do not lead to large thermal stress. Paying attention to its attenuation mechanism, Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC) has proposed a fatigue evaluation method related to frequencies. The first step of this method is an evaluation of Power Spectrum Density (PSD) on fluid, from design specifications such as flow rates, diameters of pipes and materials. In the next step, the PSD of fluid is converted to PSD of thermal stress by the frequency transfer function. Finally, the PSD of thermal stress is transformed to time history of stress under an assumption of random phase. Fatigue damage factors can be evaluated from stress ranges and cycles obtained by the rain flow wave count method. Proposed method was applied to evaluate fatigue damage of piping junction model tests conducted at Oarai Engineering Center. Through comparison with direct evaluation from measurements and predictions by conventional methods, the accuracy of the proposed method was validated.