Thermal Fatigue Evaluation Method of Pipes by Equivalent Stress Amplitude

Abstract

In recent years, reports have increased which are about failure cases caused by high cycle thermal fatigue both at light water reactors and fast breeder reactors. One of the biggest reasons of the cases is a turbulent mixing at a Tee-junction, where hot and cold temperature fluids are mixed, in a coolant system. In order to prevent thermal fatigue failures at Tee-junctions, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) published the guideline S017-2003 (or JSME guideline) which is an evaluation method of high cycle thermal fatigue damage at a nuclear piping. It has some limitations in terms of its inconstant safety margin and its complexity in evaluation procedure, however. In order to solve these limitations, this paper proposes a new evaluation method of thermal fatigue damage with use of the “equivalent stress amplitude” which represents random temperature fluctuation effects on thermal fatigue damage. Because this new method makes methodology of evaluation clear and concise, it will contribute to improving the guideline for thermal fatigue evaluation.