Preliminary assessment of the effects of biaxial loading on reactor pressure vessel structural-integrity-assessment technology

Abstract

Effects of biaxial loading on shallow-flaw fracture toughness were studied to determine potential impact on structural integrity assessment of a reactor pressure vessel (RPV) under pressurized thermal shock (PTS) transient loading and pressure-temperature (PT) loading produced by reactor heatup and cooldown transients. Biaxial shallow-flaw fracture-toughness tests results were also used to determine the parameter controlling fracture in the transition temperature range, and to develop a related dual-parameter fracture-toughness correlation. Shallow-flaw and biaxial loading effects were found to reduce the conditional probability of crack initiation by a factor of nine when the shallow-flaw fracture-toughness K{sub Jc} data set, with biaxial-loading effects adjustments, was substituted in place of ASME Code K{sub Ic} data set in PTS analyses. Biaxial loading was found to reduce the shallow-flaw fracture toughness of RPV steel such that the lower-bound curve was located between ASME K{sub Ic} and K{sub IR} curves. This is relevant to future development of P-T curve analysis procedures. Fracture in shallow-flaw biaxial samples tested in the lower transition temperature range was shown to be strain controlled. A strain-based dual-parameter fracture-toughness correlation was developed and shown to be capable of predicting the effect of crack-tip constraint on fracture toughness for strain-controlled fracture.