User's manual and analysis methodology of probabilistic fracture mechanics analysis code PASCAL3 for reactor pressure vessel (Contract research)

Masaki, Koichi; Nishikawa, Hiroyuki*; Osakabe, Kazuya*; Onizawa, Kunio 

The probabilistic fracture mechanics (PFM) analysis code PASCAL (PFM Analysis of Structural Components in Aging LWR) has been developed in JAEA. The PASCAL code evaluates the conditional probabilities of crack initiation and fracture of a reactor pressure vessel (RPV) under transient conditions such as pressurized thermal shock (PTS). Previous version of PASCAL (PASCAL ver.2) that was released in 2007 has many functions including the evaluation method for an embedded crack and conditional probabilities of crack initiation and fracture of a RPV, PTS transient database, inspection crack detection probability model and others. A generalized analysis method is available on the basis of the development of PASCAL ver.3 and sensitivity analysis results. Graphical user interface (GUI) including a generalized method and some functions of PFM have been also updated for PASCAL3. This report provides the user's manual, examples of analysis and theoretical background of PASCAL ver.3.