Probabilistic fracture mechanics analyses of RPV under some PTS transients

Onizawa, Kunio ; Shibata, Katsuyuki; Kato, Daisuke*; Li, Y.* 

Probabilistic Fracture Mechanics (PFM) has been used in the fields of reliability analysis for important structural components. At JAERI, the PFM analysis code PASCAL has been developed. This 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). Four cases of PTS transients were selected based on the severity for a typical 3-loop PWR. Based on thermal stress analyses, PFM analyses were performed by using PASCAL code focusing on some important variables on the RPV fracture probability. The results showed that non-destructive examination methods had a significant effect on the fracture probability by more than three orders of magnitude. The comparisons of the results using fracture toughness estimation methods between in Japan and USA, and crack geometries between a semi-elliptical surface crack and an infinite surface crack are also made.