Experimental study on ultimate strength of single and double type bellows under internal pressure

Ando, Masanori ; Yada, Hiroki ; Tsukimori, Kazuyuki; Ichimiya, Masakazu*; Anoda, Yoshinari*

To clarify the progress of the events under the beyond design basis events, it is necessary to evaluate the pressure toughness of containment vessel adequately. The containment vessel of fast reactor is composed of the various structures, and one of the thinnest boundary structures is bellows structure to absorb the thermal expansion of the coolant piping penetrating the containment vessel. In addition to the containment vessel boundary, evaluating the pressure toughness of reactor coolant and gas boundary is also important because of same reason of that in the containment vessel boundary. In the primary coolant and gas boundary, the cover gas bellows of the intermediate heat exchanger in fast reactor is one of the thinnest structures and has important role when the progress of the BDBE is considered. Therefore, in order to develop the evaluation method of the pressure toughness of bellows structure under the BDBE, the pressure failure tests and finite element analysis of the bellows structure subjected to internal pressure were performed in this study.