Formulation of material property formula for calculation of damage in reactor pressure vessel during accident evaluation

Shimomura, Kenta ; Yamashita, Takuya  ; Nagae, Yuji 

From the results of the internal investigation of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Unit 2, it was confirmed that part of the fuel assembly (upper tie plate) had fallen to the bottom of the pedestal periphery. From this result, it could be presumed that RPV has a hole large enough for the upper tie plate to drop. However, internal investigations have not revealed where the holes are located at the bottom of the RPV. One of failure mode of the RPV lower head would be assumed to be mechanical failure. In this failure, it is assumed that the RPV lower head will be damaged due to the accumulation of creep damage caused by core material above the creep temperature of the RPV substructure materials falling into the lower plenum. Such damage evaluation is performed by thermohydraulic-structure coupled analysis. In the analysis during accident, the RPV lower head is exposed to high temperature conditions. Therefore, the material properties of the RPV material in the high temperature range are required for evaluation by analysis. In this study, we obtained the strength data of RPV material form the creep temperature range to near the melting point and formulated the material property formulas (elastoplastic stress-strain, creep strain, creep rupture) necessary for mechanical failure evaluation.