Probabilistic fracture mechanics benchmarking study of PASCAL-SP code with xLPR code regarding primary water stress corrosion cracking

Mano, Akihiro ; Yamaguchi, Yoshihito ; Katsuyama, Jinya  

A probabilistic fracture mechanics (PFM) analysis code, PASCAL-SP, has been developed by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) to evaluate the failure probability of piping within nuclear power plants while considering age-related degradations such as stress corrosion cracking and fatigue for both pressurized water reactor and boiling water reactor environments. To strengthen the confidence in the results of PASCAL-SP, a benchmarking study was performed with the PFM analysis code, xLPR, which was developed by the U.S.NRC in collaboration with EPRI. In this benchmarking study, deterministic and probabilistic analyses are performed using common analysis conditions. This paper presents the details of these conditions and comparisons of the results between the two aforementioned codes. Both codes were found to provide nearly the same results in both deterministic and probabilistic analyses for a dissimilar metal weld subjected to primary water stress corrosion cracking.