Improvements on evaluation functions of a probabilistic fracture mechanics analysis code for reactor pressure vessels

Lu, K.; Katsuyama, Jinya; Li, Y.

Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology, 142(2), p.021208_1 - 021208_11, 2020/04

https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4045512

Fine structure in the decay of U

Sun, M. D.*; Liu, Z.*; Huang, T. H.*; Zhang, W. Q.*; Andreyev, A. N.; Ding, B.*; Wang, J. G.*; Liu, X. Y.*; Lu, H. Y.*; Hou, D. S.*; et al.

Physics Letters B, 800, p.135096_1 - 135096_5, 2020/01

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2019.135096

Effect of coolant water temperature of ECCS on failure probability of RPV

Katsuyama, Jinya; Masaki, Koichi; Lu, K.; Watanabe, Tadashi*; Li, Y.

Proceedings of 2019 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference (PVP 2019) (Internet), 7 Pages, 2019/07

For reactor pressure vessel (RPV) of pressurized water reactor, temperature of coolant water in emergency core cooling system (ECCS) may have influence on the structural integrity of RPV during pressurized thermal shock (PTS) events. Focusing on a mitigation measure to raise the coolant water temperature of ECCS for aged RPVs in order to reduce the effect of thermal shock due to PTS events, we performed thermal hydraulic analyses and probabilistic fracture mechanics analyses by using RELAP5 and PASCAL4, respectively. From the analysis results, it was shown that the failure probability of RPV was dramatically reduced when the coolant temperature in accumulator as well as high and low pressure injection systems (HPI/LPI) was raised, although raising the coolant temperature of HPI/LPI only did not cause reduction in the failure probability.

Nuclear structure of Ni from the (,) reaction

Elekes, Z.*; Kripk, *; Sohler, D.*; Sieja, K.*; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Yoshida, Kazuki; Doornenbal, P.*; Obertelli, A.*; Authelet, G.*; Baba, Hidetada*; et al.

Physical Review C, 99(1), p.014312_1 - 014312_7, 2019/01

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.99.014312

The nuclear structure of the Ni nucleus was investigated by (,) reaction using a NaI(Tl) array to detect the deexciting prompt rays. A new transition with an energy of 2227 keV was identified by and coincidences. Our shell-model calculations using the Lenzi, Nowacki, Poves, and Sieja interaction produced good candidates for the experimental proton hole states in the observed energy region, and the theoretical cross sections showed good agreement with the experimental values. Although we could not assign all the experimental states to the theoretical ones unambiguously, the results are consistent with a reasonably large Z = 28 shell gap for nickel isotopes in accordance with previous studies.

Development of probabilistic fracture mechanics analysis code PASCAL Version 4 for reactor pressure vessels

Lu, K.; Masaki, Koichi; Katsuyama, Jinya; Li, Y.; Uno, Shumpei*

Proceedings of 2018 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference (PVP 2018), 10 Pages, 2018/07

An Estimation method of flaw distributions reflecting inspection results through Bayesian update

Lu, K.; Miyamoto, Yuhei*; Mano, Akihiro; Katsuyama, Jinya; Li, Y.

Proceedings of Asian Symposium on Risk Assessment and Management 2017 (ASRAM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 9 Pages, 2017/11

Nowadays, probabilistic fracture mechanics (PFM) has been utilized in several countries as a rational method for structural integrity assessment of important structural components such as reactor pressure vessels (RPVs). In PFM analyses, potential flaws in target components are used to evaluate the failure probability or frequency. Therefore, flaw distributions (i.e., flaw depth and density distributions) in an RPV shall be rationally set as one of the most important influential factors, which are developed during the manufacturing process such as welding. Recently, a Bayesian updating methodology was applied to reflect the inspection results into flaw distributions, and the likelihood functions applicable to the case when flaws are detected in inspections were proposed. However, there may be no flaw indication as the inspection results of some RPVs. The flaw distributions in this situation are important while the corresponding likelihood functions have not been proposed. Therefore, this study proposed likelihood functions to be applicable for both case when flaws are detected and when there is no flaw indication as the inspection results. Based on the proposed likelihood functions, several application examples were given in which flaw distributions were estimated by reflecting the inspection results through Bayesian update. The results indicate that the proposed likelihood functions are useful for estimating the flaw distribution for the case when there is no flaw indication as the inspection results.

Probabilistic fracture mechanics analysis models for Japanese reactor pressure vessels

Lu, K.; Katsuyama, Jinya; Uno, Shumpei; Li, Y.

Proceedings of 2017 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference (PVP 2017) (CD-ROM), 8 Pages, 2017/07

Remaining fatigue lives of similar surface flaws in accordance with combination rules

Lu, K.; Li, Y.; Hasegawa, Kunio*; Lacroix, V.*

Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology, 139(2), p.021407_1 - 021407_6, 2017/04

https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4035317

Investigation on the plasticity correction of stress intensity factor calculations for underclad cracks in reactor vessels

Lu, K.; Katsuyama, Jinya; Li, Y.

Nippon Kikai Gakkai M&M 2016 Zairyo Rikigaku Kanfarensu Koen Rombunshu (Internet), p.499 - 501, 2016/10

When conducting structural integrity assessments for reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) subjected to pressurized thermal shock (PTS) events, the stress intensity factor (SIF) is evaluated for a postulated surface crack in the inner surface of RPVs. It is known that the cladding made of a stainless steel is a ductile material which is overlay-welded on the inner surface, therefore, the plasticity of cladding should be considered in SIF calculations for a postulated underclad crack to ensure a conservation evaluation. Recently, the authors performed three-dimensional (3D) elastic and elastic-plastic FEAs for Japanese three-loop RPVs and proposed a rational evaluation method on SIFs of underclad cracks. In this paper, further studies were conducted to discuss the applicability of the proposed plasticity correction method. The effect of neutron irradiation was considered. In addition, different Japanese RPV geometries such as two-loop and four-loop RPVs were also investigated.

Stress intensity factor solutions for subsurface flaws in plates subjected to polynomial stress distributions

Lu, K.; Katsuyama, Jinya; Li, Y.; Iwamatsu, Fuminori*

Proceedings of 2016 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference (PVP 2016) (Internet), 7 Pages, 2016/07

https://doi.org/10.1115/PVP2016-63479

Stress intensity factor (SIF) solutions for subsurface flaws near the free surface in plates were numerically investigated based on the finite element analyses. The flaws with aspect ratios = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5, the normalized ratios = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8 and = 0.01 and 0.1 were taken into account, where a is the half flaw depth, l is the flaw length, is the distance from the center of the subsurface flaw to the nearest free surface and t is the wall thickness. Fourth-order polynomial stress distributions in the thickness direction were considered. In addition, probabilistic fracture mechanics analyses were also performed and some example solutions obtained in this work were used to evaluate the conditional probability of failure of a reactor pressure vessel under a pressurized thermal shock event. The results indicated that the numerical SIF solutions calculated in this study are effective in engineering applications.