Fracture stress estimation method of SiC components in IS process

Takegami, Hiroaki; Terada, Atsuhiko; Hino, Ryutaro; Shiozawa, Shusaku

Proceedings of 2nd International Topical Meeting on the Safety and Technology of Nuclear Hydrogen Production, Control and Management (2IST-NH) (CD-ROM), p.95 - 100, 2010/06

JAEA has been conducting R&D on thermochemical water-splitting IS process for hydrogen production to meet massive demand in the future hydrogen economy. In the sulfuric acid decomposition process, which is the severest corrosive environment in IS process, silicon carbide (SiC) showed excellent corrosion resistance. Although knowing the strength of the SiC block is important for the reliability assessment and design work, it is difficult to evaluate a large-scale ceramics structure without destructive test. In this study, a novel approach for strength estimation of SiC structure was proposed. A prediction method of minimum strength of the structure was proposed based on effective volume theory and optimized Weibull modulus. The validity of the strength estimation method was verified by destructive test of SiC pipe models, which is simple model of the SiC component. The fracture strength of pipe models satisfied the predicted strength of the model.