Improvements on Evaluation Functions of a Probabilistic Fracture Mechanics Analysis Code for Reactor Pressure Vessels

Abstract

In Japan, a probabilistic fracture mechanics (PFM) analysis code PASCAL was developed for structural integrity assessment of reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) considering neutron irradiation embrittlement and pressurized thermal shock (PTS) events. By reflecting the latest knowledge and findings, the evaluation functions are continuously improved and have been incorporated into PASCAL4 which is the most recent version of the PASCAL code. In this paper, the improvements made in PASCAL4 are explained in detail, such as the evaluation model of warm prestressing (WPS) effect, evaluation function of confidence levels for PFM analysis results by considering the epistemic and aleatory uncertainties in probabilistic variables, the recent stress intensity factor (KI) solutions, and improved methods for KI calculations when considering complicated stress distributions. Moreover, using PASCAL4, PFM analysis examples considering these improvements are presented.