Fatigue Damage Management According to Performance-Based Maintenance Concept

Abstract

A maintenance concept of performance-based maintenance (PBM) has been proposed by the current author. According to the PBM concept, inspection results are considered in determining the next inspection schedule. In this study, this concept was applied to fatigue degradation for stainless steel components in the pressurized water reactor (PWR) primary water environment. It is possible to estimate the fatigue life for the PWR water environment from that obtained in an air environment and the parameter Fen, which represents the ratio of the fatigue life in the air and PWR water environments. It was shown that the fatigue life prediction using Fen can be replaced by the crack growth analysis using the growth rate for the PWR water environment. Then, the crack growth was predicted for a thermal loading assuming the growth occurred in the PWR water environment. It was shown that the duration until the next inspection could be optimized based on the inspection results together with the crack growth curve. A longer operation before the inspection assured a longer duration until the next inspection.