Pierre Dulieu

Alternative Characterization Rules for Quasi-Laminar Flaws

During the 2012 outage at Doel 3 and Tihange 2 Nuclear Power Plants, a large number of quasi-laminar indications were detected, mainly in the lower and upper core shells. As a consequence, both units remained core unloaded pending the elaboration of an extensive Safety Case demonstrating the Structural Integrity of the RPVs in all operating modes, transients and accident conditions.A large part of this demonstration consists of the Flaw Acceptability Assessment inspired by the ASME XI procedure but adapted to the nature and number of indications found in the Doel 3 and Tihange 2 RPVs. In particular, ASME XI IWB-3300 article requires combining closely spaced flaws in order to account for their mechanical interactions. However, it appeared early that the strict application of the current ASME XI proximity criteria for laminar flaws to the actual flaw indications found at Doel 3 led to unrealistic results and conclusions. Therefore, an alternative methodology to derive suitable characterization rules applicable to specific flaws observed at Doel 3 and Tihange 2 RPVs has been successfully developed, implemented and validated.Copyright

Benchmark for the Calculation of Quasi-Laminar Elliptical Cracks Interaction Under Bi-Axial Loading

In the frame of the Structural Integrity demonstration of the Doel 3 and Tihange 2 RPVs flawed with quasi-laminar cracks, alternative proximity rules based on 3D eXtended Finite Element Method (X-FEM) calculations have been developed by Tractebel Engineering. The calculations have been performed with the X-FEM software Morfeo Crack. This software uses the Level-Sets method allowing a very straightforward cracks modelling.A large part of the development of these proximity rules for quasi-laminar flaws has been dedicated to the validation of the models and the calculations. This validation has been done through a benchmark with Engineering Mechanics Corporation of Columbus (Emc2). This company uses:• The Finite Element Alternating Method (FEAM) for calculating stress intensity factors through the FRAC@ALT program. The FEAM is a state-of-the-art method for obtaining stress intensity factors for three-dimensional surface and embedded crack problems.• The X-FEM functionality as implemented in Abaqus software.The benchmark consists of the Stress Intensity Factor calculation of interacting quasi-laminar flaws and of the interaction factor assessment as well.Copyright

Alternative Characterization Rules for Quasi-Laminar Flaws Based on 3D X-FEM Calculations

During the 2012 outage at Doel 3 and Tihange 2 Nuclear Power Plants, a large number of quasi-laminar indications were detected, mainly in the lower and upper core shells of the RPVs.In the frame of the Structural Integrity demonstration of these RPVs according to ASME XI principles, ASME XI IWB-3300 article requires combining closely spaced flaws in order to account for their mechanical interactions. However, it appeared early that the characterization rules were adapted neither to quasi-laminar flaws nor to such densities of flaws.Therefore, an alternative methodology to derive characterization rules for quasi-laminar flaws has been developed, implemented and validated.This work, based on 2D eXtended Finite Element Method (X-FEM) calculations and presented during ASME PVP 2014, has led to the proposed ASME Code Case N-848 “Alternative characterization rules for quasi-laminar flaws – Section XI, Division I”.This 2D approach, even though better suited to quasi-laminar flaws, results however in very conservative proximity rules.Therefore, it appeared that more realistic — although still conservative — proximity rules based on 3D X-FEM calculations could be developed.Copyright