The Geometry of Steam Generator Tube and Its Relevance to the Occurrence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Operating Nuclear Power Plants

Author(s):  
Deok Hyun Lee ◽  
Do Haeng Hur ◽  
Myung Sik Choi ◽  
Kyung Mo Kim ◽  
Jung Ho Han ◽  
...  

Occurrences of a stress corrosion cracking in the steam generator tubes of operating nuclear power plants are closely related to the residual stress existing in the local region of a geometric change, that is, expansion transition, u-bend, ding, dent, bulge, etc. Therefore, information on the location, type and quantitative size of a geometric anomaly existing in a tube is a prerequisite to the activity of a non destructive inspection for an alert detection of an earlier crack and the prediction of a further crack evolution [1].

CORROSION ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. 320t-324t ◽  
Author(s):  
D. E. WHITE ◽  
E. G. JOHNSON

Abstract Nuclear power plant steam generator tubing materials were tested for their susceptibility to chloride stress corrosion cracking. Stressed U-bend specimens were exposed for 24 hours in a tilting autoclave to both the liquid and vapor phases of a high pH synthetic boiler water solution containing oxygen, phosphate, and 500 ppm of chloride ion. The results indicate that AISI Type 347 stainless steel, the control material, and Carpenter 7Mo are about equally susceptible to stress corrosion cracking in this test environment. Carpenter 20Cb and Type 304 having low carbon and nitrogen content displayed improved resistance. Inconel, Monel, nickel, and titanium displayed complete resistance. Ferritic steels were crack resistant but they did suffer pitting attack. 3.5.8


Author(s):  
Frederick W. Brust ◽  
R. E. Kurth ◽  
D. J. Shim ◽  
David Rudland

Risk based treatment of degradation and fracture in nuclear power plants has emerged as an important topic in recent years. One degradation mechanism of concern is stress corrosion cracking. Stress corrosion cracking is strongly driven by the weld residual stresses (WRS) which develop in nozzles and piping from the welding process. The weld residual stresses can have a large uncertainty associated with them. This uncertainty is caused by many sources including material property variations of base and welds metal, weld sequencing, weld repairs, weld process method, and heat inputs. Moreover, often mitigation procedures are used to correct a problem in an existing plant, which also leads to uncertainty in the WRS fields. The WRS fields are often input to probabilistic codes from weld modeling analyses. Thus another source of uncertainty is represented by the accuracy of the predictions compared with a limited set of measurements. Within the framework of a probabilistic degradation and fracture mechanics code these uncertainties must all be accounted for properly. Here we summarize several possibilities for properly accounting for the uncertainty inherent in the WRS fields. Several examples are shown which illustrate ranges where these treatments work well and ranges where improvement is needed. In addition, we propose a new method for consideration. This method consists of including the uncertainty sources within the WRS fields and tabulating them within tables which are then sampled during the probabilistic realization. Several variations of this process are also discussed. Several examples illustrating the procedures are presented.


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