An Investigation Into the Effects of Modelling Cylindrical Nozzle to Cylindrical Vessel Intersections Using 2D Axisymmetric Finite Element Models and a Proposed Method for Correcting the Results
Two dimensional (2-D) axisymmetric finite element models (FEMs) are often used as a simplification to modeling cylindrical nozzles that intersect a cylindrical pressure vessel. However, an axisymmetric model has the effect of representing the vessel as a spherical shell rather than a cylindrical shell. Previous work has been done to determine 2-D axisymmetric to three dimensional (3-D) stress correction factors (CFs) for the total stress at the nozzle blend radius to account for this inconsistency. The present paper expands on that work to investigate the effects of the 2-D axisymmetric modeling simplification on the through wall stress distribution at the nozzle corner. The through-wall stress distribution is necessary for some fracture mechanics analyses performed for corner cracked nozzles and for using the simplified elastic-plastic analysis given in NB-3228.5. A simplified method is proposed which can be used to obtain a nozzle specific correction factor, rather than a bounding correction factor, that can be applied to 2-D finite element analysis stress results to correct for the inaccuracy introduced by modeling the intersection as an axisymmetric section.