Review of the margins for ASME code fatigue design curve - effects of surface roughness and material variability.

Abstract

The ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code provides rules for the construction of nuclear power plant components. The Code specifies fatigue design curves for structural materials. However, the effects of light water reactor (LWR) coolant environments are not explicitly addressed by the Code design curves. Existing fatigue strain-vs.-life (e-N) data illustrate potentially significant effects of LWR coolant environments on the fatigue resistance of pressure vessel and piping steels. This report provides an overview of the existing fatigue e-N data for carbon and low-alloy steels and wrought and cast austenitic SSs to define the effects of key material, loading, and environmental parameters on the fatigue lives of the steels. Experimental data are presented on the effects of surface roughness on the fatigue life of these steels in air and LWR environments. Statistical models are presented for estimating the fatigue e-N curves as a function of the material, loading, and environmental parameters. Two methods for incorporating environmental effects into the ASME Code fatigue evaluations are discussed. Data available in the literature have been reviewed to evaluate the conservatism in the existing ASME Code fatigue evaluations. A critical review of the margins for ASME Code fatigue design curves is presented. Executive SummarySection III, Subsection NB, of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code contains rules for the design of Class 1 components of nuclear power plants. Figures I-9.1 through I-9.6 of Appendix I to Section III specify the Code fatigue design curves for applicable structural materials. However, Section III, Subsection NB-3121, of the Code states that the effects of the coolant environment on fatigue resistance of a material were not intended to be addressed in these design curves. Therefore, the effects of environment on the fatigue resistance of materials used in operating pressurized water reactor and boiling water reactor plants, whose primary-coolant pressure boundary components were designed in accordance with the Code, are uncertain.The current Section-III fatigue design curves of the ASME Code were based primarily on strain-controlled fatigue tests of small polished specimens at room temperature in air. Best-fit curves to the experimental test data were first adjusted to account for the effects of mean stress and then lowered by a factor of 2 on stress and 20 on cycles (whichever was more conservative) to obtain the fatigue design curves. These factors are not safety margins but rather adjustment factors that must be applied to experimental data to obtain estimates of the lives of components. They were not intended to address the effects of the coolant environment on fatigue life. Recent fatigue-strain-vs.-life (e-N) data obtained in the U.S. and Japan demonstrate that light water reactor (LWR) environments can have potentially significant effects on the fatigue resistance of materials. Specimen lives obtained from tests in simulated LWR environments can be much shorter than those obtain...

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