The effects of thermal stresses on the elliptical surface cracks in PWR reactor pressure vessel

Stress intensity factors of corner cracks at set-in nozzle–cylinder intersection of a PWR reactor pressure vessel

“…A pallet body approach for the assessment of corner cracks using ANSYS Workbench was developed in our previous works [5][6][7]. The approach [5] is as valid as Newman and Raju analysis [8] and ASME code [9] for the computations of stress intensity factors.…”

“…The approach [5] is as valid as Newman and Raju analysis [8] and ASME code [9] for the computations of stress intensity factors. In this study, in order to compute SIFs of the corner cracks at the nozzle-cylinder intersection, the fracture model of the RPV was developed using the pallet body approach.…”

“…This assumption is valid in our case because the skirt support has negligible effects on the nozzles. 5. The internal pressure equals to 17.16 MPa (P int = 17.16 MPa) is applied to the RPV.…”

“…The meshing was performed using slicing and dicing technique [5] in 'ANSYS DesignModeler'. The full 3D finite element (FE) hex mesh model of the RPV having skewness equal to 0.854 is shown in Fig.…”

“…The 'pallet body fracture model' [5] of the RPV having corner crack (a = 0.25t and a = 0.33c) at the nozzle-cylinder intersection is shown in Fig. 7.…”