Third International PLiM Conference, 14-18 May 2012, Salt Lake City

Nuclear Power Engineering with Sights and Sounds Nuclear Power Engineering with Sights and Sounds

Plant Life Management (PLiM)
for Safe Long Term Operation (LTO)

Development of Technical Guidelines


Master Curve Approach to Monitor Fracture Toughness of Reactor Pressure Vessels in Nuclear Power Plants Vessel in Nuclear Power Plants (CRP results)


IAEA-TECDOC-1631

The coordinated research project (CRP) is a continuation of previous successful CRPs on resolving technical issues associated with application of the Master Curve (MC) approach to Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) integrity assessment.  Overall objectives of CRP include:

  • Better quantification of fracture toughness issues relative to testing surveillance specimens for application to RPV integrity assessment, and
  • Development of approaches for addressing MC technical issues in integrity evaluation of operating RPVs.

Since the first a kick-off meeting held on 20-22 October 2004 to discuss organization of a new CRP  all planned meetings and activities were done successfully with great supports of EC- JRC providing test material and NRI (Czech) machining and distributing test material to 12 organizations for round robin experimental test. Three time research coordinated meetings have done in KFKI, Hungary (first RCM), FZD Germany (second RCM) and Vienna (third RCM). A total of 22 specialists from 12 Member States and an International Organization participated in the CRP.

In the final evaluation for the application of the Master Curve in RPV, three key areas were identified as needing further work by previous CRP. These issues were identified as being critical before the Master Curve methodology could be accepted for licensing applications:

Master Curve (MC) approach to Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) integrity assessment

  1. Test specimen size, geometry, and constraint relative to the measurement and application of Master Curve To values;
  2. Effects of loading rate and qualification impact loading conditions on To; and
  3. Potential changes in the shape of the Master Curve for highly embrittled RPV materials.

References:

  • IAEA-TRS-429, Guidelines for Application of the Master Curve Approach to Reactor Pressure Vessel Integrity, Vienna (2005)
  • IAEA-TECDOC-1435, Application of Surveillance Programme Results to Reactor Pressure Vessel Integrity Assessment, Vienna (2005)