Pressurised Thermal Shock (PTS) is one potential risk to the integrity of the reactor pressure vessel in a pressurised water reactor. It has been postulated that PTS could occur as a result of various initiating events such as loss-of-coolant accidents with subsequent re-pressurisation. Experimental studies of PTS are typically very difficult and expensive to perform because both a severe thermal shock and a primary load must be applied to the test specimen, while the specimen itself must be very large to imitate the behaviour of the RPV wall. We investigated the feasibility of using scaled-down PTS test specimens based on the spinning-cylinder concept. The use of scaled-down specimens could greatly reduce the difficulty and cost of experimental PTS testing. To explore this concept, we used a particularly well-characterised spinning-cylinder PTS test: the NESC-1 test which was performed in the late 1990s. A large parametric set of elastic-plastic finite element models was used determine a combination of specimen dimensions and test conditions that would very closely mimic the crack tip conditions which occurred during NESC-1. Specifically, the modelling demonstrated that it was indeed possible to replicate the KJ vs. temperature trajectory, and crack tip constraint, at a critical point on the crack tip line from which tearing initiated during the actual NESC-1 test. The reduced-size specimen must be carefully designed: it cannot be a simple linear scale-down due to the inherent non-linearity of both the thermal and mechanical processes which occur during PTS.
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ASME 2017 Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference
July 16–20, 2017
Waikoloa, Hawaii, USA
Conference Sponsors:
- Pressure Vessels and Piping Division
ISBN:
978-0-7918-5795-3
PROCEEDINGS PAPER
Feasibility of Reduced-Size Spinning Cylinder Specimens for Pressurised Thermal Shock Testing
H. E. Coules,
H. E. Coules
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
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P. J. Orrock,
P. J. Orrock
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
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C. E. Truman
C. E. Truman
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
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H. E. Coules
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
P. J. Orrock
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
C. E. Truman
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Paper No:
PVP2017-65489, V03BT03A029; 6 pages
Published Online:
October 26, 2017
Citation
Coules, HE, Orrock, PJ, & Truman, CE. "Feasibility of Reduced-Size Spinning Cylinder Specimens for Pressurised Thermal Shock Testing." Proceedings of the ASME 2017 Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference. Volume 3B: Design and Analysis. Waikoloa, Hawaii, USA. July 16–20, 2017. V03BT03A029. ASME. https://doi.org/10.1115/PVP2017-65489
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