• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.30 no.10 s.253
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• pp.1255-1260
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• 2006

To maintain the structural integrity of steam generator tubes, 40% of wall thickness plugging criterion has been developed. The approach is for the steam generator tube with single crack, so that the interaction effect of multiple cracks can not be considered. Although, recently, several approaches have been proposed to assess the integrity of steam generator tube with two identical cracks whilst actual multiple cracks reveal more complex shape. In this paper, the coalescence pressure of steam generator tube containing multiple cracks of different length is evaluated based on the detailed 3-dimensional (3-D) elastic-plastic finite element (FE) analyses. In terms of the crack shape, two collinear axial through-wall cracks with different length were considered. Furthermore, the resulting FE coalescence pressures are compared with FE coalescence pressures and experimental results for two identical collinear axial through-wall cracks to quantify the effect of crack length ratio on failure behavior of steam generator tube with multiple cracks. Finally, based on 3-D FE results, the coalescence evaluation diagrams were proposed.