• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.241-243
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.782-787
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• 2001

This paper is concerned with the global rupture of a nuclear reactor pressure vessel(RPV) in a severe accident. During the severe reactor accident of molten core, the temperature and the pressure in the nuclear reactor rise to a certain level depending on the initial and subsequent condition of a severe accident. While the rise of the temperature cause the thermal softening of RPV material, the rise of the internal pressure could cause failure of the RPV lower head. The global rupture of an RPV is simulated by finite element limit analysis for the collapse pressure and mode and this analysis results have been compared with a variation of the internal pressure of RPV. The finite element limit method is a systematic tool to secure the safety criteria of a nuclear reactor and to evaluate the in-vessel corium retention.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.543-550
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• 2012

The decrease in the fracture toughness of ferritic steels in a reactor pressure vessel is an important factor in determining the lifetime of a nuclear power plant. A surveillance program has been in place in Korea since 1979 to assess the structural integrity of RPV steels. In this work, the surveillance data were collected and analyzed statistically in order to derive the empirical relationship between the embrittlement and strengthening of irradiated reactor pressure vessel steels. There was a linear relationship between the yield strength change and the transition temperature shift change at 41 J due to irradiation. The proportional coefficient was about $0.5^{\circ}C$/MPa in the base metals (plate/forgings). The upper shelf energy decrease ratio was non-linearly proportional to the yield strength change, and most of the data lay along the trend curve of the US results. The transition regime temperature interval, ${\Delta}T_T$, was less than the US data. The overall change from irradiation was very similar to the US results. It is expected that the results of this study will be applied to basic research on the multiscale modeling of the irradiation embrittlement of RPV materials in Korea.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.408-422
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• 1999

To reduce the fast neutron fluence which deteriorates the RPV integrity, additional shields were assumed to be installed at the outer core structures of the Kori Unit 1 reactor, and its reduction effects were examined. Full scope Monte Carlo simulation with MCNP4A code was made to estimate the fast neutron fluence at the RPV. An optimized design option was found from various choices in geometry and material for shield structure. It was expected that magnitude of fast neutron fluence would be reduced by 39% at the circumferential weld of the RPV, resulting in extension of plant lifetime by 4.6 EFPYs based on the criterion of PTS requirement It was investigated that the nuclear characteristics and thermal hydraulic factors at the internal core were only negligibly influenced by the installation of additional shield structure.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.545-553
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• 2016

The failure probabilities of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) for low temperature over-pressurization (LTOP) and cool-down transients are calculated in this study. For the cool-down transient, a pressure-temperature limit curve is generated in accordance with Section XI, Appendix G of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) code, from which safety margin factors are deliberately removed for the probabilistic fracture mechanics analysis. Then, sensitivity analyses are conducted to understand the effects of some input parameters. For the LTOP transient, the failure of the RPV mostly occurs during the period of the abrupt pressure rise. For the cool-down transient, the decrease of the fracture toughness with temperature and time plays a main role in RPV failure at the end of the cool-down process. As expected, the failure probability increases with increasing fluence, Cu and Ni contents, and initial reference temperature-nil ductility transition ($RT_{NDT}$). The effect of warm prestressing on the vessel failure probability for LTOP is not significant because most of the failures happen before the stress intensity factor reaches the peak value while its effect reduces the failure probability by more than one order of magnitude for the cool-down transient.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.107-112
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• 2014

The Code of Federal Regulations, Title 10, Part 50, Appendix H requires surveillance program for reactor pressure vessel(RPV) that the peak neutron fluence at the end of the design life of the vessel will exceed $1.0E+17n/cm^2$ (E>1.0MeV). 2D/1D Synthesis method based on DORT 3.1 transport calculation code has been widely used to determine fast neutron(E>1.0MeV) fluence exposure to RPV in the beltline region. RAPTOR-M3G(RApid Parallel Transport Of Radiation-Multiple 3D Geometries) performing full 3D transport calculation was developed by Westinghouse and KRIST(Korea Reactor Integrity Surveillance Technology) and applied for the evaluations of In-Vessel and Ex-Vessel neutron dosimetry. The reaction rates from measurement and calculation were compared and the results show good agreements each other.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.908-913
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• 2000

In the process of integrity evaluation for nuclear power plant components, a series of fracture mechanics evaluation on surface cracks in reactor pressure vessel(RPV) must be conducted. These fracture mechanics evaluations are based on stress intensity factor, K. However, under pressurized thermal shock(PTS) conditions, the combination of thermal and mechanical stress by steep temperature gradient and internal pressure causes considerably high tensile stress at the inside of RPV wall. Besides, the internal pressure during the normal operation produces high tensile stress at the RPV wall. As a result cracks on inner surface of RPVs may experience elastic-plastic behavior which can be explained with J-integral. In such a case, however, J-integral may possibly lose its validity due to constraint effect. In this paper, in order to verify the suitability of J-integral, two dimensional finite element analyses were applied for various surface crack. Total of 18 crack geometries were analyzed, and Q stresses were obtained by comparing resulting HRR stress distribution with corresponding actual stress distributions. In conclusion, HRR stress fields were found to overestimate the actual crack-tin stress field due to constraint effect.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.430-434
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• 2001

To perform the integrity evaluation of RPV more realistically, it is necessary to evaluate the metallurgical microstructure and residual stress considering more real phenomena such as multi-pass welding process and PWHT. Accordingly, firstly, this paper proposes the integrated assessment methodology systematically developed for residual stress on weldment of RPV by using thermodynamics, diffusion theory, finite element method and validation experiment. Also, the residual stress on circumferential weldment of reactor pressure vessel is calculated considering multi-pass welding process by the commercial finite element package, ABAQUS.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.257-265
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• 2011

Plant-specific analyses of 5 types of domestic reactors in Korea are performed to assure the structural integrity of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) during transients which are expected to initiate pressurized thermal shock (PTS) events. The failure probability of the RPV due to PTS is obtained by performing probabilistic fracture mechanics analysis. The through-wall cracking frequency is calculated and compared to the acceptance criterion. Considering the fluence at the end of life expected by surveillance test, the sufficient safety margin is expected for the structural integrity of all reactor pressure vessels except for the oldest one during the pressurized thermal shock events. If the flaw with aspect ratio of 1/12 is considered to eliminate the conservatism, the acceptance criteria is not exceeded for all plants until the fluence level of $8{\times}10^{19}\;n/cm^2$, generating sufficient margin beyond the design life.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.351-361
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• 2015

External reactor vessel cooling (ERVC) for in-vessel retention (IVR) has been considered one of the most useful strategies to mitigate severe accidents. However, reliability of this common idea is weakened because many studies were focused on critical heat flux whereas there were diverse uncertainties in structural behaviors as well as thermal-hydraulic phenomena. In the present study, several key factors related to molten corium behaviors and thermal characteristics were examined under multi-layered corium formation conditions. Thereafter, systematic finite element analyses and subsequent damage evaluation with varying parameters were performed on a representative reactor pressure vessel (RPV) to figure out the possibility of high temperature induced failures. From the sensitivity analyses, it was proven that the reactor cavity should be flooded up to the top of the metal layer at least for successful accomplishment of the IVR-ERVC strategy. The thermal flux due to corium formation and the relocation time were also identified as crucial parameters. Moreover, three-layered corium formation conditions led to higher maximum von Mises stress values and consequently shorter creep rupture times as well as higher damage factors of the RPV than those obtained from two-layered conditions.