New Needs of Fracture Mechanic Analysis at Design and Operation Level: Status of French Nuclear Mechanical Codes

Abstract

Based on ASME Boilers and Pressure Vessels Code the major fracture mechanic analysis is limited to protection of class 1 components to brittle fracture. All the Operators of future plants have to enlarge the scope of these analyses to different concepts, at design or operation stage: - brittle and ductile analysis of hypothetical large flaw - leak before break approach - break exclusion concept - incredibility of failure of high integrity components - end of fabrication acceptable defect - in-service inspection performance - acceptable standards in operation - Long Term Operation (LTO) All these requirements needs a procedure, an analysis method with material properties and criteria. After a short overview of each topic, the paper will present how RCC-M, RSE-M French Codes and ASME III and XI take care of all these new modern regulatory requirements.