Research on the Technology Accuracy of the On-Line Fracture Assessment of Cracked Pipe in NPPs

The cracked pipes usually need to be replaced or conservatively evaluated in the Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). There is still a lack of effective methods for a real-time crack propagation and safety evaluation based on massive monitoring transient data. From a technical standpoint, there is a need to establish inspection and monitoring technologies. This research has carried out a re-development in the general finite element analysis (FEA) software platform which is based on our research results and the requirements of the RSE-M Code. In this paper, the re-development is introduced firstly. Then, the information of the large pipe test information from France, Japan and China is summarized. Finally, the technology accuracy of the on-line fracture assessment of a cracked pipe in the NPPs is studied. The comparative research results show that the FEA analysis and modeling method of the pipe adopted by the authors in the re-development software is reliable and can meet the requirements for the on-line fracture assessment.