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Role of Irradiation Embrittlement in RPV Lifetime Assessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2015

Milan Brumovský
Milan Brumovský*
Affiliation:
Research Centre Řež, 250 68 Řež, Czech Republic.
*
*bru@ujv.cz
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Abstract

Integrity and lifetime of reactor pressure vessels are practically determined by their material resistance against fast/non-ductile failure and consequently by their radiation damage resulting in irradiation embrittlement and hardening. Mechanism of irradiation embrittlement of RPV materials depends on selected materials and operation conditions but their values depend in a large extent on reactor design, i.e. on neutron flux/fluence depending on RPV wall. Generally, new RPV design allows smaller neutron fluences but absolute value of irradiation embrittlement still depends on a choice of RPV material. Even though radiation damage (especially irradiation embrittlement) is important for RPV behavior, integrity and lifetime depends, in principle, on final value of applied fracture mechanics parameter –transition temperature. Thus, its initial value as well as its shift due to irradiation embrittlement is of interest but only the embrittlement can be affected during operation.

Keywords

embrittlementneutron irradiationfatigue
Type
Articles
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1769: Symposium 6E – Materials for Nuclear Applications , 2015 , IMRC 2014 6E-24
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2015 

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References

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