Computational methods assuring nuclear power plant structural integrity and safety: an overview of the recent activities at VTT Original Research Article

Numerical, simplified engineering and standardised methods are applied in the safety analyses of primary circuit components and reactor pressure vessels. The integrity assessment procedures require input relating both to the steady state and transient loading actual material properties data and precise knowledge of the size and geometry of defects. Current procedures hold extensive information regarding these aspects. It is important to verify the accuracy of the different assessment methods especially in the case of complex structures and loading. The focus of this paper is on the recent results and development of computational fracture assessment methods at VTT Manufacturing Technology. The methods include effective engineering type tools for rapid structural integrity assessments and more sophisticated finite-element based methods. An integrated PC-based program system MASI for engineering fracture analysis is described. A summary of the verification of the methods in computational benchmark analyses and against the results of large scale experiments is presented.