A damage tolerance analysis of an old BWR pressure vessel

A program has been completed in Sweden where the oldest of the Swedish BWR-units has been subjected to an extensive investigation regarding signs of aging and degradation. The core and all the internal parts were removed and the stripped pressure vessel was decontaminated. Almost every weld in the vessel including all nozzles in the bottom head have then been inspected by aid of UT-inspection. An important part of the programs was the damage tolerance analysis. It has involved postulated surface cracks and embedded cracks (positioned along and across the welds) in all the inspected welds. By using the R6-method the maximum acceptable and critical crack size have then been determined for the most limiting load case and accounting for the individual material properties of each weld, cladding and base material. Of special interest is the core region. The base material is made of A 302 Grade B with rather high Cu- and Ni-contents, which have caused irradiation embrittlement in the beltline region. This implies that during certain cold loading cases, the critical crack size for a postulated surface crack in the core region, can be quite small. However, for load cases during normal operation, the material is on the upper shelf region and the critical crack sizes are large