Cylindrical shell analysis of reactor pressure vessel for RDE

This study deals with the analysis of cylindrical shell design for Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) of Reaktor Daya Eksperimental (RDE). The RDE is developed by BATAN as the preliminary of nuclear technology in Indonesia. RPV is a container for confining helium gas at pressure (3 MPa) and temperature (circa 250 °C). In reactor operation, mechanical stresses act to the RPV as in consequence of internal pressure, external pressure, and different loads due to dead weight and helium content load. Therefore, if the RPV could not retain its material strength it will cause failure. The applications and validity of Fortran code (RPV_-RDE.exe) for the design analysis are represented by two simulation cases, which show good calculation results of design outputs compared to analytical solutions by hand calculations. Design outputs have met the safety requirements (on ultimate tensile strength 485 MPa) for the minimum wall thickness of cylindrical shell in upper portion of 60 mm with Hoop stress 104.47 MPa and in lower portion of 100 mm with Hoop stress 62.81 MPa, respectively. (author)