Fatigue analysis of a reactor pressure vessel for SMART

The structural integrity of mechanical components during several transients should be assured in the design stage. This requires a fatigue analysis including thermal and stress analyses. As an example, this study performs a fatigue analysis of the reactor pressure vessel of SMART during arbitrary transients. Using heat transfer coefficients determined based on the operating environments, a transient thermal analysis is performed and the results are applied to a finite element model along with the pressure to calculate the stresses. The total stress intensity range and cumulative fatigue usage factor are investigated to determine the adequacy of the design.