Brittle fracture initiation in decommissioned boiling water reactor pressure vessel head weld

Zaiqing Que; Matti Lindroos; Jari Lydman; Noora Hytönen; Sebastian Lindqvist; Pål Efsing; Pekka Nevasmaa; Pentti Arffman

doi:10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.153925

Brittle fracture initiation in decommissioned boiling water reactor pressure vessel head weld

Zaiqing Que^*, Matti Lindroos^*, Jari Lydman, Noora Hytönen, Sebastian Lindqvist, Pål Efsing, Pekka Nevasmaa, Pentti Arffman

^*Corresponding author for this work

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Scientific › peer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

72 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The brittle fracture initiation behavior and fracture toughness in the ductile-to-brittle transition region for a thermally-aged weld metal of a decommissioned reactor pressure vessel head (in operation at 288 °C for 23 effective full power years) and in the non-aged reference condition were investigated. The results show that brittle fracture initiated primarily from non-metallic inclusions. The correlation between fracture toughness and brittle fracture initiation type (inclusion debonding or breakage), initiator size, initiation location (as-welded or re-heated regions in the weld metal) were analysed. Despite that thermal ageing does not affect significantly the fracture toughness, it could promote the debonding as a brittle fracture primary initiation type. The influence of debonded inclusion on the evolution of cumulative damage and brittle fracture initiation was assessed using crystal plasticity modelling.

Original language	English
Article number	153925
Journal	Journal of Nuclear Materials
Volume	569
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.153925
Publication status	Published - Oct 2022
MoE publication type	A1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the SAFIR2022 BRUTE project (Barsebäck RPV material used for true evaluation of embrittlement) and ENTENTE project (Euratom research and training programme 2019–2020 under grant agreement No. 900018) for funding the study. The authors thank the BREDA program (Barsebäck Research and Development Arena) for providing the research material.

Keywords

Brittle fracture
Inclusion
Initiation
Reactor pressure vessel
Toughness
Weld metal

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10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.153925Licence: CC BY

j.jnucmat.2022.153925Final published version, 9.86 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

@article{400d3bf97bad4a01ba3add886d20e39f,

title = "Brittle fracture initiation in decommissioned boiling water reactor pressure vessel head weld",

abstract = "The brittle fracture initiation behavior and fracture toughness in the ductile-to-brittle transition region for a thermally-aged weld metal of a decommissioned reactor pressure vessel head (in operation at 288 °C for 23 effective full power years) and in the non-aged reference condition were investigated. The results show that brittle fracture initiated primarily from non-metallic inclusions. The correlation between fracture toughness and brittle fracture initiation type (inclusion debonding or breakage), initiator size, initiation location (as-welded or re-heated regions in the weld metal) were analysed. Despite that thermal ageing does not affect significantly the fracture toughness, it could promote the debonding as a brittle fracture primary initiation type. The influence of debonded inclusion on the evolution of cumulative damage and brittle fracture initiation was assessed using crystal plasticity modelling.",

keywords = "Brittle fracture, Inclusion, Initiation, Reactor pressure vessel, Toughness, Weld metal",

author = "Zaiqing Que and Matti Lindroos and Jari Lydman and Noora Hyt{\"o}nen and Sebastian Lindqvist and P{\aa}l Efsing and Pekka Nevasmaa and Pentti Arffman",

year = "2022",

month = oct,

doi = "10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.153925",

language = "English",

volume = "569",

journal = "Journal of Nuclear Materials",

issn = "0022-3115",

publisher = "Elsevier",

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TY - JOUR

T1 - Brittle fracture initiation in decommissioned boiling water reactor pressure vessel head weld

AU - Que, Zaiqing

AU - Lindroos, Matti

AU - Lydman, Jari

AU - Hytönen, Noora

AU - Lindqvist, Sebastian

AU - Efsing, Pål

AU - Nevasmaa, Pekka

AU - Arffman, Pentti

PY - 2022/10

Y1 - 2022/10

N2 - The brittle fracture initiation behavior and fracture toughness in the ductile-to-brittle transition region for a thermally-aged weld metal of a decommissioned reactor pressure vessel head (in operation at 288 °C for 23 effective full power years) and in the non-aged reference condition were investigated. The results show that brittle fracture initiated primarily from non-metallic inclusions. The correlation between fracture toughness and brittle fracture initiation type (inclusion debonding or breakage), initiator size, initiation location (as-welded or re-heated regions in the weld metal) were analysed. Despite that thermal ageing does not affect significantly the fracture toughness, it could promote the debonding as a brittle fracture primary initiation type. The influence of debonded inclusion on the evolution of cumulative damage and brittle fracture initiation was assessed using crystal plasticity modelling.

AB - The brittle fracture initiation behavior and fracture toughness in the ductile-to-brittle transition region for a thermally-aged weld metal of a decommissioned reactor pressure vessel head (in operation at 288 °C for 23 effective full power years) and in the non-aged reference condition were investigated. The results show that brittle fracture initiated primarily from non-metallic inclusions. The correlation between fracture toughness and brittle fracture initiation type (inclusion debonding or breakage), initiator size, initiation location (as-welded or re-heated regions in the weld metal) were analysed. Despite that thermal ageing does not affect significantly the fracture toughness, it could promote the debonding as a brittle fracture primary initiation type. The influence of debonded inclusion on the evolution of cumulative damage and brittle fracture initiation was assessed using crystal plasticity modelling.

KW - Brittle fracture

KW - Inclusion

KW - Initiation

KW - Reactor pressure vessel

KW - Toughness

KW - Weld metal

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SN - 0022-3115

VL - 569

JO - Journal of Nuclear Materials

JF - Journal of Nuclear Materials

M1 - 153925

ER -

Brittle fracture initiation in decommissioned boiling water reactor pressure vessel head weld

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

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ENTENTE: European Database for Multiscale Modelling of Radiation Damage

Cite this

Brittle fracture initiation in decommissioned boiling water reactor pressure vessel head weld

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Projects

ENTENTE: European Database for Multiscale Modelling of Radiation Damage

Cite this