Abstract
The degradation of fracture toughness due to irradiation needs to be understood to assess the structural integrity of reactor pressure vessels for long-term operation. The level of degradation is dependent on the chemical content, particularly of elements like Ni and Mn. The fracture toughness properties for three types of steels (i.e. VVER-1000 steel, western model steel and VVER-1000 welds) with varying contents of Ni and Mn were characterized based on Master Curve T0 reference temperature in reference condition and in irradiated condition. The results show that, in the high fluence region, the shifts in T0 correlate with the content of Ni and Mn, and the scatter in fracture toughness is mostly consistent for the reference and irradiated conditions. At higher T0 values, above 75 °C, T41J gives an increasingly larger estimate compared to T0. The obtained results can be applied to develop new improved embrittlement trends curves for NPP lifetime assessment.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 105421 |
Journal | International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping |
Volume | 214 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Apr 2025 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Funding
STRUMAT-LTO is a Horizon 2020 project that is funded by the Euratom research and training program 2019-2020, under grant agreement n\u00B0945272. Thanks to Timo Veijola and Wade Karlsen for the review.
Keywords
- High fluence
- Ni and Mn
- Fracture toughness
- Master curve
- Homogeneity