Material aging is a principle cause for the aging of engineering systems that can lead to reduction in reliability and continued safety and increase in the cost of operation and maintenance. As the nuclear power plants get older, aging becomes an issue, because aging degradation can affect the structural integrity of systems and components in the same manner. To ensure the safe operation of nuclear power plants, it is essential to assess the effects of age-related degradation of plant structures, systems, and components. In this paper, a mechanistically based probabilistic approach is reviewed as a framework for this material aging degradation of NPPs. For the first level modeling of this process, the EAC-induced failure process, is one of the main degradation processes of nickel-based alloys in the pressurized water reactor environments, has examined the effect of uncertainties in key parameters in models for EAC, fracture and inspection, based on a sensitivity study.
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