Primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC) of Alloy 82/182 butt welds has been a concern for pressurized water reactor (PWR) plants worldwide for the past decade. A lot of works have been performed to calculate exact welding residual stresses and PWSCC growth rate for Alloy 82/182 butt welds. The PWSCC growth analysis of Alloy 82/182 butt welds has been performed by using the Raju-Newman type solutions for the crack tip stress intensity factors (SIFs). In this study, a finite element alternating method (FEAM) was used to calculate the SIFs and crack propagation in Alloy 82/182 butt weld. The FEAM is consisted of two solution parts: an exact theoretical SIF solution for a crack embedded in infinite body and a simple finite element analysis model with coarse mesh for finite body. In this study, the theoretical SIFs were derived by using a dislocation density function. Finite element (FE) analysis was performed to obtain the welding residual stress distribution for a nozzle with Alloy 82/182 butt weld and PWSCC growth analysis was performed by using the FEAM with PWSCC growth model described in MRP reports under welding residual stress along the nozzle thickness.
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