A COMPARISON OF FINITE ELEMENT COHESIVE-ZONE MODELLING WITH THE PROCESS-ZONE APPROACH FOR THE PREDICTION OF DELAYED HYDRIDE CRACKING

摘要

Zirconium alloys, as used in water-cooled nuclear reactors, are susceptible to a time-dependent damage mechanism known as Delayed Hydride Cracking, or DHC. Corrosion of the zirconium alloy in the presence of water generates hydrogen that subsequently diffuses through the metallic structure towards stress concentrating features such as notches or cracks. Canadian standard CSA N285.8-10 uses a process-zone modelling approach to define a threshold stress level beyond which DHC is predicted to occur. The process-zone analysis to calculate the threshold stress level generally proceeds by representing the process-zone as a crack, the length of which is determined by the superposition of stress intensity factors obtained from handbook solutions or cracked-body finite element models. Process-zone models are a subset of the more general class of cohesive-zone models and cohesive elements are available in a number of standard finite element codes. Cohesive elements can be used to simulate the process-zone response, or indeed more complex cohesive behaviour. In this paper, the stress and displacement results from finite element based cohesive-zone modelling of a sharp crack and blunt notches of various root radii are compared with analytical process-zone solutions. The cohesive-zone results are also compared with the process-zone formulation used in CSA N285.8-10. The results show that finite element based cohesive-zone analysis can be used to replicate the process-zone results. The key benefit of finite element based cohesive-zone modelling is that it provides a framework for investigating the DHC characteristics of arbitrary hydride distributions, using readily available techniques.