COMPARISON OF THE STRESS INTENSITY FACTOR INFLUENCE COEFFICIENTS FOR AXIAL ID SURFACE CRACKS IN CYLINDERS OF RSE-M AND API 579-1

摘要

Analytical evaluation procedures for determining the acceptability of flaw detected during in-service inspection of nuclear power plant components are provided in Appendix 5.4 of the French RSE-M Code. Linear elastic fracture mechanics based evaluation procedures require calculation of the stress intensity factor (SIF). In Appendix 5.4 of the RSE-M Code, influence coefficients needed to compute the SIF are provided for a wide range of surface axial or circumferential flaws in cylinders, the through-wall stress field being represented by a cubic equation. On the other hand, Appendix C of API 579-1 FFS procedure provides also a very complete set of influence coefficients. The paper presents the comparison of the influence coefficients from both documents, focused on axial ID semi-elliptical surface flaws in cylinders. The cylinder and crack geometries are represented by three ratios: Ri/t, a/t, and a/c, where Ri, t, a, and c are respectively the inner radius, the wall thickness, the crack depth and one-half of the crack length. The solutions for the coefficients G_0 and G_1 at the deepest point and at the surface point are investigated. At the deepest point, the agreement between the solutions is good, the relative difference being lower than 2%, except for the plate (R_i/t = ∞) at a/c = 0.125 and 0.0625 and a/t = 0.8 (around 5%). At the surface point, the agreement between both solutions is not so good. At this point, the relative differences depend strongly on the a/c ratio, being larger for elongated cracks (with low a/c ratios). However, it must be recalled that the absolute values of the coefficients are low at the surface point for elongated cracks, and that for these cracks the critical point regarding the stress intensity factor is the deepest point.