Study on Flaw Acceptance Standard of ASME Code Sec. XI Based on Failure Probability

Based on the failure probability, the flaw acceptance standard of ASME Code Sec. XI is examined with some concerns weather the failure probability is uniform for flaws with various aspect ratios and failure frequencies are small enough. In this paper, the results of preliminary case studies are described on the failure probability of reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) with a surface flaw specified in Sec. XI. PFM code PASCAL was used for case studies. A PTS (Pressurized Thermal Shock) transient prescribed by NRC/EPRI PTS Benchmark Study was used as an applied load. Analysis results showed that the conditional failure probability of a RPV with an initial flaw of acceptable depth depends on the aspect ratio. In the case flaw shapes are close to semi-circular, the failure probability are higher than that of the cases aspect ration are less than 0.6 by one order of magnitude due to the difference of fracture behavior at the surface point. A case study for determining the acceptable flaws based on failure probability was also carried out.