TY - JOUR
T1 - Weight function procedure for reduced order fracture analysis of arbitrary flaws in cylindrical pressure vessels
AU - Spencer, Benjamin W.
AU - Hoffman, William M.
AU - Jiang, Wen
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy under the Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) program. This research made use of the resources of the High Performance Computing Center at Idaho National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Science User Facilities under contract no. DE-AC07-05ID14517. The submitted manuscript has been authored by a contractor of the U.S. Government under contract no. DE-AC07-05ID14517. Accordingly, the U.S. Government retains a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish or reproduce the published form of this contribution, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.
Funding Information:
This work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy under the Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) program. This research made use of the resources of the High Performance Computing Center at Idaho National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Science User Facilities under contract no. DE-AC07-05ID14517. The submitted manuscript has been authored by a contractor of the U.S. Government under contract no. DE-AC07-05ID14517. Accordingly, the U.S. Government retains a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish or reproduce the published form of this contribution, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - Fracture mechanics calculations using the finite element method can be computationally expensive, which makes them challenging to use in engineering evaluations of flaws in pressure vessels. The weight function (WF) technique is a reduced order fracture modeling method that is widely used to greatly reduce these computational costs. Its computational efficiency is essential for use in probabilistic fracture mechanics evaluations of embrittled nuclear reactor pressure vessels (RPVs), due to the large number of sampled flaws that must be evaluated. Although the WF technique is general, it is typically used only for axis-aligned flaws. Recent discoveries of off-axis flaws in operating nuclear reactors have necessitated detailed simulations of such flaws and the interactions between neighboring flaws. This paper presents a generalized WF approach applicable for analyzing arbitrary flaw geometries in thick-walled cylindrical vessels, including surface-breaking and subsurface flaws, which can either axis-aligned or off-axis, and can account for interactions with other flaws. This approach is demonstrated on representative simulations of multiple flaw geometries in a RPV subjected to transient loading conditions. In all cases, the WF technique gives good comparison with benchmark results from direct simulation with greatly reduced computational effort.
AB - Fracture mechanics calculations using the finite element method can be computationally expensive, which makes them challenging to use in engineering evaluations of flaws in pressure vessels. The weight function (WF) technique is a reduced order fracture modeling method that is widely used to greatly reduce these computational costs. Its computational efficiency is essential for use in probabilistic fracture mechanics evaluations of embrittled nuclear reactor pressure vessels (RPVs), due to the large number of sampled flaws that must be evaluated. Although the WF technique is general, it is typically used only for axis-aligned flaws. Recent discoveries of off-axis flaws in operating nuclear reactors have necessitated detailed simulations of such flaws and the interactions between neighboring flaws. This paper presents a generalized WF approach applicable for analyzing arbitrary flaw geometries in thick-walled cylindrical vessels, including surface-breaking and subsurface flaws, which can either axis-aligned or off-axis, and can account for interactions with other flaws. This approach is demonstrated on representative simulations of multiple flaw geometries in a RPV subjected to transient loading conditions. In all cases, the WF technique gives good comparison with benchmark results from direct simulation with greatly reduced computational effort.
KW - Extended finite element method
KW - Fracture mechanics
KW - Interacting flaws
KW - Mixed-mode fracture
KW - Off-axis flaw
KW - Weight function
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85137167570
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/3e0e9a7f-8b16-3ef6-8621-ee782049e6d7/
U2 - 10.1016/j.ijpvp.2022.104784
DO - 10.1016/j.ijpvp.2022.104784
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85137167570
SN - 0308-0161
VL - 200
JO - International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping
JF - International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping
M1 - 104784
ER -