APPLICATIONS OF PROBABILISTIC FRACTURE-MECHANICS TO FBR COMPONENTS

A probabilistic fracture mechanics code which evaluates fracture proba bility of a plate model with an elliptical surface crack caused by cre ep-fatigue crack growth has been developed. The code named PCCF (Proba bilistic Fracture Mechanics Code for Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth) uses simplified methods of C and J-integral for evaluation of creep-fatigu e crack growth and a stratified sampling method for two input variable s to improve the solution convergency. According to the test analyses focused on an applied stress level using PCCF code, leak probability i s sensitive to a stress level and increases rapidly when an applied st ress is close to a yield stress level.