A PROCEDURE FOR ESTIMATION OF PIPE BREAK PROBABILITIES DUE TO IGSCC

A procedure has been developed for estimation of the failure probabili ty of weld joints in nuclear piping susceptible to intergranular stres s corrosion cracking. The procedure aims at a robust and rapid estimat e of the failure probability for a specific weld with known stress sta te. Random properties of the crack initiation rate, the initial crack length, the in-service inspection efficiency, and the leak rate, are t aken into account. A computer realization of the procedure has been de veloped for user-friendly applications by design engineers. Some examp les are considered to investigate the sensitivity of the failure proba bility to different input quantities. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Limite d. All rights reserved.