SIMULAÇÃO ESTOCÁSTICA DA PROPAGAÇÃO DE TRINCAS EM TUBOS DO GERADOR DE VAPOR

Resumo

In pressurized water reactor nuclear power plants, the deterioration of steam generator tubes
has been both an economical and safety problems. The steam generator tubes are subjected to
deterioration mechanisms, such as stress corrosion cracking, which lead to structural failure by the
unstable crack growth. The crack growth rate can be estimated from inspection data. As the crack
growth rate by stress corrosion cracking is a phenomenom of highly random nature, a structural integrity
assessment in the steam generator tubes must be performed based on the failure probability along some
operational cycle. In this work, a stochastic model is applied for probabilistic assessment of the structural
integrity of the steam generator tubes. The proposed model is able to provide efficiently results of failure
probability more realistics. The results from this model are compared with others from Monte-Carlo
simulation and a non-evolutionary model.