Pressure Vessel Creep Rupture Analysis
N.V.Yamshchikov, A.S.Filippov, V.F.Slrizhov
Nuclear Safety Institute (IBRAE), Russian Academy of Sciences
B.Tulskaya, 52, Moscow 113191, Russia
1. INTRODUCTION
The vessel structural integrity is one of the key is-
sues in the analysis of possibility of the in-vessel
melt retention [1 J. The system pressure and thermal
hydraulic behavior of the relocated molten materials
determine loads, stresses and displacements of the
reactor vessel and finally failure mode and time to
rupture. Analysis of PWR vessel lower head has
been performed in papers [2,3]. Comprehensive
analysis of LWR lower head behavior has been per-
formed in the report [4J, where high temperature data
of carbon steel used in the most US LWR are pre-
sented. A systematic analysis of in-vessel melt reten-
tion problem including pressure vessel response to
the expected thermal loads has been performed in the
paper [5]. Recently several experiments have been
conducted at SANDIA National Laboratories on
creep rupture of a pressurized reactor lower head
scaled model (1 :5) [6J. In the tests pressure was
about 10 MPa and temperature was about 1000 K.
Different thermal loads were simulated by resistive
heating of the inner surface of the hemisphere.
For the analysis of RPV structural integrity finite
element codes are usually used for predictions of
vessel failure. Data obtained in the SNL LHF ex-
periments can be used for validation of models. The
objective of this paper is to simulate LHF-I and 2
experiments by the developed HEFEST code [7J
utilizing finite element approach. Results of FEM
analysis of these experiments are supplemented with
the studies of uncertainties of code predictions with
the simplified approach realized in the LOHEY code.
It was found that the main source of uncertainties in
the analysis is high temperature material properties
data. Results of analysis are compared with the ex-
perimental results. Previously the LOHEY code has
been bench marked [8] and used for TMI-2 accident
simulation [9].
2. STRUCTURAL MODELS OF LOWER
HEAD DEFORMATION BEHAVIOR
Two-dimensional finite element (FEM) code
HEFEST [7] allows for computational analysis of
different problems. It includes heat conductivity
317
module and nonlinear structural analysis module.
Typically, the analysis involves two step procedure.
In the first step temperature distribution in the struc-
ture is determined by solving the heat transfer prob-
lem with appropriate initial and boundary conditions.
At the second step deformations in the structure are
calculated using nonlinear models for material prop-
erties.
In accordance with different sources of stresses
constitutive relations for total strain increment may
be written as (applying the small strain theory)
/le = /lee! + /le 1h + /le pt
where /leet - elastic strain, /le 1h - deformations due
to temperature gradients, /le pt - plastic deformations.
Inconsideration of creep rupture expression for /leer
as a plastic deformation b..E Pt . Time independent
plasticity is treated as in [10] using the von Mises
function and the associated flow rule (4) assuming
isotropic hardening for yield stress:
aY=aYo+He P
Yield stress () Y can also depend on strain rate.
The time-dependent plastic creep strain is modeled
by applying the commonly used Norton's law for
strain rate v in the form:
where aeis stress intensity, sij is the strain deviator.
The material constants A and m were obtained from
uniaxial experiments [4] for temperature ranges of
900-1373 K. In Table 1 evaluated from experiments
creep coefficients are presented. In the temperature
interval between 900 and 1050K temperature de-
pendencies are very strong. For calculations A and
m were presented as a function of temperature.
Table 1. Creep coefficients
(SI units)
T,K A m
900 2.2.10-26 3.6
1000 0_75.10-20 1.8
1050 4.]0-24 4.2
 For simplified model realized in the LOHEY code coefficient and the temperature increment; a j (t) -
the following main assumptions are used: stress components.
the half spherical or half ellipsoidal lower Plastic strain and creep strains are written as:
head is considered as a set of symmetric about vessel I

axis hoop elements deformed independently (see

Figure 1);
Eja(t) = f dEja, (a = pI,cr; i =m,6 ), (3)
o
the following loads acts in hoop element:
3 dEi~!
temperature loads, meridianal and hoop normal
a
d Ej =---( ai - a o) , (4)
forces caused by internal pressure and weight loads; 2 a iDt

the hoop element is considered as a multi-
layer shell; in each layer temperature along radial,
hoop and meridional direction is assumed to be con-
stant;
where dEi~l is the intensity increment of a -th
strain component (plastic or creep strain); a iDt - the
stress intensity; a o = (am + a e ) / 3.

the layer stress state is assumed biaxial; ra- The intensity increment of plastic strain is calcu-
dial stress is not considered, only two diagonal com- lated with the help of Ei~: - a iDl diagram by the fol-
ponents of stress tensor are taken into account. lowing way:

pi - K load d
d EiDt - - - a iDl ,
H
where K10ad - the loading condition coefficient:
neutral loading (da int =0) and unloading conditions
(daint <0) correspond to K 10ad = 0, loading condi-
tions (da inl >0) corresponds to K 10ad = 1; H - the
b
tangent plastic modulus according to Ei~: - a int dia-
a gram.
The correlation for the creep strain intensity in-
Figure 1. Lower head geometry.
crement may be written as:
The basic equations which allow to describe the Q

lower head stress- strain state evolution with ac- dE,cr

Inl
= A am (t)eIn!
T(I) dt (5)
count of these assumptions can be written by the
following way. where A,m,Q - the creep constants; dt - the time
The hoop and meridian layer strain in each layer increment.
may be written as: Using the plain section assumption it is possible
= Et (t) + Erl (t) + Er (t) + EIh (t) , to write 2N-2 correlations:
Ej (t)
n
(i=m, 6) (1) Ei n R i =Ei n+1Rn+l
j ,

(i = m,e ; n=l, ... ,N-l) (6)

where Ej(t),E jel(t),E r(t),Er '(t),E,h (t) - meridi-
onal (i = m) and hoop (i =6) strains: total, elastic,
plastic, creep and thermal; t - time.
Elastic and thermal strain are written as:
Etl (t) = SiPit) ;
E'h (t) =a'h!l.T (t) , (2)
where Sij - the components of the tensor of elas-
where Rt - meridional (i=m) and hoop (i =e)
radii of n-th layer.
After substitution (1) - (3) into (6) we have the
system of th~ 2N-2 equations in 2N unknown stress
components a j ,1I (i=m, e). The two additional equa-
tion are obtained from the consideration of the force
balance:
N

tic properties; a'h,!l.T are the thermal expansion

2: ai,n (t)On (t) =r; ( i = m,e ) (7)
n=1

318
 Table 2. Creep rate of SA533Bl steel
T,K P,MPa max. elongation, min. creep rate, Time to tertiary Time to creep rup-
% %/h creeI', h ture, h
900 70 22.4 0.03 70 190.1
900 140 24.3 0.35 5.27 11.3
.1000 56 37 2.13 2.58 4.6

where I; - meridional (i = m) and hoop (i = () )
normal forces; on (t) - the thickness of n-th layer. It
is assumed that thickness on (t) changes are due to
unelastic deformation.
MerIdional and hoop normal forces equilibrate
the external loads - vessel pressure and weight of
corium and vessel wall.
Pressure loads. The normal forces in half ellipsoi-
dal lower head caused by vessel overpressure are
equal:
TP,ess _ PRe . TP,ess = PRe (2 _ Re ) ,
m -2' e 2 R
m damage of each layer is determined. A maximum
where P is the in- vessel pressure.
Weight loads. Let's consider the lower head in
section with polar angle <po It is assumed that corium
is liquid and top level of corium is characterized by
polar angle epeof' If considered section is placed un-
der the corium top level, normal forces are caused by
1) hydrostatic pressure P"yd, of liquid corium, placed
above the considered section, and 2) by weight
Weep) of vessel wall and corium, placed under the
considered section. The normal forces in a lower
head wall caused by hydrostatic pressure of liquid
corium is estimated with help of (8), where
P = Phyd, = Peo,gz , (9)
where Peor - the corium density; g - the accel-
eration of free fall; z is the height of corium placed
above the considered section.
If to suggest that hoop force caused by the weight
of corium and vessel wall is negligible then we re-
ceive the correlation for normal meridional force:
2rcR(cp)T;eighl =Weep) sin () ;
Because described approach considers only nor-
mal forces and it does not consider the bending com-
ponent of loads (and the shear force), caused by me-
ridional gradient of physical parameters, we take into
account only meridional force T;eighl as source of
stresses into vessel wall.
So, the normal forces in the force balance equa-
tion (6) are equal:
T
m
= Tmpress + Thydro
m
+ Tweighl
m (11)
Failure criteria. Two failure criteria are included
in the considered models. According to the first crite-
rion the layer fails if the plastic strain intensity ex-
ceeds the ultimate failure strain. The second criterion
is based on the analysis of material damage induced
by creep strains. Using the correlation for time to
(8) rupture at given stress and temperature, the current
cumulative damage reaches the certain limit rupture
is assumed. Lower head global rupture occurs when
all layers of the hoop element are melted or failed.
3. SIMULATION OF LHF-l AND LHF-2
EXPERIMENTS
A 1:4.85-th scaled experiment to characterize
rupture failure of reactor vessel lower head due to
thermal and pressure load has been performed at
SNL. The hemispherical RPV model made of
SA533B1 steel, 0.91 m in diameter and thickness of
29.8 mm - 33.3 mm, which uniformly varied from
bottom center to equator was tested. Two experi-
ments were considered with different thermal loads:
uniformly heated wall in the test LHF-1 and bottom
peaked heating in the test LHF-2.
Vessel pressure and vessel temperature time his-
tories for LHF-I experiment are shown in Figure 4
and Figure 5, correspondingly. Experimental rupture
time was 2.40 hour.
The calculated axial displacement time histories
obtained with FEM HEFEST code at the vessel bot-
(10) tom is plotted in Figure 6 together with experimental
data. Two cases were considered: a)thermal elastic
plastic model with hardening without creep, and b)
full material model which includes creep. One can
see that in both cases good agreement with experi-
ment was obtained, namely:
- up to t= 125 min calculated strain IS equal to
measured values for both models;

319
- both models predict time of significant increase of
the strain rate which corresponds to experimental
data.
At 145-th min deformation achieved 30% which
is in a good agreement to the 33% in the test.
For uncertainty and sensitivity analysis, the
method of statistical tests has been used with the
LOHEY code. The following mechanical properties
were assumed as random parameters: the yield
strength, the ultimate strength, the creep rate, the
time to the creep rupture, the ultimate plastic strain.
The probability density of the vessel failure for LHF-
1 experiment is shown in Figure 5. Predicted failure
time was 2.55 hour (exceeds the experimental value
by 6%).
A specific feature of the LHF-2 experiment was
the two stage loading of the model. Vessel pressure
and vessel temperature time histories are shown in
Figure 8 and Figure 9, correspondingly. As in the
LHF-l test, the intensive deformation was observed
at nearly constant pressure of 10 MPa. Temperature
in the bottom center was about 1000 K during first
stage. Because of malfunctions in heating system and
leak, the vessel was depressurized and experiment
was interrupt.
During the second stage at 475 minutes nominal
pressure of 10 MPa was reached when temperature in
a bottom center was 900 K. Vessel failure was ob-
served at 510 minutes when maximum temperature
was 1020 K. The maximum strain reached the value
of35 %.
Only first stage of the LHF-2 test was simulated
with HEFES T code. During time 135-225 min the
axial and radial displacements were increasing with
approximately constant rate. Calculated deformation
of vessel at 225 minutes is plotted in Figure 11. As
for LHF-l two cases were considered with and with-
out accounting for creep modeling.
Up to the time instant of t1 = 125min, strain rate
gradually increased for both cases presented in
Figure 10. At this time stress intensity in steel
reached the value of von Mises criterion, indicating
the beginning of plastic deformation. Further in-
crease if strains is associated with the steel creep
behavior. Elastic-plastic model predicts the same
deformation rate up to 200 minutes, which increase
320
abruptly with the pressure increase from 10 to 12
MPa at t=200 min. Calculated yield stress cry (980K)
was 15% greater then nominal. Corresponding stress
intensity cre=80 MPa. The discrepancy between cal-
culational and experimental cry was within the un-
certainty range. In calculations with full model, creep
law coefficient was m(T)=1.8 as in [4] but A(T) var-
-22 -20
ied from 10 at 900K, to 210 . at temperature
of 1000K. For this choice of creep constant agree-
ment with experimental data was reasonable. Be-
cause during the first stage of loading, a significant
degree of deformation was achieved, the second
phase was not modelled because residual stress and
annealing might change those properties.
Calculations with LOHEY module predicted that
failure time of vessel model was 8.53 hours which is
in a good agreement with experimental rupture time
of 8.50 hour. We assumed that the internal pressure
and temperature after 8.5 hours were constant and
equal to the values corresponding failure conditions.
The probability and the probability density of the
vessel failure in LHF-2 experiment are shown in
Figure 13.
As it was mentioned the calculations of LHF-2
experiment were sensitive to the choice of creep
constants. At 125-130 minutes intensive deformation
of the vessel was observed. At this time maximum
temperature in the test vessel reached 950 K. In the
temperature range between 900 - 1000K limite d
amount of experimental creep data are available.
Creep data from the report [4] are presented in
Figure 12.
There are different possible approaches for
evaluation of correlation parameters, for example
time to creep rupture in our example. For the de-
scription of rupture time the following expression is
usually used:
G
where B, m ,G are the material constants. The re-
sults presented in the report determine time to rup-
ture using linear part which is characterised by con-
stant strain rate (See Figure 3). Therefore, the use of
this data will allow to predict time to rupture but
deformations will be smaller.
 400
350
300
1- EGP,
- - Y, MPa
calc. v ___ , ..... ,'
250
200 -
.....__ .... __.... _................. .............
"
............ "
150 ........ , ...... -10' .
: min. v
,.' .. '
100
.. ' .. '
50 .. ' .. '

900 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 rupture

T,K
time

Figure 2. Young modulus and yield stress for Figure 3. Sketch of creep strain time history
SA533Bl steel

10 10

8 8
a
a
..-
~
III
a. :0
III
~ :;;Co 6 6 .a
e
!Ii
:J
(/)
(/)

....
CI,)
6
-
~
:J
~
~4 4 'iii
.2:-
.....0.
0

a. E
Q)
cCI,)
I- Cl
2 2
2

0 0 0
0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3
Time, hour Time, hour
Figure 4. Vessel pressure time history during Figure 5. Vessel temperature time history during
LHF-1 experiment. LHF-l experiment and density of the probability

0.30
Experiment
10 ........ EI. - plastic
-Fool model 0.10
8
-0.10
E 6
(,J

,j
4 -0.30

2 -0.50

0
60 80 100 120 140 o o
11/ ~
time, min o o

Figure 6.Axial displacement of the lowest vessel Figure 7.Calculated deformation of pressure vessel
pointfor LHF-l test . for LHF-l experiment at 145 min

321
 L = 1 inch
12
L:= 7 inch
1200
10 L = 11 inch

1000
8
~ ~
g
~ 6

I
:J
600
~ 4 400

2 200

0 0 10
0 5 10 0
Time, hour
Time, hour
Figure 8. Vessel pressu re time history during LHF-2 Figure 9. Vessel tempe rature time history during
experiment. LHF2 experi ment for the differe nt locations
measu red from the bottom center

0.30
8
Experiment
. EI. - plastic
0.10
- F u l l model
6

r_. _ -0.10

-0.30

2
l
.................... -0.50

o~~~~~~~~.-~.-~.-
o 50 100 150 200 250 300 o o .~ o o
o III ID CIl
d d d d d
time, min

Figure 10. Axial displa cemen t of the lowest vessel Figure 11. Calcul ated deform ation of pressu re vessel
point for LHF-2 test for LHF-2 expere ment at 145 min
1.0
1.0 ,--
'I
I
100.0 ~ 0.8 Density of the probability r I
- 0.8
~:::r 1=1::1 riD - = D T =1000 K I
III = ~~ -I J II D I = I =1 =1 J 0
~ 0.6 - 1- -I - ., -
I
, I - I- 0.6
0-
::2: 10.0
iii
~ ~~I_
I ~ I 111111
EI~I _!
I I I 11111
~I~I~
R
:.0
ro
.0
I
I
,
VI
CD
0-

W
1+11- - - =1=14
t=i 1= = ~ =1 =1
l'I,- -T -I -I "1
=t H
n
e
n. 0.4 - 1- -I - -t -

II
,
t-I - 1- 0.4

1.0 = ::i =1=1:::l:l=1 I~= =1 =I::i f=J 0.2 I

I~ ~ ~I~I~ 0.2
~ ~ ~I~I ~I
= ::I = I = I:J LI D = = I =1 =1 ::I 0
o. 0 L--J..-.J..-..L..:II"'--"'--"'--"'---'--1-""O'~-J120.0
O. 1 L...---1.---1-.1.....L..LJ...LJJI....----1..---L.....I-J....J...;L..L.U o 2 4 6 8 10
10 100 1000
Time, hour
Time to the creep rupture
ility and a density of the probab il-
Figure 12. Appro ximati ons of the experi menta l point Figure 13. Probab
on the time to creep failure ity vs. time during LHF -2 experi ment

322
 If we assume that in the formula (12) m does not
depend on temperature than the correlation presented
in Figure 12, should have the same slope in coordi-
nates ( In(t) -InC a) ) for different temperatures. This
line is presented in figure as a solid line. Otherwise,
if we use data obtained for each temperature inde-
pendently, results will differ significantly as it is
shown in Figure 12 by dashed line.
Simulation of the test with the data presented by
solid lines resulted in the vessel failure during the
first stage because estimated time to creep rupture is
about 0,6-0,8 hours. If parameters are chosen in ac-
cordance with dashed lines, time to creep rupture
equals to two hours and vessel failure does not occur
during the first stage.
4. SUMMARY
In the LHF-l uniformly heated test the failure
time and deformations predicted by FEM code are in
a reasonable agreement to the test data. Both elastic-
plastic and creep models can be applied for analysis.
In the LHF-2 test only creep model predicts reasona-
bly test data. The reason for difference is in the dif-
ferences of heating. Heated area in the second test
was smaller due to bottom peaked heating, which led
to the reduction of the area of intensive deformation
and as a consequence to the reduction of effective
stress. This reduction was sufficient for stabilization
of plastic state, and the character of deformation had
more pronounced creep nature.
It was found in the simulations with both models
that results of LHF-2 experiments were very sensi-
tive to accepted material properties. In particular,
both creep strain rate and time to creep rupture de-
pend on the choice of temperature dependencies of
parameters. Use of formulas (5) and (12) with pre-
exponential constant which did not depend on tem-
perature, did not allow to get reasonable agreement
with test data.
Reactor Vessel Lower Head, Nucl.Technology, 100,
1992.
4. Rempe, J.L., S.A.Chavez, G.L.Thinnes, et aI.,
Light Water Reactor Lower Head Failure Analysis.
NUREG/CR-5642. EGG-2618, 1993.
5. T.G.Theofanous, C.Liu, S.Additon, et aI., In-
Vessel Coolablity and Retention of a Core Melt.
Proc. of the 24-th Water Reactor Safety Meeting
NUREG/CP-OI57, Vo1.2, 1997.
6. T.Y.Chu, et aI., Experiment and Modeling of
Creep Behavior of Reactor Pressure Vessel Lower
Head. OECD/CSNI Workshop on In-Vessel Core
Debris Retention and Coolability, Munich, 1998.
7. Drobyshevsky N .1., Zaytcev M.A., Filippov
A.S. 2-D Computer code for Calculation of Quasi-
static Loading of Nonlinearly Deformed Structures.
Preprint NSI-28-93. Moscow:Nuclear Safety insti-
tute, Oct. 1993. 15p.
8. Arutyunyan, R.V., L.A.Bolshov, N.V.Yam-
shchikov & etc. Prediction of the lower head failure
under severe accident. Transactions of the 13th in-
ternational SMiRT Conference. Porte Alegre, Brasil,
13-18 August 1995, VoI.1,P.111-116.-
9. L.Bolshov, R.Arutyunan, V .Strizov, N. Yam-
shchikov, A.Boldyrev. Mechanical behavior simula-
tion of TMI-2 lower head using LOHEY module.
Transactions of the 14th International SMiRT Con-
ference. Lyon, France, 17-22 August 1997.
10. Krieg R.D., Key S.W. Implementation of a
time independent plasticity theory into structural
computer programs, ASME, AMD-20, 1976,
pp.125-137.

5. REFERENCES

1. T.Okkonen, In-vessel Core Debris Cooling

through External Flooding of the Reactor Pressure
Vessel. NEAlCSNIIR(94)6, 1994.
2. H.Park et aI., Thermal Stresses and Creep
Rupture Analysis for a PWR Vessel Lower Head
during External Flooding, Proc. of National Heat
Transfer Conf., San Diego, 1992.
3. H.Park, V.K.Dhir, Effect of Outside Cooling
on the Thermal Behavior of a Pressurized Water

323