Steam generator tubes experience widespread degradation such as stress corrosion cracking, wear, tube rupture, denting, fatigue and so on. The resulting damages can cause tube bursting or leak of the primary water which contains radioactivity. Therefo...
Steam generator tubes experience widespread degradation such as stress corrosion cracking, wear, tube rupture, denting, fatigue and so on. The resulting damages can cause tube bursting or leak of the primary water which contains radioactivity. Therefore the allowable size of the damage is required to be determined on the maintenance purpose.
The burst pressure of a tube with a T-type combination crack consisting of longitudinal and circumferential cracks is obtained experimentally and analytically. Fracture parameters such as stress intensity factor and crack opening angle are investigated. And tubesheet effect with a T-type combination crack is considered by using the crack opening angle. Also, the burst pressure for a T-type combination crack is compared with that of a single longitudinal crack to develop a length-based criteria.