1. The heavy-section steel technology pressurized-thermal-shock experiment, PTSE-1
- Author
-
B.R. Bass, R.H. Bryan, G.D. Whitman, J.G. Merkle, G.C. Robinson, and C.E. Pugh
- Subjects
Thermal shock ,Engineering ,business.industry ,Mechanical Engineering ,Fracture mechanics ,Structural engineering ,Oak Ridge National Laboratory ,Pressure vessel ,Brittleness ,Mechanics of Materials ,Section (archaeology) ,General Materials Science ,Transient (oscillation) ,business - Abstract
A pressurized-thermal-shock (PTS) facility was developed in the Heavy-Section Steel Technology Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for performing experiments that challenge predictions of analytical methods applicable to full-scale reactor pressure vessels under combined loading. The first experiment (PTSE-1) was designed to address three principal issues: (1) warm-prestressing phenomena; (2) crack propagation from brittle to ductile regions; and (3) transient crack stabilization in ductile regions. The paper presents a description of the PTS facility at ORNL and a review of the objectives and results of the first test. Also included are elastodynamic finite-element analyses of the two crack run-arrest events that occurred in the second and third phases of the test. Finally, some conclusions and recommendations are presented based on the outcome of the first experiment.
- Published
- 1986