Significance and Use

Practices E185 and E2215 describe a minimum program for the surveillance of reactor vessel materials, specifically mechanical property changes that occur in service. This guide may be applied in order to generate additional specific fracture toughness property information on radiation-induced property changes to better assist the determination of the optimum reactor vessel operation schemes.

1. Scope

1.1 This guide discusses test procedures that can be used in conjunction with, but not as alternatives to, those required by Practices E185 and E2215 for the surveillance of nuclear reactor vessels. The supplemental mechanical property tests outlined permit the acquisition of additional information on radiation-induced changes in fracture toughness, notch ductility, and yield strength properties of the reactor vessel steels.

1.2 This guide provides recommendations for the preparation of test specimens for irradiation, and identifies special precautions and requirements for reactor surveillance operations and postirradiation test planning. Guidance on data reduction and computational procedures is also given. Reference is made to other ASTM test methods for the physical conduct of specimen tests and for raw data acquisition.

2. Referenced Documents (purchase separately) The documents listed below are referenced within the subject standard but are not provided as part of the standard.

ASTM Standards

E23 Test Methods for Notched Bar Impact Testing of Metallic Materials

E185 Practice for Design of Surveillance Programs for Light-Water Moderated Nuclear Power Reactor Vessels

E399 Test Method for Linear-Elastic Plane-Strain Fracture Toughness K Ic of Metallic Materials

E1253 Guide for Reconstitution of Irradiated Charpy-Sized Specimens

E1820 Test Method for Measurement of Fracture Toughness

E1921 Test Method for Determination of Reference Temperature, To, for Ferritic Steels in the Transition Range

E2215 Practice for Evaluation of Surveillance Capsules from Light-Water Moderated Nuclear Power Reactor Vessels

E2298 Test Method for Instrumented Impact Testing of Metallic Materials

ASME Standards

Keywords

fracture toughness; irradiation; notch ductility; nuclear reactor vessels; surveillance (of nuclear reactor vessels)
; Irradiance/irradiation; Neutron flux/fluence; Nuclear reactor vessels--surveillance; Radiation exposure--nuclear materials/applications ;

ICS Code

ICS Number Code 27.120.10 (Reactor engineering)

DOI: 10.1520/E0636-10

ASTM International is a member of CrossRef.

ASTM E636