INcreasing safety in NPPs by Covering gaps in Environmental Fatigue Assessment - focusing on gaps between laboratory data and component SCALE

Project Information

INCEFA-SCALE

Grant agreement ID: 945300

DOI

10.3030/945300

Project closed

EC signature date 20 May 2020

Start date 1 October 2020

End date 31 March 2026

Funded under

• Euratom

Total cost

€ 6 807 417,50

EU contribution

€ 3 999 999,82

Coordinated by

AMENTUM CLEAN ENERGY LIMITED.
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - INCEFA-SCALE (INcreasing safety in NPPs by Covering gaps in Environmental Fatigue Assessment - focusing on gaps between laboratory data and component SCALE)

Reporting period: 2023-04-01 to 2024-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The overall objective is to advance the ability to predict lifetimes of Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) components when subjected to Environmental Assisted Fatigue (EAF) loading. Whilst understanding and ability to better predict EAF lifetimes for NPP equipment has advanced significantly since the predecessor INCEFA-PLUS project was proposed, the knowledge gap relating to ability to apply uniaxial small-scale laboratory data to the full range of component geometries and loadings remains. An EPRI led component scale test project will help address this knowledge gap, but on its own will be unlikely to produce sufficient data to remove all perceived conservatisms relating to prediction of component lifetimes. INCEFA-SCALE's ambition is to move beyond this “state-of-the-art” by utilizing focused and well-coordinated research leading to mechanistic understanding through which the results can be extrapolated to the range of situations seen on NPP plant.

Presently, there are initiatives underway worldwide through which sensitivities affecting transferability of lab data to component scale are being explored. Many INCEFA-SCALE of the consortium members are involved in these initiatives. INCEFA-SCALE will bring these activities together so that they are coordinated and performed, such that ability to develop practical engineering methodologies from the increased mechanistic understanding is maximized.

For society the impact can be summarized as follows:

• Since the ability to properly predict EAF lifetimes for real NPP component geometries and loadings will be new, it will be, by definition, highly innovative. The European consortium members can exploit this new capability by improving their assessment capabilities for plant operators.
• The longer NPP lifetimes that could be possible will bring significant environmental benefits by, a) maintaining access to clean energy, and b) delaying plant decommissioning with its inherent environmental and financial consequences.
• Longer NPP lifetimes also bring about improved security of energy supply.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the Second Period, activities can be summarized as:
• Signing of commercial documents necessary for the smooth running of the project.
• Signing of the International Fatigue Database Agreement.
• Data mining techniques have been developed and applied to a database combining INCEFA-PLUS data and available third party data. This has been completed and produced a data exploration and analysis tool for use by the project partners. This tool is capable of using machine learning methods to create predictive models. Although Data Mining was envisaged as a Year 1 activity, the techniques developed are going to continue to be applied for the rest of the project as INCEFA-SCALE test data becomes available..
• Through frequent virtual discussions, the range of possible tests has been rationalized into a test matrix that is sufficiently focused and achievable to deliver benefits during Year 3 of the project. During this year, a significant area for focus will be on Complex Loading combined with a range of specimen geometries including features testing with notches and multiaxial specimens. Specimen manufacture was agreed and executed in time for testing to continue.
• The foundations for developing Mechanistic Understanding have been developed. Microstructural characterizations of the as-supplied condition of the INCEFA-SCALE common stainless steel 316L material have been performed. Characterisation of tested specimens is also underway and is producing data that will underpin the models being used in the analysis and modelling work package.
• The Analysis and Modelling activities have commenced and are beginning to develop approaches for evaluating the test data. There are ongoing discussions making sure that early observations are communicated to define the direction of the project in addition to securing all relevant metadata that can support the modelling of test.
• Dissemination and training activities have focused on, promoting awareness of the project and its objectives to the wider international community through presentations at two international conferences and. Dissemination channels in the form of a website, ResearchGate presence, Twitter account, and LinkedIn presence have also been established.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Consortium partners will have available to them new approaches to EAF lifetime assessments which can then be further exploited as follows:

• Consortium members with regulatory focus will find it easier to assess safety submissions, they will also be in a position to lobby the owners of standards to make the standards more appropriate.
• Consortium members whose business involves helping make LTO safety justifications will have new capabilities which will make their services more attractive to plant owners.

Attention to data management is also essential for realisation of maximum project impact. Measures planned to manage this aspect include:

• Data requirements will be agreed within the consortium. By the end of the first year there will be clear agreements for all members as to the types of data required. A focus on recording of testing parameters as well as testing results will be a feature of the requirements.
• There is no standard even for standard uniaxial environmental fatigue testing, so standards for the more specialised types of testing expected to be employed also do not exist. A protocol will be developed for INCEFA-SCALE to address the specialised types of testing to be adopted. Thus, the project will be able to continue to maintain high standards of testing quality. The testing protocol will be included in the project final public deliverable.
• INCEFA-SCALE will be taking advantage of existing JRC services for managing engineering materials data. At https://odin.jrc.ec.europa.eu the European Commission JRC hosts an Online Data and Information Network (ODIN). In the engineering category, MatDB is a relational, web-enabled database application that contains over 20.000 test results coming mainly from European R&D projects and provides a web-interface for data content, data entry, data retrieval and analysis routines.
• The data created by the project will, so far as practicable, be uploaded by partners into the MatDB database. Each MatDB data set will be assigned a DataCite DOI, so that all data sets can be cited in derivative works. The result will be that for every data set, bibliographic metadata corresponding to the mandatory fields of the DataCite metadata schema v3.0 will be openly accessible.
• Data in MatDB remains available long-term after INCEFA-SCALE finishes. Hopefully, newer types of test data will be able to be stored in MatDB as well. In any case, however this data is stored, measures to keep the data available after the end of INCEFA-SCALE will be agreed as part of the projects data management obligations.
• INCEFA-SCALE common material data will be made available publicly after the project closes.
• Towards the end of the project, a journal paper is planned to be published in Open Access in order to further disseminate the project findings. This will be published under “gold” open access, with costs for this included by the University of Cantabria in the project.

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