The aging nuclear fleet in many countries highlights the importance of knowledge and experience transfer to support the long-term operation and safe deployment of new nuclear power plants. In this context, the NEA Pipe Integrity Workshop gathered around 90 experts from around the world to discuss piping integrity assessments, the achievements of benchmarking activities, ongoing challenges, and the applicability of these approaches to advanced reactors. Organised by the Metal Subgroup of the NEA Working Group on Integrity and Ageing of Components and Structures (WGIAGE) with support from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the three-day workshop took place on 23-25 September in Paris, France.
The event sessions featured presentations and panel discussions on the evolution of piping integrity and nuclear applications. Dr Gery Wilkowski (EMC2) shed light on the US perspective on historical nuclear piping integrity development and future outlook. Dr Naoki Miura (CRIEPI) spoke about Japanese perspective and Prof. Yun-Jae Kim (Korea University) provided a historical review of piping fracture mechanics analysis. Dr Bjorn Brickstad highlighted leak before break (LBB) analysis methods and probabilistic fracture mechanics (PFM) approaches to nuclear piping integrity in Sweden.
Participants also heard about benchmark activities by the Metal Subgroup to improve the understanding of current applications, as well as the probabilistic approaches to support plant life extension from regulatory and practical application perspectives.
During the fourth session, speakers shared approaches to extend LBB concepts and to improve and modify design and evaluation concepts for smaller piping systems, specifically those in enclosed environments such as nuclear submarine reactors. Discussions also included the piping system challenges related to the non-light-water reactor designs. The workshop concluded with a session dedicated to considerations of model uncertainty and how these can be addressed.
For more information on WGIAGE and upcoming activities, visit the WGIAGE webpage.
