Critical Reflections about Doel3 & Tihange2

Integrity reactor vessels Doel 3 and Tihange 2

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hydrogen is taken from the solubility curve presented in figure 10 where the curve of 1 atm crosses the abscissa, which corresponds to 0.8 ppm at 100 o C, which corresponds to 70ml H 2 / dm 3 . Table 1 summarizes the amounts of hydrogen in the steel. The last column of table 1 presents the amount of hydrogen involved in the flaw creation process.

Figure 11: Axisymmetric 2D-FEM model of a crack.

Figure 12: Von Mises stress distribution around a crack loaded by an internal pressure inside the crack from the center to the edge of the crack.

Necessary amount of hydrogen to cause the high density of cracks in the shell. In the next paragraphs, it will be demonstrated that there is not sufficient hydrogen dissolved in the metal to

R.Boonen & J.Peirs

May 18, 2017