Partial service life assessment of a reactor containment

A service life assessment of a prestressed concrete containment is developed. Liner strain is the sole limit state criterion considered, the LOCA accidents represent the load effects and the creep induced loss of prestress affects the time dependent structure resistance. Poisson, Gaussian and Ferry Borges–Castanheta processes are adopted for load models and their predictions are compared on the background of a specific PWR installation. Available experimental data is used to optimize the theoretical creep law. The Poisson and FBC processes show negligible difference for actual pulse intensities and the required service life.