Restraining effect of support plates on the limit loads for circumferential cracks in the steam generator tube

The steam generator in a nuclear power plant is a large heat exchanger that uses heat from a reactor to generate steam to drive the turbine generator. Rupture of a steam generator tube can result in release of fission products to environment outside. Therefore, an accurate integrity assessment of the steam generator tubes with cracks is of great importance for maintaining the safety of a nuclear power plant. The steam generator tubes are supported at regular intervals by tube support plates and rotations of the tubes are restrained. Although it has been reported that the limit load for a circumferential crack is significantly affected by boundary condition of the tube, existing limit load solutions do not consider the restraining effect of tube support plate correctly. In addition, there are no limit load solutions for circumferential cracks in U-bend region with the effect of tube support plate. This paper provides detailed limit load solutions for circumferential cracks in top of tube sheet and the U-bend regions of the steam generator tube with the actual boundary conditions to simulate the restraining effect of the tube support plate. Such solutions are developed based on three-dimensional (3-D) finite element analyses. The resulting limit load solutions are given in a polynomial form, and thus can be simply used in practical integrity assessment of the steam generator tubes.