ML24198A069
| ML24198A069 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 11/19/2024 |
| From: | Jay Wallace NRC/RES/DE |
| To: | Matthew Mitchell, Steve Ruffin Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research |
| JAY WALLACE 3014152418 | |
| References | |
| Download: ML24198A069 (5) | |
Text
MEMORANDUM TO:
Steve Ruffin, Chief Materials Engineering Branch Division of Engineering Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research Matthew Mitchell, Chief Piping and Head Penetrations Branch Division of New and Renewed Licenses Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation FROM:
Jay Wallace, Materials Engineer /RA/
Materials Engineering Branch Division of Engineering Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
SUBJECT:
SUMMARY
OF THE JUNE 28, 2024 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE APPLICABILITY OF EXTENDED FINITE ELEMENT METHOD (XFEM) AND ALTERNATE TECHNOLOGIES FOR MODELING FLAW PROPAGATION IN COMPLEX, 3-DIMENSIONAL COMPONENTS The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff held a hybrid observation public meeting to discuss the applicability of eXtended Finite Element Method (XFEM) and alternate technologies for modeling flaw propagation in complex, 3-Dimensional geometries.
NRC staff (J. Collins) described the need for software that can provide rapid turnaround time confirmational analysis of flaw growth in complex 3-Dimensional geometries for licensee submissions that could occur during an outage. He stated that the purpose of this meeting was to gather experience from XFEM practitioners to evaluate the viability of XFEM for NRC use.
Engineering Mechanics of Columbus Corporation (EMC2; F. Brust, L. Hill)) presented their experience (under contract to the NRC) with modeling complex 3-Dimensional flaw growth with Abaqus XFEM and alternative AFEA software that could perform semi-automatic flaw growth.
CONTACT:
Jay Wallace, RES/DE 301-415-2418 November 19, 2024
S. Ruffin, M. Mitchell 2
They showed that while XFEM is capable of simulating flaw growth in complex geometries in a self-contained workflow, very significant expert up-front time investment is required to map weld residual stress determinations to the fine mesh required for XFEM. In addition, nearly 50% of the time consuming XFEM simulations would not run to completion before the program exited.
They noted for comparison that AFEA solutions can model complex flaw growth but could require significant nursing to obtain solutions when poor meshes occurred during flaw growth.
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI; DJ Shim) presented their XFEM experience for a nozzle corner crack growing by fatigue. They employed Abaqus XFEM for generating the stress intensity factors along the crack front and a Python script for model generation and natural fatigue flaw growth. They found that the shape of the growing flaw front was somewhat unstable and that a 4th order polynomial smoothing of the crack shape was required to produce stable flaw growth solutions.
Idaho National Laboratory (INL; B. Spencer) presented XFEM theory and their XFEM implementation within the MOOSE framework. This implementation used phantom node method with a robust algorithm for cutting and reconnecting the mesh. He noted that some noise can exist along interfaces and at crack tips, but this can be mitigated with mesh refinement or near-tip enrichment. Mesh refinement at the crack tip was their preferred method. He noted that this open source XFEM implementation may be less user-friendly than commercial implementations, requiring a higher degree of expertise to use.
No regulatory decisions were made as a result of this meeting.
Public Meeting Notice: Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS)
Accession No.: ML24158A236 Meeting Presentation Slides ADAMS Accession No.: ML24198A088, ML24198A090, ML24198A091
Enclosure:
- 1. List of Meeting Attendees
S. Ruffin, M. Mitchell 3
Enclosure:
List of Meeting Attendees Name Organization Jay Wallace US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
Jay Collins NRC Carol Nove NRC Ting-Leung Sham NRC Seung Min NRC Isaac Anchondo-Lopez NRC John McKirgan NRC Mat Burton NRC Stephen Cumblidge NRC Si Hwan Park NRC Trey Hathaway NRC Thomas Weaver NRC John Tsao NRC Yi-Lun Chu NRC Amy Hull NRC Se-Kwon Jung NRC Christopher Ulmer NRC Steve Ruffin NRC Christopher Tyree NRC Bart Fu NRC Kaihwa Hsu NRC Eric Reichelt NRC David Rudland NRC Brian Harris NRR NRC Raj Iyengar NRC Rosalynn Wang NRC Austin Im NRC JS Nie NRC George Thomas NRC Stewart Bailey NRC Prosanta Chowdhury NRC Scott Stovall NRC Ed Miller NRC Eric Palmer NRC Huan Li NRC Ata Istar NRC Angie Buford NRC Karen Sida NRC Luissette Candelario-Quintana NRC Robert Tregoning NRC Joseph Ashcraft NRC Tristan Villarreal NRC Steven Levitus NRC
S. Ruffin, M. Mitchell 4
Austin Young NRC Michele Sampson NRC Jason White NRC Francesco Brigante NRG Koray Kuscu CB&I Genadijs Sagals Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Masato Yamamoto CRIEPI Toshio Nagashima CRIEPI Gabriel Duan Czech Academy of Sciences Zhen-zhong Du Dassault Systmes Ian Stevenson Dassault Systmes Matt Wirginis Dassault Systmes Xiujun Fang Dassault Systmes Troy Meurer Dominion Engineering Glen White Dominion Engineering Bud Brust EMC2 Lance Hill EMC2 Elizabeth Kurth EMC2 Gery Wilkowski EMC2 Do Jun Shim EPRI Benjamin W. Spencer Idaho National Laboratory Oriol Costa Institut "Jozef Stefan" Patrik Tarfila Institut "Jozef Stefan" Steven Xu Kinetrics Peter Dillstrm Kiwa Daniel Mngrd Kiwa Liu Sue KAIST Baxter W. Barnes NASA Keiko Chitose OECD-NEA Fernando Mora Mendez Diego Paul Scherrer Institute Robert Dodds private Tim Polich RoPower Yihai Shi SNC Lavalin Yanlong Li Sophia University Mo Uddin Structural Integrity Pitknen Janne STUK Milan Ducic Tractebel Christian Malekian Tractebel Kaveh Samadian Tractebel Miroslav Posta
ÚJV ez, a. s.
Pavel Samohyl
ÚJV ez, a. s.
Gavin Cabral Keith Harrison Katarina Siskova Wang Yan
Memo ML24198A069 OFFICE RES/DE/CIB NRR/DNRL/NPHP RES/DE/MEB RES/DE/CIB NAME JWallace MMitchell SRuffin JWallace DATE Nov 18, 2024 Nov 18, 2024 Nov 18, 2024 Nov 19, 2024