Effect of Assumed Weld Residual Stress Distribution on SCC Crack Propagation

Abstract

Weld residual stress is the main driving force to promote the SCC crack propagation in LWR components, and various residual stress distributions have been proposed in codes and/or standards. In this study, the effect of the different stress distributions on SCC crack propagation was investigated. There were significant variations between the stress distributions for the same object of analysis, and they showed diverse SCC crack propagation behavior. It should be noted that a conservative weld residual stress distribution may cause excessively conservative prediction of remaining life.