Design Rules for Ratcheting Damage in AFCEN RCC-MRX 2012 Code

The paper describes the design rules for ratcheting in the 2012 edition of the RCC-MRx Code issued in French and English versions by AFCEN (French Association for the rules governing the Design, Construction and Operating Supervision of the Equipment Items for Electro Nuclear Boilers).For austenitic stainless steels, the RCC-MRx Code uses the efficiency diagram concept to evaluate an effective primary stress, Peff. Peff is defined as a virtual stress that applied alone would cause the same strain as the combination of the primary static stress and the secondary cyclic strain really applied. This concept is extended to significant creep domain and includes corrections to take into account structures cases presenting secondary membrane stresses (e.g. cylinders subjected to axial thermal gradients varying with time and space) or short duration overloads (as a level A seismic load, or an overload due to rapid drain-out caused by a sodium-water reaction).An alternative 3Sm design rule is proposed for all materials in the case of non-significant creep damage.Copyright © 2014 by ASME