The Assessment for Coupling Integrity of Pressurizer Support Bolting

In nuclear power plant, anchor bolts for pressurizer supports are sufficiently used in terms of safety reason, but field inspections have reported that some bolts exceed the limit of their allowable hardness. Because the high level of hardness may lead to failures due to the stress corrosion or fracture toughness, a regular inspection is required for the bolts in nuclear power plant. Thus, this research measures the hardness of bolts currently used in pressurizer supports and then estimates maximum allowable stresses preventing failures by stress corrosion and fracture toughness. Using the ANSYS program, the stresses of the bolts in the regular condition and accidental condition have been calculated, and the possible maximum stress has been compared with the estimated allowable stresses. From the results, the stresses of bolts in the accidental condition satisfy the allowable safety stress from the stress corrosion failure. However, in the future, it shall be needed to consider the reflection of the structure assembling method on the assembling procedure to ensure the pressur