Proposal of residual stress mitigation in nuclear safety-related austenitic stainless steel TP304 pipe bended by local induction heating process via elastic-plastic finite element analysis

Abstract

This paper proposes a residual stress mitigation of a nuclear safety-related austenitic stainless steel TP304 pipe bended by local induction heating process via performing elastic-plastic finite element analysis. Residual stress distributions of the pipe bend were calculated by performing finite element analysis. Validity of the finite element analysis procedure was verified via comparing with temperature histories measured by using thermocouples, ultrasonic thickness measurement results, and residual stress measurement results by a hole-drilling method. Parametric finite element stress analysis was performed to investigate effects of the process and geometric shape variables on the residual stresses on inner surfaces of the pipe by applying the verified procedure. As a result of the parametric analysis, it was found that it is difficult to considerably reduce the inner surface residual stresses by changing the existing process and geometric shape variables. So, in order to mitigate the residual stresses, effect of an additional process such as cooling after the bending on the residual stresses was investigated. Finally, it was identified that the additional heating after the bending can significantly reduce the residual stresses while other variables have insignificant effect. Keywords: Local induction heating, Pipe bend, Austenitic stainless steel TP304, Nuclear safety-related class, Residual stresses mitigation, Elastic-plastic finite element analysis