Comparison of Allowable Bending Moments for Circumferentially Flawed Pipes in ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section XI Nonmandatory Appendices C and H

In this paper, allowable bending moments for circumferential inner surface cracked pipes are evaluated. ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel code Section XI, “Rules for Inspection of Nuclear Power Plant Components” provides analytical evaluation procedures. Analytical evaluation methods based on the failure mechanism are provided in nonmandatory Appendix C and those based on failure assessment diagram are given in nonmandatory Appendix H. Allowable bending moments are evaluated using both appendices and compared with experiments. Conservativeness is compared quantitatively between both methods by normalizing allowable bending moments with experimental maximum moments.