Roadmap for Nondestructive Evaluation of Reactor Pressure Vessel Research and Development by the Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program

Book excerpt: The Department of Energy s (DOE) Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program is a five year effort which works to develop the fundamental scientific basis to understand, predict, and measure changes in materials and systems, structure, and components as they age in environments associated with continued long-term operations of existing commercial nuclear power reactors. This year, the Materials Aging and Degradation (MAaD) Pathway of this program has placed emphasis on emerging Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) methods which support these objectives. DOE funded Research and Development (R & D) on emerging NDE techniques to support commercial nuclear reactor sustainability is expected to begin next year. This summer, the MAaD Pathway invited subject matter experts to participate in a series of workshops which developed the basis for the research plan of these DOE R & D NDE activities. This document presents the results of one of these workshops which are the DOE LWRS NDE R & D Roadmap for Reactor Pressure Vessels (RPV). These workshops made a substantial effort to coordinate the DOE NDE R & D with that already underway or planned by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) through their representation at these workshops.