Ageing Management Effectiveness for Nuclear Power Plant Equipment

The owners of nuclear power plants (NPPs) make decisions to extend the plant life of the power units: these capacities are the source of various benefits for society as cheap electricity, energy independence, jobs, knowledge and technological development. The opportunities for plant life extension of NPPs are demonstrated throught analysis, tests and adequate life time management. The book describes the physics of the main degradation mechanisms of mechanical equipment in WWER-type NPPs, methods of equipment maintenance and control, and evaluation of ageing management programmes effectiveness. One of the issue that modern nuclear energy faces is whether the methods for inspection and diagnostics, the scope of inspected equipment and the frequency of inspections are effective against the existing degradation mechanisms of mechanical properties. How is their effectiveness checked? This is not an easy task, given that the NPP vessels, equipment, pipelines, welds that need to be inspected are thousands units of facilities.