Nuclear Engineering and Design 239 (2009) 22362241

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Nuclear Engineering and Design
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Structural evaluation of a piping system subjected to thermal stratication
Somnath Chattopadhyay
Department of Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, College Place, DuBois, PA 15801, United States
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 23 January 2009
Received in revised form 13 July 2009
Accepted 17 July 2009
a b s t r a c t
Piping systems in nuclear power plants are often designed for pressure, mechanical loads originating
from deadweight and seismic events and operating thermal transients using the equations in the ASME
Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, Section III. In the last few decades a number of failures in piping have
occurred due to thermal stratication caused by the mixing of hot and cold uids under certain low
ow conditions. Such stratied temperature uid proles give rise to circumferential metal temperature
gradients through the pipe leading to high stresses causing fatigue damage. Asimplied method has been
developed in this work to estimate the stresses caused by the circumferential temperature distribution
fromthermal stratication. It has been proposed that the equation for the peak stress in the ASME Section
III piping code include an additional term for thermal stratication.
2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Nuclear piping systems (Class 1) are designed according to the
rules of NB 3600 of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, Sec-
tion III (ASME, 2007). The loads producing the stresses originate
fromtheinternal pressure, deadweight, seismic andthermal expan-
sion loads and the operating thermal transients. Normally piping
systems arenot designedfor circumferential temperaturevariation.
However, duringsomeevents, especiallyunder lowowconditions,
circumferential temperature distribution due to the mixing of hot
andcolduids (thermal stratication) canleadtosignicant fatigue
failures in piping. The purpose of this work is to estimate the peak
stresses due to thermal stratication and to suggest a modication
to the existing design rules of NB 3600 to incorporate such effects
for fatigue evaluation.
The thermal stratication occurs when streams of water at dif-
ferent temperatures meet. The density of water varies signicantly
with temperature. So when there is a mixing of uids at differ-
ent temperatures in a circular pipe, the warmer uid, which is less
dense, tends to seek the upper portion of the pipe, while the cooler
uid remains at the bottom. The effect of the thermal stratication
on the state of stress in the pipe is manifested in two ways: (a)
the difference in temperature between the top and bottom of the
pipe causes greater thermal expansion at the top tending to bow
the pipe. When such bowing is restrained, global bending stresses
result; (b) the interface between the two uid layers causes a local
stress in the pipe due to steep thermal gradient across the pipe
section.
E-mail address: sxc72@psu.edu.
Such stratied conditions have been observed for the piping
adjacent to the main feed water nozzle for a number of pressurized
water reactor (PWR) steam generators, and the resulting thermal
stresses have caused extensive cracking in those areas (see e.g.
USNRC Bulletins 88-08 and 88-11). The thermal stratication pro-
duces circumferential temperature gradients in the piping and can
lead to very high stresses. These high stresses produce low cycle
fatigue damage in piping undermining its structural integrity. The
mechanismof stratication has been identied as a source for pipe
fatigue damage in the United States NRC Bulletin 88-08 and the
United States NRC Bulletin 88-11. Signicant fatigue damage in feed
water lines due to stratication has been reported (Miksch et al.,
1985; Thurman et al., 1981). Thermal hydraulic experimental stud-
ies have been reported by Kim et al. (1993) in order to establish
temperature loading conditions at the piping surface location for
subsequent fatigue analysis.
Thermal stratication by itself is generally not a concern for
fatigue failure. However, if a mechanism for cycling exists, fatigue
cracking can occur. The sources of thermal cycling are due to (a)
changes in interface level, (b) changes in temperature and (c) tur-
bulence penetration. Under certain thermal-hydraulic conditions,
the interface between the hot and cold layers can become turbu-
lent leading to high frequency cycling over a narrow range in the
vertical prole of the pipe (EPRI TASCS, 1994). This phenomenon is
called thermal striping and has been reported for PWR feed water
nozzles (Thurman et al., 1981), where the interface level between
hot and cold owing uids oscillates rapidly with periods rang-
ing from 0.1 to 10s and is thus exposed to a rapidly varying uid
temperature. This produces uctuating surface stresses, which are
typically small in magnitude, but the number of cycles is so large
that these stresses could contribute signicantly to fatigue crack
initiation.
0029-5493/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.nucengdes.2009.07.017
S. Chattopadhyay / Nuclear Engineering and Design 239 (2009) 22362241 2237
Nomenclature
A pipe cross-sectional area
C
1
secondary stress index for membrane (hoop) stress
(peak)
C
2
secondary stress index for bending stress (peak)
C
3
secondary stress index for thermal stress (peak)
C

3
secondary stress index for thermal stress (primary
plus secondary)
D
0
pipe outside diameter
E elastic modulus of the pipe material
E
ab
average cold elastic modulus between sides a and
b of the discontinuity
f
0
(x) displacement function
f
1
(x) displacement function
I moment of inertia of the pipe cross-section
K
1
local stress index for membrane (hoop) stress (peak)
K
2
local stress index for bending stress (peak)
K
3
local stress index for thermal stress (peak)
K
strat
stratication intensication factor
M
i
applied bending moment to the pipe
M
T
effective bending moment due to circumferential
temperature gradient
P
0
applied internal pressure in the pipe
P
T
effective axial force due to circumferential temper-
ature gradient
R
m
mean pipe radius
S
m
allowable design stress intensity for the pipe mate-
rial
S
p
peak stress intensity in the pipe
T temperature at a particular location of the pipe
T
a
average temperature of side a
T
b
average temperature of side b
T
1
, T
2
,. . ., T
13
temperatures at various circumferential pipe
locations
T
m1
, T
m2
,. . ., T
m12
mean temperatures at various circumfer-
ential pipe segments
T
1
linear component of the temperature gradient
T
2
nonlinear component of the temperature gradient
T
strat
effective stratication temperature gradient
t thickness of the pipe
u axial displacement
x coordinate in the axial direction
y coordinate in the horizontal direction
z coordinate in the vertical direction
coefcient of thermal expansion for the pipe mate-
rial

a
coefcient of thermal expansion for side a

b
coefcient of thermal expansion for side b

xx
axial elastic strain in pipe
pipe material Poissons ratio

xx
axial elastic stress in pipe
Jhung and Choi (2008) have investigated the effect of thermal
stratication on the structural integrity of a nuclear power plant
pressurizer surge pipeline. They have developed nite element
models of the surge line using several element types available in a
general purpose structural analysis program. They have performed
stress analysis to determine the response characteristics for various
types of top-to-bottom temperature differentials due to thermal
stratication and have concluded that thermal stratication is a
major contributor to the fatigue life of the surge line.
Bain et al. (1992) have concluded that the circumferential
temperature distribution is critical to the analysis of thermal strat-
ication and has a signicant effect on piping local stresses and
bending moments. They have used a semicircular two-dimensional
model with 18 circumferential elements and 3 elements through
the pipe thickness to model the pipe and have obtained the out-
side wall temperatures by applying uid temperature prole and
lm coefcient at the pipe inside wall. The uid temperature dis-
tributionincludes stepchanges, stepchanges witha linear interface
region and linear distribution. For each of these cases they analyti-
cally compute correction factors to be applied to the top to bottom
temperature difference as well as tothe resultingbendingmoments
to compute stresses. The maximum value of the correction factor
was found to be 1.18.
Furuhashi et al. (2008) have obtained evaluation charts for tem-
perature distribution and thermal stresses in cylindrical vessels for
thermal stratication. In their formulation the radius of the shell
is large compared to the thickness thereby leading to a model of
a at plate exposed to a owing uid on one face with the other
face insulated. They found the thermal stress to depend on the
ratioof thetemperatureattenuationcoefcient totheshell material
attenuation coefcient, as well as the stratication prole.
The structural response due to stratication and striping has
been addressed from the standpoint of fracture mechanics in a
number of studies. Lee and Song (1993) have investigated the
behavior of a small crack located at the thermal striping zone in
a thermally stratied pipe using the nite element method. They
have concludedthat the stress intensityfactor depends onthe oscil-
lating frequency and the heat transfer coefcient. Jones (2003)
assumed a small crack located in the thermal stratication zone
and found the crack growth to depend on the oscillation frequency,
material properties and crack depth.
In this study, an analytical technique has been employed to
evaluate the stresses due to thermal stratication. The effect of
thermal striping has not beenconsidered. The existing ASME piping
design equations are rst discussed. This is followed by a procedure
for calculating thermal stresses in a pipe due to circumferential
temperature gradient. The numerical solution is an approximate
one that employs typical piping dimensions for a PWR plant, and
makes use of standardized uid temperature proles as measured
by thermocouples placed around the circumferential locations in
the piping in a number of power plants. The peak stress due to
through thickness temperature variation has not been explicitly
considered, but conservatively a value of 2.0 is used. The result-
ing stress intensication factor is applied to the calculated thermal
stress and then used for fatigue evaluation. This procedure is rec-
ommended to be used in the ASME Code for fatigue evaluation.
2. ASME Code piping design criteria for thermal stresses
In piping systems the uid temperature variation gives rise to a
temperature gradient occurring through the thickness of the pipe
wall. The temperature variations also cause differences in aver-
age wall temperatures at locations of gross piping discontinuities
due to differential rate of heating between regions of unequal wall
thickness. A gross discontinuity may also be present at a bimetal-
lic welded joint where different coefcients of thermal expansion
exist. The thickness gradients as well as the gross discontinuity
stresses are addressedinthe piping designallowable for peak stress
Fig. 1. Coordinate system for the pipe.
2238 S. Chattopadhyay / Nuclear Engineering and Design 239 (2009) 22362241
intensity range (ASME, 2007), which states,
S
p
= K
1
C
1
P
0
D
0
2t
+K
2
C
2
M
i
D
0
2I
+
K
3
2(1 )
E|T
1
|
+K
3
C
3
E
ab
|
a
T
a

b
T
b
| +
E
(1 )
|T
2
| (1)
S
p
is used for fatigue evaluation. Excluding the effects of thermal
bending the following requirement must be satised:
C
1
P
0
D
0
2t
+C
2
M
i
D
0
2I
+C

3
E
ab
|
a
T
a

b
T
b
| 3S
m
(2)
Here K
1
, K
2
, K
3
are the local stress indices, C
1
, C
2
, C
3
, C

3
are the sec-
ondary stress indices for the component under consideration, P
0
is the applied internal pressure, M
i
the applied bending moment,
D
0
is the pipe OD, I is the moment of inertia, t is the pipe thick-
ness, E the elastic modulus, the coefcient of thermal expansion,
the Poissons ratio material. T
1
and T
2
are the linear and
nonlinear components used to approximate the temperature gra-
dient across a pipe wall. The stress that occurs at locations of
gross discontinuity is represented by E
ab
|
a
T
a

b
T
b
|, where E
ab
is the average cold modulus of elasticity between sides a and b of
the discontinuity.
a
,
b
are the coefcients of thermal expansion
and T
a
, T
b
are the average temperatures at sides a and b of the
discontinuity.
It is tobe notedhere that the piping designcode has noprovision
for treating the cases where circumferential temperature gradients
are encountered. This work provides a typical example where such
effects are explicitly investigated.
Fig. 2. (a) Stratied temperature distribution for Prole 1 (from ASME-81-PVT-3). (b) Stratied temperature distribution for Prole 2 (Thurman et al., 1981). (c) Stratied
temperature distribution for Prole 3 (Thurman et al., 1981). (d) Stratied temperature distribution for Prole 4 (Thurman et al., 1981). (e) Stratied temperature distribution
for Prole 5 (Thurman et al., 1981). (f) Stratied temperature distribution for Prole 6 (Thurman et al., 1981).
S. Chattopadhyay / Nuclear Engineering and Design 239 (2009) 22362241 2239
Fig. 2. (Continued)
3. Stresses due to non-axisymmetric temperature
distribution
The basis of the solution stems from the assumption that the
problem is statically determinate and free of external loads. The
basis for calculating the stresses due to circumferential tempera-
ture gradient is basedonBernoulliEuler assumptionthat the plane
sections which are plane and perpendicular to the beamaxis before
loading remain so after loading and the effect of lateral contraction
may be neglected. The BernoulliEuler assumption requires that
the axial displacement be a linear function of the coordinates in the
plane of the cross section. For this problem, the temperature distri-
bution in the pipe due to stratication is assumed to be dependent
only on the vertical distance z (see Fig. 1),
T = T(z) (3)
Assuming the plane sections to remain plane and perpendicular to
the axis before and after bending, the axial displacement may be
written as,
u = f
0
(x) +zf
1
(x) (4)
The axial strain is given by,

xx
=
u
x
= f

0
(x) +zf

1
(x) (5)
The axial strain is therefore a linear function of the distance from
the neutral axis.
The axial stress is therefore,

xx
= E(
xx
T) = E[f

0
(x) +zf

1
(x) T) (6)
The functions f
0
(x) and f
1
(x) must be determined from equilibrium
considerations. Considering the equations of static equilibrium, we
have for force equilibrium,

xx
dA = 0 (7)
And for moment equilibrium,

xx
zdA = 0 (8)
Eqs. (7) and (8) assume that the problem is statically determinate
and free of external loads. This is a reasonably valid assumption for
regions remote from the support locations of the pipe. Boley and
Weiner (1960) further contendthat smoother the axial temperature
distribution, the more accurate is the elementary theory.
Substituting
xx
from Eq. (6) into Eqs. (7) and (8), we have,
f

0
(x)

dA +f

1
(x)

zdA =

TdA (9)
f

0
(x)

zdA +f

1
(x)

z
2
dA =

zTdA (10)
Since z is measured from the neutral axis, we have,

zdA = 0 (11)
Therefore using Eqs. (9) and (10) we obtain,
f

0
(x) =

TdA

dA
=
P
T
EA
(12)
and,
f

1
(x) =

zTdA

z
2
dA
=
M
T
EI
(13)
Therefore the equation for the axial stress takes the form,

xx
=
P
T
A
+
M
T
z
I
ET (14)
where,
P
T
= E

TdA (15)
2240 S. Chattopadhyay / Nuclear Engineering and Design 239 (2009) 22362241
Table 1
Specied temperature (

C) at the inner surface of the pipe (location along pipe circumference: location 1top, location 13bottom).
Prole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
1 182 169 132 92 68 55 47 43 40 39 38 37 37
2 284 283 282 279 274 265 250 226 188 142 106 88 82
3 215 209 190 156 116 86 66 54 47 43 41 40 39
4 71 70 69 66 63 59 56 52 48 45 42 41 40
5 270 269 265 257 244 223 191 148 110 85 70 62 59
6 256 253 244 227 201 162 120 90 70 58 50 47 46
and,
M
T
= E

zTdA (16)
4. Discretization of integrals
Let us consider a pipe of mean radius R
m
and thickness t. Let the
temperature be specied at locations spaced 15 degrees apart. This
means there are 12 segments for which the temperature data are
specied over half the pipe circumference.
Denoting =15

=/12 and A=tR

m
=(/12) tR
m
, the fol-
lowing approximations to the integrals result:

TdA =
R
m
t
6
12

1
T
mi
(17)

TzdA =
R
2
m
t
6
12

1
T
mi
sin
mi
(18)
where T
m1
, T
m2
,. . ., T
m12
, are the mean temperatures at various
circumferential pipe segments. The expression for the axial stress
using Eq. (14) (the maximum value) can therefore be written as:

xx
=
E
12
12

i=1
T
mi
+
E
6
sin
mi
12

i=1
T
mi
sin
mi
ET (19)
Denoting T the average temperature across the pipe cross section,
the maximum axial stress is now given by,

xx
=
E
6
sin
mi
12

i=1
T
mi
sin
mi
+E(T
ave
T) (20)
5. Numerical example
The numerical example uses data for a typical piping for a PWR
plant (Thurman et al., 1981) for which the geometric parameters
and the material properties are: geometric parameters: outside
diameter D
0
=0.4064m, thickness t =0.02145m.
Material properties: Youngs modulus E=192GPa, and coef-
cient of thermal expansion =1210
6
/K. For simplicity all
material properties are assumed to be independent of temperature.
6. Stratication temperature proles
As indicated by Thurman et al. (1981) during normal operation a
number of temperature measurements were taken around the pipe
circumference both for the inside and outside surfaces. Analysis
of the test data indicated that the distribution could be grouped
into six basic proles corresponding to different levels of interface
between the hot and cold uids. The proles are indicated in Fig. 2a
through f where the solid lines represent the uid temperatures
and the temperatures marked by diamond are the calculated metal
temperatures on the outside surface.
The numerical values of the temperatures specied at the inner
surface of the pipe for Proles 1 through 6 are indicated in Table 1.
Based on the numerical values of temperatures in Table 1, the
mean temperatures at various circumferential pipe segments are
calculated and shown in Fig. 3.
The maximum axial stress from Eq. (20) with the proposed dis-
cretization scheme can now be written as:

xx
=
E
6

0.4957(T
1
T
13
) +0.9576(T
2
T
12
) +0.8586(T
3
T
11
)
+0.7011(T
4
T
10
) +0.4958(T
5
T
9
) +0.2566(T
6
T
8
)

+E

12

ii=1
T
m1
T
1

(21)
Eq. (21) can be formally written for
xx
in terms of T
strat
expressed
as:

xx
= ET
strat
T
strat
=
1
6
[0.4957(T
1
T
13
) +0.9576(T
2
T
12
) +0.8586(T
3
T
11
) +0.7011(T
4
T
10
)
+0.4958(T
5
T
9
) +0.2566(T
6
T
8
)] +
12

i=1
T
m1
T
1
(22)
Thestress distributions for Proles 1through6havebeencalculated
using Eq. (22) and are shown in Fig. 4.
From Fig. 4, the maximum range of stresses occurs at the top
of pipe and equals 72(124) =196MPa (based on Proles 2 and
1) which becomes the peak stress amplitude if a magnication
factor of 2 is conservatively used to account for through thick-
ness variation and other constraining effects. For the alternating
Fig. 3. Temperature input to the approximate numerical model.
S. Chattopadhyay / Nuclear Engineering and Design 239 (2009) 22362241 2241
Fig. 4. Stress distribution across the pipe diameter for Proles 1 and 6.
stress amplitude 196MPa of the allowable number of cycles is about
30,000usingdesignfatiguecurveof carbonsteel fromASME(2007).
The plant data in the work of Thurman et al. (1981) indicates a com-
parable number of stratication temperature excursions. This leads
to a signicant fatigue usage factor at the top of the pipe, which cor-
relates with the fatigue cracks observed at this location (Thurman
et al., 1981).
7. Conclusions
Inthis studyasemi-analytical methodhas beenusedtocalculate
stresses due to circumferential temperature gradients in the pipe
produced by thermal stratication.
The peak stress in the ASME Code Eq. (1) should have an addi-
tional term equal to K
strat
ET
strat
evaluated from Eq. (22) along
with a stress intensication factor, K
strat
to account for through
thickness temperature variation and other constraining effects. For
this problem this factor is conservatively taken as 2.0. Accordingly,
the magnitudes of the stresses due to thermal stratication have
been determined to be quite signicant and have the potential to
produce low cycle fatigue failure in pipelines.
The analytical approach treats the problem as a statically deter-
minate systemthat is free of external loads. Furthermore the effect
of lateral contraction as inuenced by the Poissons ratio is ignored.
The solutions, albeit simplied, exhibit the same trend as the nite
element solution results of Thurman et al. (1981). One signi-
cant correction factor that should be applied to the solution stems
from the end conditions which have not been considered in this
work. The other correction comes from the Poissons ratio and the
exact solution will deviate more fromthe approximate solution for
greater values of Poissons ratio for the pipe material. Finally there
is a possible contribution from the through thickness temperature
variation, which is also tied to the Poissons ratio. A blanket cor-
rection factor of 2.0 is suggested in this work to account for all
these effects. This seems reasonable based on the correction fac-
tors reported by Bain et al. (1992) and those reported by Furuhashi
et al. (2008).
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