The mission of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Nuclear Energy is to advance nuclear power in order to meet the nation’s energy, environmental, and energy security needs. Advanced high temperature reactor systems will required compact heat exchangers (CHX) for the next generation of nuclear reactor plant designs. A necessary step for achieving this objective is to ensure that the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, Section III, Division 5 has rules for the construction of CHXs for nuclear service.

Given their high thermal efficiency and compactness, expanding the use of Alloy 800H diffusion bonded Printed Circuit Heat Exchangers (PCHEs) beyond their current certification in Sec VIII to the high temperature nuclear applications is of interest.  The research being completed under the Department of Energy project is focused on preparing a draft Code Case for consideration by the ASME Code Committees for high temperature nuclear components which must meet the requirements of Section III, Division 5 Class A. 

Acceptance of a Code Case by the ASME Code Committees to use PCHEs in nuclear service requires a broad understanding of PCHE failure mechanisms.  At the highest level, the ASME Code seeks to prevent failures of structures and pressure boundaries.  Historically, the approach is a process of understanding the known failure modes, such as overload failures, plastic collapse, progressive distortion (ratcheting) and fatigue, and then establishing rules for construction to preclude those failure modes in components.  For Div. 5 applications, attention to differential thermal expansion, creep life, and creep-fatigue must also be considered.  Failure from these loadings is manifest within PCHEs both within the internal micro-channel geometry, and at substantially larger solid header and nozzle attachments.  To address the adequacy of the PCHE, a Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) has been performed for standard etched channel PCHEs.  This FMEA is linked to the proposed rules in the code case for compact heat exchangers in Sec. III, Div. 5 Class A applications.  The PCHE FMEA covers all design failures addressed by Sec. III.


Failure Mode Effects Analysis for Sec. Iii Div. 5 Class a Service of a Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger

Division / Sponsors: 
Pressure Vessels & Piping (PVP)


Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/PVP/PVP2020/volume/83815

PVP2020 - Virtual Conference

Supporting the need among researchers worldwide for additional online and multimedia content, ASME now offers the ASME Conference Video Collection. This platform will collect and provide long-term access to conference presentation videos, encompassing all technology areas within ASME's technical conference and events program. About 30,000-40,000 engineers across all mechanical engineering and related disciplines participate in ASME conferences each year. This includes authors of approximately 6,000 to 8,000 technical papers published by ASME, the majority of whom also submit video presentations for our virtual conferences. The video collection will be available as an add-on to existing product packages or as a separate subscription.