An Overview of IAEA Technical Guidelines on Fluid-Structure Interaction

This paper provides an overview of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) draft technical guidelines on Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI), which is supporting document for IAEA Safety Standards aimed at providing method and practices. The technical guidelines are based on sections in codes and standards, more general documents on FSI and documents describing particular plant issues or problems. The technical guidelines recognise that FSI has led to a range of problems in a range of reactor types including: flow-induced vibration in light water reactor (LWR) steam generators under external loading including seismic loading; fretting of LWR heat exchangers with the fretting loading dependent on cross-flow velocity; seismic effects and fluid sloshing in liquid metal cooled faster breeder reactor (LMFBR); and water hammer. In addition to providing an overview description of the technical guidelines, the paper also describes the process followed to produce and obtain peer review of the document.Copyright © 2014 by ASME