Piping Service Life Experience in Commercial Nuclear Power Plants: Progress With the OECD Pipe Failure Data Exchange Project

An extension of a 1994–98 R&D project established in 2002 by certain member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation (OECD), the OECD Pipe Failure Data Exchange (OPDE) Project has produced a major database on the piping service experience applicable to commercial nuclear plants. The 3-year project is operated under the umbrella of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and organizations producing or regulating more than 80% of nuclear energy generation worldwide are contributing data to the OPDE Project. The Project considers pipe failure data including service-induced wall thinning, part through-wall crack, pinhole leak, leak, and rupture/severance (i.e., events involving large leak rates up to and beyond the make-up capacity of engineered safeguards systems). The part through-wall events include degradation in excess of code allowable for pipe wall thinning or crack depth. OPDE also addresses such degradation that could have generic implications regarding the reliability of in-service inspection. At the end of 2003 the OPDE database included approximately 4,400 records on pipe failure affecting ASME Code Class 1 through 3 and non-Code piping. The database also included an additional 450 records on water hammer events where the structural integrity of piping was challenged but did not fail. This paper summarizes the unique data quality considerations that are associated with piping components. The paper also summarizes the database content.Copyright © 2004 by ASME