Developed by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and first deployed in 1989, FatiguePro is a widely used fatigue monitoring software that assists with the aging management of nuclear power plants.
The Stress-Based Fatigue (SBF) module in FatiguePro has historically used a single stress term for calculating fatigue usage factors. This simplified approach was chosen not only due to computational limitations at the time but also because conventional stress cycle counting algorithms, which effectively handle random and ordered stress histories instead of idealized transient definitions, are typically limited to a single stress term. However, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), in Regulatory Issue Summary RIS 2008-30, raised concerns about this simplified approach.
While EPRI will continue to maintain FatiguePro, it is expected that new fatigue monitoring software will be developed by vendors that do not use FatiguePro’s simplified approach.
This report establishes the technical basis for the newly developed multiaxial SBF technology, which addresses the concerns raised by the NRC. It also serves as a requirements specification for SBF computations in fatigue monitoring software and provides a detailed rationale for various technical decisions made during development.
The SBF methodology described in the report includes automatic calculations of environmentally assisted fatigue, in line with applicable regulatory guidance and the latest industry consensus on fatigue calculation methods.
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For a detailed review, you can access the study here..