PSI - Issue 72

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect

Procedia Structural Integrity 72 (2025) 362–369

12th Annual Conference of Society for Structural Integrity and Life (DIVK12) Review of INCEFA-SCALE project advances in environmentally assisted fatigue in pressurized water reactors Sergio Arrieta a, *, Sergio Cicero a , Alec McLennan b , Román Cicero c , Jack Beswick b , Stephan Courtin d , Zaiqing Que e a LADICIM (Laboratory of Materials Science and Engineering), Universidad de Cantabria, E.T.S. de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, Av. Los Castros 44, Santander, 39005 Cantabria, Spain Abstract This paper provides an overview of the INCEFA-SCALE H2020 project. It is a 5-year project, which began in October 2020, whose main objective is to improve the ability of predicting the lifetime of Nuclear Power Plants components subjected to environmental assisted fatigue. Its strategy is: 1) developing a comprehensive mechanistic understanding through a detailed examination of tested specimens and data mining; and 2) testing focused on particular aspects of component-scale cyclic loading. The project has created tools to survey the fatigue data from different finished projects. The testing programme is now underway and it is focused on studying the effect of variable amplitude loading, environment, surface condition, and geometry on the fatigue life of stainless-steel specimens. © 2026 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of Aleksandar Sedmak, Branislav Djordjevic, Simon Sedmak Dr. Simon Sedmak, ssedmak@mas.bg.ac.rs, Innovation Center of Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Belgrade, Serbia b Amentum, Faraday Street, Birchwood Park, Warrington WA3 6GA, United Kingdom c Innomerics, Calle Segundo Mata 6, Pozuelo de Alarcón, 28224, Madrid, Spain d EDF R&D MMC, Avenue des Renardières-Ecuelles, 77250 Moret-Loing et Orvanne, France e VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., Nuclear Reactor Materials, Kivimiehentie 3, 02150 Espoo, Finland

Keywords: Environmentally Assisted Fatigue; Pressurised Water Reactor; stainless-steel; data mining; feature testing

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +34-942-201705; fax: +34-942-201818. E-mail address: sergio.arrieta@unican.es

2452-3216 © 2026 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of Aleksandar Sedmak, Branislav Djordjevic, Simon Sedmak Dr. Simon Sedmak, ssedmak@mas.bg.ac.rs, Innovation Center of Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Belgrade, Serbia 10.1016/j.prostr.2025.08.115