Considerations about components ageing

The increasing age of components has the potential to deteriorate their performances and to jeopardize the safe operation of any nuclear facility. By early identification of ageing signs and of components sensitive to its effects, ageing mitigating activities can be focused on the most relevant issues with regard to safety. The book presents the effects that ageing may have, and details the adequate ageing mitigation strategies for all kind of components. A structured view on the methods that may be used to identify the ageing signs, with accurate comments on the strengths and limitations for each of them are provided. A special place is reserved for presenting the new developed technique, Ageing Failure Mode and Effect Analysis, which may be used to evaluate risk priorities for mitigating known threat-vulnerabilities to ageing. The case study results are illustrated with graphical representations. The book should help shed some light on this interesting area of ageing analysis, and should be especially useful to professionals in reliability, safety and risk assessment field, or anyone else who may be considering assessing the ageing effects.