Reduced‐Order Peridynamics for Accelerated Thermomechanical Failure Analysis of Reactor Pressure Vessel

ABSTRACT Extreme thermomechanical service conditions may induce failure of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV), potentially causing catastrophic accidents. This study presents a reduced‐order peridynamics (ROPD) model to rapidly investigate thermomechanical damage behaviors of RPVs. A fully coupled thermomechanical peridynamics (PD) model is employed to overcome the limitations of mesh‐based numerical methods in solving RPV fracture problems. To enhance computational efficiency, the PD governing equations are projected onto low‐dimensional feature subspaces for solution, significantly reducing the degrees of freedom of the original PD system. The crack initiation and evolution of the RPV under combined thermomechanical loading are comprehensively investigated. The accuracy of ROPD is validated by comparing its results with reference solutions. ROPD achieves significant computational simplification and acceleration.