Updating the long-term creep strains in concrete containment vessels by using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation and polynomial chaos expansions

The time-dependent loss of prestress of cables in Nuclear Power Plant concrete inner containment buildings may affect the vessel leak-tightness and reduce its life extension. Thus, the assessment of the structural integrity of the containment vessel requires a correct estimation of the long-term creep strains. The article aims at computing and updating the evolution in time of a confidence interval on the creep strains by updating the prior density of input parameters that is specified in a Bayesian framework.