The Network for Evaluation of Structural Components (NESC) was started in 1993 and since then six different projects have been carried out. A seventh NESC-project is still in progress. The overall objective of these projects has been to study the reliability of the entire process of structural integrity assessment within an international framework. The network is coordinated by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Petten, Netherlands, and involves a large number of participants from different countries, including Sweden.
The main purpose of this Swedish study was to identify and compile all the NESC-results that are of particular importance to the safety assessment of components with cracks and to the determination and evaluation of in-service inspection intervals.
The report presents a collection of the main features of each NESC-project including material characterization, crack configurations, loadings, fracture assessments and important observations. It also provides a comparison of different codes used in fracture prediction during the NESC-I test. Some important conclusions and recommendations for each of these projects can be found at the end of the report.