Study on Evaluation of the Leak Rate for Steam Valve in Power Plant

발전용 증기밸브 누설량 평가에 관한 연구

Acoustic emission technology is applied to diagnosis the internal leak and operating conditions of the major valves at nuclear power plants. The purpose of this study is to verify availability of the acoustic emission as in-situ diagnosis method. In this study, acoustic emission tests are performed when the pressurized high temperature steam flowed through gate valve(1st stage reheater valve) and glove valve(main steam dump valve) on the normal size of 4 and 8". The valve internal leak diagnosis system for practical field was designed. The acoustic emission method was applied to the valves at the site, and the background noise was measured for the abnormal plant condition. To improve the reliability, a judgment of leak on the system was used various factors which are AE parameters, trend analysis, signal level analysis and RMS(root mean square) analysis of acoustic signal emitted from the valve operating condition internal leak.