• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.8-17
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• 2003

Fracture behaviors of pipes with local wall thinning are very important for the integrity of nuclear Power Plant. In Pipes of energy Plants, sometimes, the local wall thinning may result from severe erosion-corrosion (E/C) damage. However, the effects of local wall thinning on strength and fracture behaviors of piping system were not well studied. In this paper, the monotonic bending tests were performed of full-scale carbon steel pipes with local wall thinning. A monotonic bending load was applied to straight pipe specimens by four-point loading at ambient temperature without internal pressure. From the tests, fracture behaviors and fracture strength of locally thinned pipe were manifested systematically. The observed failure modes were divided into four types; ovalization. crack initiation/growth after ovalization, local buckling and crack initiation/growth after local buckling. Also, the strength and the allowable limit of piping system with local wall thinning were evaluated.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.1393-1400
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• 2009

The objective of this study is to validate local failure criteria, which were proposed based on the notched-bar specimen tests combining with finite element (FE) simulations, using the results of real-scale pipe failure tests. This study conducted burst test using wall-thinned pipe specimens, which were made of 4 inch Sch.80 ASTM A106 Gr.B carbon steel pipe, under simple internal pressure at ambient temperature and performed associated FE simulations. Failure pressures were estimated by applying the failure criteria to the results of FE simulations and were compared with experimental failure pressures. It showed that the local stress based criterion, given as true ultimate tensile stress of material, accurately estimated the failure pressure of wall-thinned pipe specimens. However, the local strain based criterion, which is fracture strain of material as a function of stress tri-axiality, could not predict the failure pressure. It was confirmed that the local stress based criterion is reliably applicable to estimation of failure pressure of local wall-thinned piping components.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.31-39
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• 2015

Pipe wall-thinning by flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) and various types of erosion is a significant and costly damage phenomenon in secondary piping systems of nuclear power plants (NPPs). Most NPPs have management programs to ensure pipe integrity due to wall-thinning that includes periodic measurements for pipe wall thicknesses using ultrasonic tests (UTs). Nevertheless, thinning evaluations are not easy because the amount of thickness reduction being measured is often quite small compared to the accuracy of the inspection technique. U.S. Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) had proposed Total Point Method (TPM) as a thinning occurrence evaluation method, which is a very useful method for detecting locally thinned pipes or fittings. However, evaluation engineers have to discern manually the measurement data because there are no numerical algorithm for TPM. In this study, numerical algorithms were developed based on non-parametric and parametric statistical method.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.10 s.241
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• pp.1399-1406
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• 2005

Recently authors have proposed a new method to estimate failure strength of a pipe with local wall thinning subject to either internal pressure or global bending. The proposed method was based on the equivalent stress averaged over the minimum ligament in the locally wall thinned region, and the simple scheme to estimate the equivalent stress in the minimum ligament was proposed, based on the reference stress concept. This paper extends the new method to combined internal pressure and global bending. The proposed method is validated against FE results for various geometries of local wall thinning under combined loading. The effect of internal pressure is also investigated in the present study. Comparison of maximum moments, predicted according to the proposed method, with published full-scale pipe test data fur locally wall-thinned pipes under combined internal pressure and global bending, shows good agreement.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.1017-1024
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• 2007

This study performed a series of burst tests at ambient temperature using real-scale elbow specimen containing a local wall-thinning defect at it's intrados or extrados and evaluated failure pressure of locally wall-thinned elbows. In the experiment, a 90-degree 100A, Sch. 80 standard elbow was employed, and various wall-thinning geometries, such as length, depth, and circumferential angle, were considered. From the results of experiment, the dependences of failure pressure of wall-thinned elbows on the defect geometries and locations were investigated. In addition, the reliability of existing models was examined by comparing the tests data with the results predicted from existing failure pressure evaluation models for locally wall-thinned elbow.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.5 s.236
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• pp.734-742
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• 2005

The present study proposes the integrity evaluation model for a straight pipe with local wall thinning defect, which reflects the characteristics of training shape and loading condition in the Piping of nuclear power plant. For this purpose, a series of finite element analyses are performed under various defect geometries and loading conditions, and real pipe experiment data performed previously is employed. The model includes the effect of thinning length as well as thinning depth and width, and also it considers the combined loading effect between internal pressure and bending moment. The proposed model has been validated using the results of finite element analysis and pipe experiment data. The results indicate that the proposed model provides more reliable predictions of pipe failure than the current existing model, in terms of accuracy, consistency, and conservativeness of results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.681-686
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• 2008

In this paper, we estimated the degree of pipe thinning by using two accelerometers. It uses measured velocity of flexural wave traveling along the pipes. If the thickness of the wall decreases because of pipe thinning, flexural stiffness of the pipes decreases and accordingly, traveling velocity of flexural wave decreases. Thus, if we install two vibration sensors outside of the pipes and measures traveling velocity of flexural waves regularly, we can estimate and monitor the degree of pipe thinning quickly. In order to test the method we experimented with pipes, and get the result that group velocity varies according to the degree of pipe thinning. It verified this method can be used to monitor the pipe thinning.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.156-162
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• 2006

Pipe thinning is one of the major issues for the structural fracture of pipes of nuclear power plants. Therefore a method to inspect a large area of piping systems quickly and accurately is needed. In this paper, we proposed the method for monitoring pipe thinning. Our basic idea come from that a group velocity of impact wave is different as wall thickness. If the group velocity is measured, wall thickness can be estimated. To obtain the group velocity, time-frequency analysis is used. This is because an arrival time difference can be measured easily in time-frequency domain rather than time domain. To test the performance of this technique, experiments have been performed for a plate and U type pipe. Results show that the proposed technique is quite powerful in the monitoring pipe thinning.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.16 no.12 s.117
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• pp.1224-1230
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• 2006

Pipe thinning is one of the major issues for the structural fracture of pipes of nuclear power plants. Therefore a method to inspect a large area of piping systems quickly and accurately is needed. In this paper, we proposed the method for monitoring pipe thinning. Our basic idea come from that a group velocity of impact wave is different as wall thickness. If the group velocity is measured, wall thickness can be estimated. To obtain the group velocity, time -frequency analysis is used. This is because an arrival time difference can be measured easily in time-frequency domain rather than time domain. To test the performance of this technique, experiments have been performed for a plate and U type pipe. Results show that the proposed technique is quite powerful in the monitoring pipe thinning.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.4 s.235
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• pp.606-613
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• 2005

Effects of circumferentially local wall thinning on the fracture behavior of pipes were investigated by monotonic four-point bending. Local wall thinning was machined on the pipes in order to simulate erosion/corrosion metal loss. The configurations of the eroded area included an eroded ratio of d/t= 0.2, 0.5, 0.6, and 0.8, and an eroded length of ${\ell}\;=10mm,$ 25mm, and 120mm. Fracture type could be classified into ovalization, local buckling, and crack initiation depending on the eroded length and eroded ratio. Three-dimensional elasto-plastic analyses were also carried out using the finite element method, which is able to accurately simulate fracture behaviors excepting failure due to cracking. It was possible to predict the crack initiation point by estimating true fracture ductility under multi-axial stress conditions at the center of the thinned area.