• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.62-69
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• 2014

A huge number of carbon steel piping components installed in the secondary system of nuclear power plants are exposed to aging mechanisms such as FAC (Flow-Accelerated Corrosion), Cavitation, Flashing, and LDIE (Liquid Droplet Impingement Erosion). Those aging mechanisms can lead to thinning of the piping components. To manage the wall thinning degradation, most of utilities in the world predict the wall thinning rate based on the computational program such as CHECWORKS, COMSY, and BRT-CICERO, evaluate the UT (Ultrasonic Test) data, and determine next inspection timing, repair or replacement, if needed. There are several evaluation methods, such as band, blanket, and strip methods, commonly used for determining the wear of piping components from single UT inspection data. It has been identified that those single UT evaluation methods not only do not consider the manufacturing features of pipes, but also may exclude the data of the most thinned point when determining the representative wear rate of piping components. This paper describes a newly developed single UT evaluation method, E-Cross method, for solving above problems and introduces application examples for several pipes and elbows. It was identified that the E-Cross method using the length and width of UT data excluded the most thinned points appropriate as the single UT evaluation method for thinned piping components.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.227-232
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• 2013

A number of components installed in the secondary system of nuclear power plants are exposed to aging mechanisms such as FAC (Flow-Accelerated Corrosion), Cavitation, Flashing, and LDIE (Liquid Droplet Impingement Erosion). Those aging mechanisms can lead to thinning of the components. In April 2013, one (1) inch small bore piping branched from the main steam line experienced leakage resulting from wall thinning in a 1,000 MWe Korean PWR nuclear power plant. During the normal operation, extracted steam from the main steam line goes to condenser through the small bore piping. The leak occurred in the downstream of an orifice. A control valve with vertical flow path was placed on in front of the orifice. This paper deals with UT (Ultrasonic Test) thickness data, SEM images, and numerical simulation results in order to analyze the extent of damage and the cause of leakage in the small bore piping. As a result, it is concluded that the main cause of the small bore pipe wall thinning is liquid droplet impingement erosion. Moreover, it is observed that the leak occurred at the reattachment point of the vortex flow in the downstream side of the orifice.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.27-31
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• 2014

This paper describes a tomographic imaging technique for evaluating the thickness reduction of a plate-like structure using a noncontact sensor network based on an electromagnetic acoustic transducer that generates shear horizontal plate waves. Because this technique is based on the effect of mode cutoff and time of flight of guided waves caused by a change in thickness, the tomographic image provides information on the presence of defects in the structure. To verify the performance of the method, artificial defects with various thickness reduction ratios were machined in an aluminum plate, and the tomographic imaging results are reported. The results show that the generated tomographic image displays the thickness reductions and can identify their locations. Therefore, the proposed technique has good potential as a tool for health monitoring of the integrity of plate-like structures.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.21 no.2 s.75
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• pp.50-59
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• 2007

Steam generator tubes are degraded from wear, stress corrosion cracking, rupture and fatigue and so on. Therefore, the failure assessment of steam generator tube is very important for the integrity of energy plants. In the steam generator tubes, sometimes, the local wall thinning may result from severe degradations such as erosion-corrosion damage and wear due to vibration. In this paper, the elasto-plastic analysis was performed by FE code ANSYS on steam generator tubes with wall thinning. Also, the four-point bending tests were performed on the wall thinned specimens, and then it was compared with the analysis results. We evaluated the failure mode, fracture strength and fracture behavior from the experiment and FE analysis. Also, 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 from FE analysis.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.18-29
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• 2007

Feedwater heaters of many nuclear power plants have recently experienced severe wall thinning damage, which will increase as operating time progresses. Several nuclear power plants in Korea have experienced wall thinning damage in the area around the impingement baffle - installed downstream of the high pressure turbine extraction steam line - inside number 5A and 5B feedwater heaters. At that point, the extracted steam from the high pressure turbine is two phase fluid at high temperature, high pressure, and high speed. Since it flows in reverse direction after impinging the impingement baffle, the shell wall of the number 5 high pressure feedwater heater may be affected by flow-accelerated corrosion. This paper describes the comparisons between the numerical analysis results using the FLUENT code and the down scale experimental data in an effort to determine root causes of the shell wall thinning of the high pressure feedwater heaters. The numerical analysis and experimental data were also confirmed by actual wall thickness measured by an ultrasonic test.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.30 no.5 s.248
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• pp.533-542
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• 2006

In order to assess the integrity of pipes with local thinning area, the plastic strain as well as the elastic strain at the root of thinned region are required particularly when fluctuating load is applied to the pipe. For estimating elastic-plastic strain at local wall thinning area in a straight pipe under tensile load, an estimation model with idealized fully circumferential constant depth wall thinning area is proposed. Based on the compatibility and equilibrium equations a nonlinear estimation equation, from which local elastic-plastic strain can be determined as a function of pipe/defect geometry, material and the applied strain was derived. Estimation results are compared with those from detailed elastic-plastic finite element analysis, which shows good agreements. Noting that practical wall thinning in nuclear piping has not only a circular shape but also a finite circumferential length, the proposed solution for the ideal geometry is extended based on two-dimensional and three-dimensional numerical analysis of pipes with circular wall thinning.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.55-61
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• 2009

The wall thinning defect of nuclear power pipe is mainly occurred by the affect of the flow accelerated corrosion (FAC) of fluid. This type of defect becomes the cause of damage or destruction of in carbon steel pipes. Therefore, it is very important to measure defect which is existed not only on the welding part but also on the whole field of pipe. This study use dual-beam Shearography, which can measure the out-of-plane deformation and the in-plane deformation by using another illuminated laser beam and simple image processing technique. And this study proposes Infrared thermography, which is a two-dimensional non-contact nondestructive evaluation that can detect internal defects from the thermal distribution by the inspection of infrared light radiated from the object surface. In this paper, defect of nuclear power pipe were, measured using dual-beam shearography and infrared thermography, quantitatively evaluated by the analysis of phase map and thermal image pattern.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.254-260
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• 2002

In this study, two types of mobile robotic systems using NDT (Non-destructive testing) method are developed for automatic diagnosis of the boiler tubes and large size pipelines. The developed mobile robots crawl the outer surface of the tubes or pipelines and detect in-pipe defects such as pinholes, cracks and thickness reduction by corrosion and/or erosion using EMAT (Electro-magnetic Acoustic Transducer). Automation of fault detection by means of mobile robotic systems for these large-scale structures helps to prevent significant troubles without danger of human beings under harmful environment.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.173-178
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• 2012

To manage the wall thinning of carbon steel piping in nuclear power plants, the utility of Korea has performed thickness inspection for some quantity of pipe components during refueling outages and determined whether repair or replacement after evaluating UT (Ultrasonic Test) data. When the existing UT data evaluation methods, such as Band, Blanket, PTP (Point to Point) Methods, are applied to a certain pipe component, unnecessary re-inspecting situations may be generated even though the component does not thinned. In those cases, economical loss caused by repeated inspection and problems of maintaining the pipe integrity followed by decreasing of newly inspected components may be generated. EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) in USA has suggested several statistical methods, TPM (Total Point Method), LSS (Least Square Slope) Method, etc. to distinguish whether multiple inspecting components have thinned or not. This paper presents the analysis results for multiple inspecting components over three times based on both NAM (Near Area of Minimum) Method developed by KEPCO-E&C and the other methods suggested by EPRI.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.80-87
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• 2014

The pipelines are apt to erosion or corrosion because of the high-speed flow of water and steam with high temperatures or high pressures. This study was carried out a finite element analysis (FEA) and an experimental for the fracture behavior of T-joint pipes with local wall thinning under internal pressure. Local wall thinning was machined on the pipes in order to simulate erosion and corrosion of the metal. The configurations of the eroded area included an eroded ratio of d/t=0.80~0.963 and an eroded length of l=25 mm, 50 mm, and 102 mm. Three-dimensional elastic-plastic analyses were also carried out using FEA, which accurately simulates failure behaviors. In regards to the relationship between pressure and eroded, the criterion that indicates what can be used safely under operating pressure and design pressure were obtained from FEA. The FEA results were in relatively good agreement with that of the experiment.