• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.38-46
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• 2010

The wall thinning phenomenon of pipes was simulated as metal loss due to erosion and corrosion. Such wall thinning defects in the pipes of power plants are a very important safety consideration. In this study, we analyzed wall thinning defects that occurred by weld bead of weld zone of boost pump recirculation pipe. From the results of the analysis of pipe failures, numerical analysis was performed by Fluent v6.3.26 using the standard k-$\varepsilon$ model of the weld bead shape, such as an elliptical or a spherical shape, on the inner wall of the pipe. Using the results obtained, we showed the overlap effect by cavitations corrosion and erosion-corrosion at the bottom of the wall-thinning defect.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.54-60
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• 2022

ASME BPVC provides stress evaluation rules for Class 2 and 3 nuclear piping. However, such rules are difficult to be applied to reinforced wall-thinned pipes during service. To resolve this issue, a new method for stress evaluation of reinforced wall-thinned pipes is proposed in this work, based on the equivalent stiffness concept. By converting a reinforced wall-thinned pipe to an equivalent straight pipe having the same stiffness, stress evaluation can be proceeded using the current ASME BPVC rules. The proposed method is applied to pipes with 4 different normal pipe size and the effects of reinforcement and wall-thinning dimensions on evaluated stresses are discussed.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.437-442
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• 2010

Flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) leads to thinning of steel pipe walls that are exposed to flowing water or wet steam. From experience, it is seen that FAC damage to piping at fossil and nuclear plants can result in outages that require expensive repairs and can affect plant reliability and safety. CHECWORKS have been utilized in domestic nuclear plants as a predictive tool to assist FAC engineers in planning inspections and evaluating the inspection data so that piping failures caused by FAC can be prevented. However, CHECWORKS may be occasionally ignore local susceptible portions when predicting FAC damage in a group of pipelines after constructing a database for all the secondary side piping in nuclear plants. This paper describes the methodologies that can complement CHECWORKS and the verifications of CHECWORKS prediction results using numerical analysis. FAC susceptible locations determined using CHECWORKS for two pipeline groups of a nuclear plant was compared with determined using the numerical-analysis-based FLUENT.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.1200-1209
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• 2003

In this paper, a unified methodology based on the local stress concept to estimate residual strength of locally thinned pipes. An underlying idea of the proposed methodology is that the local stress in the minimum section for locally thinned pipe is related to the reference stress, popularly used in creep problems. Then the problem remains how to define the reference stress, that is the reference load. Extensive three-dimensional finite element (FE) analyses were performed to simulate full-scale pipe tests conducted for various shapes of wall thinned area under internal pressure and bending moment. Based on these FE results, the reference load is proposed, which is independent of materials. A natural outcome of this method is the maximum load capacity. By comparing with existing test results, it is shown that the reference stress is related to the fracture stress, which in turn can be posed as the fracture criterion of locally thinned pipes. The proposed method is powerful as it can be easily generalised to more complex problems, such as pipe bends and tee-joints.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.81-88
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• 2001

This study proposed an analytical method to evaluate a local allowable wall thickness (LAWT) for locally thinned pipe subjected to internal pressure and bending moment. In this method, the stresses in the thinned region were calculated by finite element analysis and plastic collapse was applied as a failure criterion of thinned pipe. Using this method, LAWT for a simplified thinned pipe was evaluated with variation in axial extent of thinned area, and it was compared with allowable wall thickness provided by previous pipe wall thickness criteria. The results showed that the LAWT was lower, about 50%, than that calculated by construction code or ASME Code N-597, and it was higher, about 2 times, than that estimated by evaluation model based on pipe experiments. In addition, LAWT was decreased with increasing axial extent of thinned area and saturated with further increase in axial extent. And, the variation in LAWT with axial extent of thinned area depended on type of load, especially a magnitude of bending moment, considering in the evaluation.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.198-203
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• 2010

In this paper, study on the mode characteristics analysis of the SH-EMAT (shear horizontal, electromagnetic acoustic transducer) waves for evaluating the thickness reduction in plates such as corrosion and friction is presented. Noncontact methods for ultrasonic wave generation and detection have been a great concern and highly demanded due to their capability of wave generation and reception on surface of high temperature or on rough surface. Mode identification of the SH-EMAT wave is carried out in an aluminum plate with thinning defects using time frequency analysis method such as wavelet transform, compared with theoretically calculated group velocity dispersion curve. The changes of various wave features such as the amplitude and the time-of-flight have been observed and the correlations with the thickness reduction have been investigated. Firstly, experiments have been conducted to confirm that it is possible to selectively generate and receive specific desired SH modes. These modes have then been analyzed to select the parameters that are sensitive to the thickness change. The results show that the mode cutoff and the time-of-flight changes are feasible as key parameters to evaluate the thickness reduction.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.281-286
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• 2008

Wall thinning defect due to flow accelerated corrosion is one of major aging phenomena in most power plant industries, and it results in reducing load carrying capacity of the piping systems. A failure testing system was set up for real scale elbows containing various simulated wall thinning defects, and monotonic in-plane bending tests were performed under internal pressure to find out the failure behavior of thinned elbows. Various finite element models were generated and analysed to figure out and simulate the behavior for other thinning shapes and loading conditions. This paper presents the decreasing trends of load carrying capacity according to the thinning dimensions which were revealed from the investigation of finite element analysis results. A mechanical integrity evaluation model for thinned elbows was proposed, also. This model can be used to calculate the TES plastic load of thinned elbows for general internal pressure, thinning location, and in-plane bending direction.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.1295-1302
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• 2003

In order to evaluate a failure behavior of pipe with notch-type wall thinning, the present study performed full-scale pipe tests using the 102mm, Schedule 80 pipe specimen simulated notch- and circular-type thinning defects. The pipe tests were conducted under the conditions of both monotonic and cyclic bending moment at a constant internal pressure of 10 MPa. From the results. of experiment the failure mode, load carrying capacity, deformation ability, and fatigue life of a notch-type wall thinned pipe were investigated, and they were compared with those of a circular-type wall thinned pipe. The failure mode of notched pipe was similar to that of circular-type thinned pipe under the monotonic bending load. Under the cyclic bending load, however, the mode was clearly distinguished with variation in the shape of wall thinning. The load carrying capacity of a pipe containing notch-type wall thinning was about the same or slightly lower than that of a pipe containing circular-type wall thinning when the thinning area was subjected to tensile stress, whereas it was higher than that of a pipe containing circular-type thinning defect when the thinning area was subjected to compressive stress. On the other hand, the deformation ability and fatigue life of a notch-type wall thinned pipe was lower than those of a circular-type wall thinned pipe.

• 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.