• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.40 no.9
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• pp.821-826
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• 2016

The leak before break (LBB) concept is used in pipe line design for nuclear power plants. For application of the LBB concept, leak rates through cracks should be evaluated accurately. Usually leak late analyses are performed for through-thickness cracks with constant cross-sectional area. However, the cross-sectional area at the inner pipe surface of a crack can be different from that at the outer surface. In this paper, leak rate analyses are performed for the cracks with linearly-varying cross-sectional areas. The effect of varying the cross-sectional area on leak rates was examined. Leak rates were also evaluated for cracks in bi-material pipes. Finally, the effects of crack surface morphology parameters on leak rates were examined.