• Plant Journal
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.45-50
• /
• 2018

Nuclear safety law's amendment caused many problems to use radiography testing(RT). Phased array ultrasonic testing(PAUT) was adapted instead of RT for NDE of welding points in boiler tubes these days. Unfortunately, PAUT doesn't give us the discrimination characteristics about flaws distinction and flaws size clearly. In this thesis, the distinction characteristics of flaw types and the detection characteristics of flaw size using PAUT of welding points in boiler tubes were analyzed. It was concluded that PAUT can distinguish between planar flaws and rounded flaws, but it is hard to tell apart the types of flaw respectively. We paid attention to the discrimination of flaws size because PAUT tends to underestimate the flaw size of porosity and underestimate or overestimate the flaw size of porosity.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 2008.09a
• /
• pp.98-105
• /
• 2008

철도차량 차축의 초음파 탐상은 기존 펄스-에코방식을 사용하여 A-Stan으로 영상화하여 결함평가가 이루어 졌다. 하지만 이 방법은 작업자의 판단에 의존하므로 신뢰성이 멀어졌다. 위상배열 초음파 탐상 검사는 단일 탐촉자에 여러개의 진동자를 배열하여 여러 각도에서 탐상이 가능하므로 차축처럼 종류 및 모양이 다양한 구조물의 탐상에 효과적이다. 또한 C-Scan방식으로 영상화 하므로써 작업자가 결함을 판단하는데 있어서 객관적인 평가방법이다. 이 논문에서는 위상배열 초음파 탐상 검사에 대하여 설명하고 차축결함평가를 위한 자동화된 설비의 논리설계를 분석하고 그 실험의 방법과 결과론 고찰하고자 한다.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.30 no.4
• /
• pp.317-323
• /
• 2010

The manual ultrasonic examination for the nuclear power plant piping welds has been demonstrated by using KPD(Korean Performance Demonstration) generic procedure. For automated ultrasonic examination, there is no generic procedure and it should be qualified by using applicable automated equipment. Until now, most of qualified procedures used pulse-echo technique and there is no qualified procedure using phased array technique. In this study, data acquisition and analysis software were developed and phased-array transducer and wedge were designed to implement phased array technique for nuclear power plant in-service inspection. The developed procedure are qualified for performance demonstration for the flaw detection, length sizing and depth sizing. The qualified procedure will be applied for the field examination in the nuclear power plant piping weld inspection.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.32 no.2
• /
• pp.185-191
• /
• 2012

Typically, a wedge is involved to generate effectively high inspection angle in pipe weld inspection using phased array ultrasonic technique. But the usage of this wedge for weld or access limited area can cause coverage limitation for the examination volume because of the wedge front length. Therefore, the shear wave phased array probe which can generate high inspection angle without wedge is essentially necessary. In this paper, the shear wave phased array ultrasonic probe which can generate high inspection angle designed by modeling and manufactured from the modelling result. And this shear wave probe tested whether it can detect and sizing for EDM test block that contains various depth. As results, the experimental results show that the designed shear wave phased array probe can detect and size with reliable accuracy. Therefore if this phased array probe apply in field inspection, it is expected that it show more reliable inspection result for plant structure having access limitation.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.431-438
• /
• 2012

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
• /
• v.10 no.2 s.31
• /
• pp.61-67
• /
• 2006

We developed the ultrasonic phased array technique for obtaining ultrasonic images of electrofusion joints of polyethylene piping. And we inspected 4 cases at fields with this technique. First case is for the 300 mm diameter polyethylene electrofusion joint by using 3.5 MHz phased array sensor, second is for the 350 mm diameter saddle electrofusion joint, third is for the 400 mm diameter electrofusion joints and the last one is for the 400 mm diameter piping joints which will be used at 300 kPa suppling pressure.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.20-26
• /
• 2005

Ultrasonic guided waves have been widely employed for long range inspection of structures such as plates, rods and pipes. There are numerous modes with different wave velocities, and the appropriate mode selection is one of key techniques in the application of guided waves. In the present work, phase tuning by an array transducer was applied to generate ultrasonic guided waves. For this purpose, 8-channel ultrasonic pulser/receiver and their controller which enables sequential activation of each channels with given time delay were developed. Eight transducers were fabricated in order to generate guided waves by using an array transducer. The selective tuning of wave mode can be achieved by changing the interval between elements of an array transducer.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.130-136
• /
• 2009

Turbine, which is one of major components in nuclear power plants, requires reliable nondestructive inspections. But, accessibility of transducers is limited and interpretation of acquired signals is not easy at all due to the complication. So, in this study, we have fabricated mock-up specimens of real size and shape. we applied pulse-echo method and time-of-flight diffraction(TOFD) method for precise inspection of turbine key and wheel bore. And phased array ultrasonic testing method was adopted for wheel dovetail of turbines by using mock-up. Furthermore, an automatic scanner system was developed for in-service inspection of the developed methods.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.20 no.6
• /
• pp.538-544
• /
• 2000

A phased array ultrasonic nondestructive inspection system is being developed to obtain images of the interior of steel structures by modifying a medical ultrasound imaging system. The medical system consists of 64 individual transceiver channels that can drive 128 array elements. Several modifications of the system were required mainly due to the change of sound speed. It was necessary to fabricate array transducers for steel structure and to obtain A-scan signal that is necessary for the nondestructive testing. Boundary diffraction wave model was used for the prediction of radiation beam field from array transducers, which provided guidelines to design array transducers. And a RF data acquisition board was fabricated for the A-scan signal acquisition along a selected un line within an image. For the proper beam forming in the transmission and reception for steel structure, delay time was controlled. To demonstrate the performance of the developed system and fabricated transducers, images of artificial specimens and A-scan signals for selected scan lines were obtained in a real time fashion.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.368-375
• /
• 2013

Failure of small bore piping welds is a recurring problem at nuclear power plants. And the socket weld cracking in small bore piping has caused unplanned plant shutdowns for repair and high economic impact on the plants. Consequently, early crack detection, including the detection of manufacturing defects, is of the utmost importance. Until now, the surface inspection methods has been applied according to ASME Section XI requirements. But the ultrasonic inspection as a volumetric method is also applying to enforce the inspection requirement. However, the conventional manual ultrasonic inspection techniques are used to detect service induced fatigue cracks. And there was uncertainty on manual ultrasonic inspection because of limited access to the welds and difficulties with contact between the ultrasonic probe and the OD(outer diameter) surface of small bore piping. In this study, phased array ultrasonic inspection technique is applied to increase inspection speed and reliability. To achieve this object, the 3.5 MHz phased array ultrasonic transducer are designed and fabricated. The manually encoded scanner was also developed to enhance contact conditions and maintain constant signal quality. Additionally inspection system is configured and inspection procedure is developed.