• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.16-22
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• 2010

Cast austenitic stainless steel(CASS) is used in the primary cooling piping system of nuclear power plant for it's relative low cost, corrosion resistance and easy of welding. However, the coarse-grain structure of cast austenitic stainless steel can strongly affect the inspectability of ultrasonic testing. The major problems encountered during inspection are beam skewing, high attenuation and high background noise of CASS component. So far, the best inspection performance involving CASS components have been achieved using low frequency TRL(Transmitter/Receiver side-by-side L wave) angle beam probe. But TRL technique could not detect shallow defect and it contains an uncertainty for sizing capability. Currently, most of researchers are studying to overcome these challenge issue. In this study, low-frequency phased array TRL technique used to detect and sizing the flaws in CF8A cast austenitic stainless steel.As conclusion, we could detect and size not only axial flaw but also circumferential flaw using low frequency phased array technique.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.17-22
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• 2007

Low-cycle environmental fatigue tests of cast austenitic stainless steel CF8M at the condition of fatigue strain rate 0.04%/sec were conducted at the pressure and temperature, 15MPa, $315^{\circ}C$ of a operating pressurized water reactor. The used test rig was limited to install an extensometer at the gauge length of the cylindrical fatigue specimen inside the small autoclave. So the magnet type LVDT's were used to measure the fatigue displacement at the specimen shoulders inside the high temperature and high pressure water autoclave. However, the displacement and strain measured at the specimen shoulders is different from the one at the gauge length for the geometry and the cyclic strain hardening effect. FEM calculated the displacement and the strain of the gauge length from the data measured at the shoulders. Tensile test properties in elastic and plastic behavior of CF8M material were used in the FEM analysis. A series of low cycle fatigue tests simulating the cyclic strain hardening effect verified that the FEM calculation was well agreed with the simulated tests. The process and method developed in this study would be so useful to produce reliable environmental fatigue curves of CF8M stainless steel in pressurized water reactors.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.177-185
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• 2008

Low-cycle environmental fatigue tests of cast austenitic stainless steel CF8M at the condition of fatigue strain rate 0.04%/sec were conducted at the pressure and temperature, 15MPa, $315^{\circ}C$ of a operating pressurized water reactor (PWR). The used test rig was limited to install an extensometer at the gauge length of the cylindrical fatigue specimen inside a small autoclave. So the magnet type LVDT#s were used to measure the fatigue displacement at the specimen shoulders inside the high temperature and high pressure water autoclave. However, the displacement and strain measured at the specimen shoulders is different from the one at the gauge length for the geometry and the cyclic strain hardening effect. Displacement of the fatigue specimen gauge length calculated by FEM (finite element method) used to modify the measured displacement and fatigue life at the shoulders. A series of low cycle fatigue life tests in air and PWR conditions simulating the cyclic strain hardening effect verified that the FEM modified fatigue life was well agreed with the simulating test results. The process and method developed in this study for the environmental fatigue test inside the small sized autoclave would be so useful to produce reliable environmental fatigue curves of CF8M stainless steel in pressurized water reactors.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2010

Ultrasonic inspection of heavy walled cast austenitic stainless steel(CASS)welds is very difficult due to complex and coarse grained structure of CASS material. The large size of anisotropic grain strongly affects the propagation of ultrasound by severe attenuation, change in velocity, and scattering of ultrasonic energy. therefore, the signal patterns originated from flaws can be difficult to distinguish from scattered signals. To improve detection and sizing capability of ID connected defect for heavy walled CASS piping welds, the low frequency segmented TRL Pulse Echo and Phased Array probe has been developed. The experimental studies have been performed using CASS pipe mock-up block containing artificial reflectors(ID connected EDM notch). The automatic pulse echo and phase array technique is applied the detection and the length sizing of the ID connected artificial reflectors and the results for detection and sizing has been compared respectively. The goal of this study is to assess a newly developed ultrasonic probe to improve the detection ability and the sizing of the crack in coarse-grained CASS components.