• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.1139-1146
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• 2001

The reactor pressure vessel(RPV) is usually cladded with stainless steel to prevent corrosion and radiation embrittlement, and a number of subclad cracks have been found during an in-service-inspection. These subclad cracks should be assured for a safe operation under normal conditions and faulted conditions such as pressurized thermal shock(PTS). Currently available integrity assessment procedure for an RPV, ASME Code Sec. XI, are built on the basis of linear fracture mechanics (LEFM). In PTS condition, however, thermal stress and mechanical stress give rise to high tensile stress at the cladding and elastic-plastic behavior is expected in this area. Therfore, ASME Code Sec. XI is overly conservative in assessing the structural integrity under PTS condition. In this paper, the fracture parameter (stress intensity factor, K, and RT(sub)NDT) from elastic analysis using ASME Sec. XI and finite element method were validated against 3-D elastic-plastic finite element analyses. The difference between elastic and elastic-plastic analysis became significant with increasing crack depth. Therfore, it is recommended to perform elastic-plastic analysis for the accurate assessment of subclad cracks under TPS which causes plastic deformation at the cladding.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.10
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• pp.1567-1574
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• 2001

In order to operate an RPV safely it is necessary to keep the pressure-temperature (P-T) limit during the heatup and cooldown process. While the ASME Code provides the P-T limit curve for safe operation, this limit curve has been prepared under conservative assumptions In this paper the effects of conservative assumptions involved in the P-T limit curve specified in the ASME Code Sec. XI were investigated. Three different parameters the crack depth the cladding thickness and the cooling rate, were reviewed based on 3-D finite element analyses. Also the constraint effect on P-T limit curve generation was investigated based on J- T approach. It was shown that the crack depth and the constraint effect change the safe region in P-T limit curve significantly Therefore it is recommended to prepare a more precise P-T limit curve based on finite element analysis to obtain P-T limit for safe operation of an RPV.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.380-385
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• 2010

The integrity of components and piping of operating nuclear power plants has been identified by in-service inspection(ISI) requirements and activities commensurate with standards and codes such as KEPIC MI or ASME Code Section XI. However, the other various degradation mechanisms not considered during design stage of nuclear power plants have been checked by enhanced ISI. The requirements of enhanced ISI have been voluntarily developed by the industry itself or strickly issued by regulatory body. Even though the requirements were developed by the industry, they should be reviewed by regulatory body for their application in nuclear power plants. The enhanced ISI activities and requirements of non-destructive examination(NDE) which reflect the degradation issues in nuclear power industry will be primarily discussed in this paper.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.286-291
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• 2000

The reactor pressure vessel is usually cladded with stainless steel to prevent corrosion and radiation embrittlement, and number of subclad cracks have been found during an in-service-inspection. Therefore assessment for subclad cracks should be made for normal operating conditions and faulted conditions such as PTS. Thus, in order to find the optimum fracture assessment procedures for subclad cracks under a pressurized thermal shock condition, in this paper, three different analyses were performed, ASME Sec. XI code analysis, an LEFM(Liner elastic fracture mechanics) analysis and an EPFM(Elastic plastic fracture mechanics) analysis. The stress intensity factor and the Maximum $RT_{NDT}$ were used for characterizing. Analysis based on ASME Sec. XI code does not completely consider the actual stress distribution of the crack surface, so the resulting Maximum allowable $RT_{NDTS}$ can be non-conservative, especially for deep cracks. LEFM analysis, which does not consider elastic-plastic behavior of the clad material, is much more non-conservative than EPFM analysis. Therefore, It is necessary to perform EPFM analysis for the assessment of subclad cracks under PTS.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.20-24
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• 2015

During refueling Outage, In-service inspections(ISIs) for the Nuclear Power Plant components are mandatory requirement in accordance with ASME Code Sec. XI. Especially, in current ultrasonic testing is one of the most important NDT techniques that are used for volumetric examination methods for nuclear power plant components, and accurate sizing of flaw indication by UT is essential to assure the integrity of the components. However, ASME code specifies minimum requirement for vessel examination procedure, and so far many different flaw sizing approaches have been tried to apply. Through the Round Robin Test(RRT), the accuracy of ultrasonic flaw sizing using DAC techniques was measured with the mock-ups simulating typical pressure vessel welds. These mock-ups contain artificially introduced flaws of known size and location. This paper shows experimental comparison data on the accuracy of techniques using such as 6dB drop, 50%DAC, 20%DAC and 20%DAC with beam spread correction, and also shows that diverse DAC techniques can be effectively applied to the assessment of the flaw sizing for pressure vessel welds in the stage of welding and fabrication.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.69-73
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• 2015

The study investigated effects of residual stresses and Charpy impact energy on brittle fractures of the butt weld between the valve and the piping, and of the valve body in nuclear power plants via a linear elastic fracture mechanics approach in the ASME B&PV Code, Sec.XI and finite element analysis. Weld residual stress in a butt weld between close check valve and piping, and residual stress in the valve due to casting process were assumed to be proportional to yield strength of base metal. Operating stresses in the butt weld and the valve body were calculated using approximate engineering formulae and finite element analysis, respectively. Applied stress intensity factors were calculated by assuming postulated cracks with specific sizes and then by substituting the residual stresses and the operating stresses into engineering formulae presented in the ASME B&PV Code, Sec.III. Plane strain fracture toughness was derived by using a correlation between Charpy V-notch impact energy and fracture toughness. Structural integrity of the weld and the body against brittle fracture was assessed by using the applied stress intensity factors, plane strain fracture toughness and the linear elastic fracture mechanics approach. As a result, it was identified that the structural integrity was maintained with decreasing the residual stress levels and increasing the Charpy V-notch impact energy.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.83-91
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• 1995

Surface defects in structural members are apt to be origins of fatigue cracks growth, which may cause serious failure of whole structures. Most structure has a part where stress concentrates such as welded joints, corner parts, etc. And then, analysis on crack growth and penetration from these defects, therefore, is one of the most important subjects for the reliability of LBB design. The present paper has performed an experimental and analysis on the fatigue crack propagation by variety in crack length of surface cracked plate with stress concentration part. The crack growth behavior can be explained quantitatively by using Newman-Raju equation and the stress partitioning method proposed by ASME B&P Code Sec. XI. The stress concentration factor $K_t$ has affected on the crack growth. The crack growth after penetration depends upon the initial front side crack length.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.246-251
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• 2001

The performance demonstration round robin test was conducted to quantify the capability of ultrasonic inspection for in-service and to address some aspects of reliability for nondestructive evaluation. The fifteen inspection teams who employed procedures that met or exceeded ASME Sec. XI code requirements detected the pinping of nuclear power plant with various cracks to evaluate the capability of detection. With data from PD-RR test, the performance of ultrasonic nondestructive inspection could be assessed using probability of detection and length and depth sizing of cracks.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.73-78
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• 2003

Ultrasonic measurement is one of important technologies in the lift-time maintenance of nuclear poler plant. Ultrasonic inspection system is consisted of the operator, equipment and procedure. The reliability of ultrasonic inspection system is affected by its ability. The performance demonstration round robin was conducted to quantify the capability of ultrasonic inspection for in-service. The small number of teams who employed procedures that met or exceeded ASME Sec. XI Code requirements detected the piping of nuclear power plant with various cracks to evaluate the capability of detection and sizing. In this paper, the statistical reliability assessment of ultrasonic nondestructive inspection data using Monte Carlo simulation is presented. The results of the probability of detection (POD) analysis using Monte Carlo simulation are compared to these of logistic probability model. In these results, Monte Carlo simulation was found to be very useful to the reliability assessment f3r the small hit/miss data sets.

• Proceedings of the Korean Reliability Society Conference
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• 2002.06a
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• pp.217-224
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• 2002

The performance demonstration round robin test was conducted to quantify the capability of ultrasonic inspection for in-service and to address some aspects of reliability for nondestructive evaluation. The fifteen inspection teams who employed procedures that met or exceeded ASME Sec. XI code requirements detected the piping of nuclear power plant with various cracks to evaluate the capability of detection. With data from PD-RR test, the performance of ultrasonic nondestructive inspection could be assessed using probability of length and depth sizing of cracks.