• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.1741-1751
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• 2004

It is commonly requested that the steam generator tubes wall-thinned in excess of 40% should be plugged. However, the plugging criterion is known to be too conservative for some locations and types of defects and its application is limited to a single crack in spite of the fact that the occurrence of multiple through-wall cracks is more common in general. The objective of this research is to propose the optimum failure prediction models for two adjacent through-wall cracks in steam generator tubes. The conservatism of the present plugging criteria was reviewed using the existing failure prediction models for a single crack, and six new failure prediction models for multiple through-wall cracks have been introduced. Then, in order to determine the optimum ones among these new local or global failure prediction models, a series of plastic collapse tests and corresponding finite element analyses for two adjacent through-wall cracks in thin plate were carried out. Thereby, the reaction force model, plastic zone contact model and COD (Crack-Opening Displacement) base model were selected as the optimum ones for assessment of steam generator tubes with multiple through-wall cracks. The selected optimum failure prediction models, finally, were used to estimate the coalescence pressure of two adjacent through-wall cracks in steam generator tubes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.289.2-289
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• 2001

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.10 s.175
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• pp.137-143
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• 2005

The integrity of steam generator tubes in nuclear power plant should be maintained sufficiently during operation. For sake of this, complicated assessment procedures are required such as fracture mechanics analysis, etc. The integrity assessment of tubes has been performed by using conventional deterministic approaches while there are many uncertainties to carry out a rational evaluation. In this respect, probabilistic integrity assessment is considered as an alternative method for integrity assessment. The objectives of this study are to develop an integrity assessment system based on probabilistic fracture mechanics and to predict the failure probability of steam generator tubes containing an axial through-wall crack. The developed integrity assessment system consists of three evaluation modules, which apply first order reliability method, second order reliability method and Monte Carlo simulation method, respectively. The system has been applied to predict failure probability of steam generator tubes and the estimation results showed a promising applicability of the probabilistic integrity assessment system.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.1006-1013
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• 2004

Operating experience of steam generators shows that the tubes are degraded by stress corrosion cracking, fretting wear and so on. These defected tubes could stay in service if it is proved that the tubes have sufficient structural margin to preclude the risk of tube bursting. This paper provides detailed plastic limit pressure solutions for through-wall cracks in the steam generator tubes. These are developed based on three dimensional(3D) finite element analyses assuming elastic-perfectly plastic material behavior. Both axial and circumferential through-wall cracks in free span and in u-bend regions are considered. The resulting limit pressure solutions are given in a polynomial form, and thus can be simply used in practical integrity assessment of the steam generator tubes.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.496-505
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• 2007

This paper proposes closed-form plastic limit load solutions for elbows under in-plane bending, via three-dimensional (3-D), small strain FE limit analyses using elastic-perfectly plastic materials. A wide range of elbow and thinning geometries are considered. For systematic analyses of the effect of the axial thinning length on limit loads, two limiting cases are considered; a sufficiently long wall thinning, and the circumferential part-through surface crack. Closed-form plastic limit load solutions for wall thinning with intermediate longitudinal extents are then obtained from these two limiting cases. The effect of the axial extent of wall thinning on plastic limit loads for elbows is highlighted by comparing that for straight pipes. Although the proposed solutions are developed for the case when wall thinning exists in the center of elbows, it is also shown that they can be applied to the case when wall thinning exists anywhere within the elbow.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.586-593
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• 2007

This paper proposes closed-form plastic limit load solutions for elbow with local wall thinning at extrados under internal pressure. This work was performed using 3-dimensional, small strain FE analyses based on elastic-perfectly plastic materials. The wide range of elbow and local wall thinning geometries are considered. For systematic analyses for effect of axial thinning extent on limit loads, two limiting cases are considered; a sufficiently long thinning, and the circumferential part-through surface crack. Then, the closed-form plastic limit load solutions for intermediate thinning are obtained by using result of two limiting cases. The effect of axial thinning extent for elbow on plastic limit load is highlighted by comparing with that for straight pipes. Although the proposed limit load solutions are developed for the case when local wall thinning exist in the center of elbow, it is also shown that they can be applied to the case when local wall thinning exists anywhere within elbow.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.309-316
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• 2004

A probabilistic structural integrity assessment is performed for a reactor pressure vessel under PTS(Pressurized Thermal Shock). A semi-elliptical finite axial crack is assumed to he in the beltline region(either base metal or weld meta)1 of the reactor vessel inside surface. The selected random variables are initial crack depth, neutron fluence on the vessel inside surface, copper, nickel, and phosphorus content of the vessel material, and RT/sub NDT/. The probabilities of crack initiation or vessel failure where the crack is propagated through vessel wall are calculated. The probabilities obtained with random crack size are compared to these obtained with deterministic us. Since the failure function cannot to explicitly by selected by selected random variables, Monte Carlo Simulation is applied to perform probabilistic analysis The influence of the amount of neutron fluence is also examined to assess the structural reliability for vessel life time.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.10 s.241
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• pp.1361-1368
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• 2005

The structural and leakage integrity of steam generator tubes should be sustained all postulated loads with appropriate margin even if a crack is present. During the past three decades, for effective integrity evaluation, several limit load solutions have been used world-widely. However, to predict accurately load carrying capacities of specific components under different conditions, the solutions have to be modified by using lots of experimental data. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new burst pressure estimation scheme based on fracture mechanics analyses for steam generator tube with an axial or circumferential through-wall crack. A series of three dimensional elastic-plastic finite element analyses were carried out and, then, closed-form estimation equations with respect to both J-integral and crack opening displacement were derived through reference stress method. The developed engineering equations were utilized for structural integrity evaluation and the resulting data were compared to the corresponding ones fiom experiments as well as limit load solutions. Thereafter, since the effectiveness was proven by promising results, it is believed that the proposed estimation scheme can be used as an efficient tool for integrity evaluation of cracked steam generator tubes.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.40-45
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• 1993

The steam generator tubes of the nuclear power plant should be inspected using eddy current techniques. Recently the crack-like defects become a major concern for the integrity of the steam generator tubes. These defects could be detected by the MRPC(Motorized Rotating Pancake Coil) method, not by the conventional bobbin coil method. In this paper it has been attempted to estimate the length of the cracks at the tube expansion region using of MRPC technique. The lengths of both axial and circumferential cracks show a tendency of overestimation compared to the real lengths. As the depths of the defects decrease from 100% through 50% of the wall thickness, the error of the length estimation is increased.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.37 no.11
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• pp.1379-1386
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• 2013

The present work reports the mismatch limit loads for a V-groove welded pipe for a circumferential crack using finite element (FE) analyses. To integrate the effect of groove angles on mismatch limit loads, one geometry-related slenderness parameter was modified by relevant geometric parameters including the groove angle, crack depth, and root opening based on plastic deformation patterns in the theory of plasticity. Circumferential through-wall cracks are located at the centre of the weldments with two different groove angles ($45^{\circ}$, $90^{\circ}$). With regard to the loading conditions, axial (longitudinal) tension and bending are applied for all cases. For the parent and weld metal, elastic-perfectly plastic materials are considered to simulate and analyze under- and over-matching conditions in plasticity. The overall results from the proposed solutions are found to be similar to the FE results.