• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.112-119
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• 2021

The failure mode of piping systems due to seismic loads is the low-cycle fatigue failure with ratcheting, and it was found that the element in which nonlinear behavior is concentrated and damage occurs is the elbow. In this study, to quantitatively express the failure criteria for a pipe elbow of SCH40 3-inch carbon steel under low-cycle fatigue, the limit state was defined as leakage, and the in-plane cyclic loading test was conducted. For the carbon steel pipe elbow, which is the vulnerable part to seismic load of piping systems, the damage index was represented using the moment-deformation angle relationship, and it was compared and analyzed with the damage index calculated using the force-displacement relationship. An attempt was made to quantitatively express the limit state of the carbon steel pipe elbow involving leakage using the damage index, which was based on the dissipated energy caused by repeated external forces.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.546-551
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• 2010

The objective of this research is to estimate the crack location and size of a carbon steel pipe by using a laser ultrasound guided wave for the wall thinning evaluation of an elbow. The wall thinning of the carbon steel pipe is one of the most serious problems in nuclear power plants, especially the wall thinning of the carbon steel elbow caused by Flow-Accelerated Corrosion (FAC). Therefore, a non-destructive inspection method of elbow is essential for the nuclear power plants to operate safely. The specimens used in this study were carbon steel elbows, which represented the main elements of real nuclear power plants. The shape of the wall thinning was an oval with a width of 120mm, a length of 80mm, and a depth of 5mm. The L(0,1) and L(0,2) modes variation of the ultrasound guided wave signal is obtained from the response of the laser generation/air-coupled detection ultrasonic hybrid system represent the characteristics of the defect. The trends of these characteristics and signal processing were used to estimate the size and location of wall thinning.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.13-22
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• 2022

This study proposes a low-cycle fatigue life derived from measurement points on pipe elbows, which are components that are vulnerable to seismic load in the interface piping systems of nuclear power plants that use seismic isolation systems. In order to quantitatively define limit states regarding leakage, i.e., actual failure caused by low-cycle fatigue, in-plane cyclic loading tests were performed using a sine wave of constant amplitude. The test specimens consisted of SCH40 6-inch carbon steel pipe elbows and straight pipes, and an image processing method was used to measure the nonlinear behavior of the test specimens. The leakage lines caused by low-cycle fatigue and the low-cycle fatigue curves were compared and analyzed using the relationship between the relative deformation angles, which were measured based on each of the measurement points on the straight pipe, and the moment, which was measured at the center of the pipe elbow. Damage indices based on the combination of ductility and dissipation energy at each measurement point were used to quantitatively express the time at which leakage occurs due to through-wall cracking in the pipe elbow.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.41-55
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• 2015

This study proposes a laser based impedance measurement system and impedance based pipe corrosion and bolt-loosening monitoring techniques under temperature variations. For impedance measurement, the laser based impedance measurement system is optimized and adopted in this paper. First, a modulated laser beam is radiated to a photodiode, converting the laser beam into an electric signal. Then, the electric signal is applied to a MFC transducer attached on a target structure for ultrasonic excitation. The corresponding impedance signals are measured, re-converted into a laser beam, and radiated back to the other photodiode located in a data interrogator. The transmitted impedance signals are treated with an outlier analysis using generalized extreme value (GEV) statistics to reliably signal off structural damage. Validation of the proposed technique is carried out to detect corrosion and bolt-loosening in lab-scale carbon steel elbow pipes under varying temperatures. It has been demonstrated that the proposed technique has a potential to be used for structural health monitoring (SHM) of pipe structures.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.27-28
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• 2006

This study performs to investigate deformation of wall thinning pipe and to find out the position of the internal thinning defect by shearography. Shearography is one of optical methods those have applied to nondestructive testing (NDT) and the strain/stress analysis. This technique has the merit of the directly measuring the first derivative of displacement, sensitivity of which can be adjusted by the handling of optical component in interferometer. In this paper, we tested carbon steel pipe locally wall thinned and loaded internal pressure and developed the nondestructive out-of-plane deformation analysis technique fur internal thinning defect of elbow by shearography. From the results, it was confirmed that this technique is proper to the practical application on the pipe line system with internal defect.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.1244-1249
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• 2024

A combination of flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) tests and corresponding computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tests were performed to determine the hydrodynamic parameters that could help predict the highly susceptible location to FAC in the elbow section. The accelerated FAC tests were performed on a specimen containing elbow sections fabricated using commercial 2-inch carbon steel pipe. The tests were conducted at flow rates of 9 m/s under the following conditions: water temperature of 150 ℃, dissolved oxygen <5 ppb, and pH 7. Thickness reduction of the specimen pipe due to FAC was measured using ultrasonic testing. CFD was conducted on the FAC test specimen, and the turbulence intensity, and shear stress were analyzed. Notably, the location of the maximum hydrodynamic parameters, that is, the wall shear stress and turbulent intensity, is also the same location with maximum FAC rate. Therefore, the shear stress and turbulence intensity can be used as hydrodynamic parameters that help predict the FAC-induced wall-thinning rate. The results provide a method to identify locations susceptible to FAC and can be useful for determining inspection priority in piping systems.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2016

Local wall thinning elbow due to the water flow is one of the main degradation phenomenon in carbon steel pipe of plant system. The API579 code of FFS (fitness for service) used in the chemical plant gives a guideline to protect local wall thin problem in a straight pipe, but it does not include an elbow. In this study, the locally wall thinned elbow, which is considered an extrados or intrados wall thinned elbow, was carried out considering in-plane or out-plane bending using FEM (finite element method) analysis, and some of results were also compared with the experimental data. The results could give the structure integrity assessment to protect the local wall thinned elbow.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.321-328
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• 2006

In this study, the deformation oi wall thinning elbow is measured and the position of the internal thinning defect is found out by shearography. Shearography is an optical method which has applied to nondestructive testing (NDT) and the strain/stress and deformation analysis. This technique has the merit of the directly measuring the first derivative of displacement with sensitivity which can be adjusted by handling the tilt mirror in the interferometer. In this paper, we tested carbon steel pipe locally wall thinned and loaded internal pressure and the shearography was applied to measure the out-of-plane deformation of wall thinning elbow and to investigate the internal thinning defect of it. From the results, it was confirmed that this technique is proper to the practical application on the pipe line system with internal defect.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.295-301
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• 2010

Flow accelerated corrosion(FAC) of carbon steel pipes in nuclear power plants has been known as one of the major degradation mechanisms. It could have bad influence on the plant reliability and safety. Also detection of FAC is a significant cost to the nuclear power plant because of the need to remove and replace insulation. Recently, the interest of the guided wave testing(GWT) has grown because it allows long range inspection without removing insulation of the pipe except at the probe position. If GWT can be applied to detection of FAC damages, it will can significantly reduce the cost for the inspection of the pipes. The objective of this study was to determine the capability of GWT to identify location of FAC damages. In this paper, three kinds of techniques were used to measure the amplitude ratio between the first and the second welds at the elbow area of mock-ups that contain real FAC damages. As a result, optimal inspection technique and minimum detectability to detect FAC damages drew a conclusion.