• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.98-103
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• 2009

The nuclear power plants have been safely operated by plugging the steam generator tubes which have the crack indications. Tube rupture events can occur if analysts fail to detect crack indications during in-service inspection. There are various types of crack indication in steam generator tubes and they have been detected by the eddy current test. The integrity assessment should be performed using the crack-sizing results from eddy current data when the crack indication is detected. However, it is not easy to evaluate the crack-depth precisely and consistently due to the complexity of the methods. The current crack-sizing methods were reviewed in this paper and the suitable ones were selected through the laboratory tests. The retired steam generators of Kori Unit 1 were used for this study. The round robin tests by the domestic qualified analysts were carried out and the statistical models were introduced to establish the appropriate depth-sizing techniques. It is expected that the proposed techniques in this study can be utilized in the Steam Generator Management Program.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2001

Some techniques developed recently for sizing smalt fatigue cracks are described. One is an ultrasonic technique which deals with a small closed crack, where both the stress closing the crack and the crack size are determined by analyzing inverse problem. Here, difficulties encountered in NDE of closed cracks by usual ultrasonic techniques are summarized in advance. Secondly, the closely coupled probes potential drop (CCPPD) technique, which is based on d-c potential drop measurement, is explained fur sizing small cracks. The CCPPD technique is not affected by crack closure. Finally, a discussion is given on NDE of materials degradation in conjunction with sensitive NDE of small cracks.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.38-47
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• 2007

The initiation of fatigue cracks in a simulated aircraft structure with a series of rivet holes was detected by acoustic emission(AE), then the crack length was determined by surface acoustic wave(SAW) technique. With the initiation and growth of fatigue cracks, AE events increased intermittently to form a stepwise incremental curve of cumulative AE events whereas the crack length increased more or less monotonically. With the SAW technique employed, the crack sizing for 13 different cracks including some short cracks was performed. With the reference to the measurement by traveling microscope, cracks in the range of $1{\sim}8mm$ long were reliably sized by the SAW technique. Although it was impossible to size the short fatigue cracks in the range shorter than 1 mm, the SAW technique still appeared practically useful for a range of crack lengths often found in aircraft structures.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.253-270
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• 2013

The aim of the present paper is to show the application of optimization strategies for the cost of beams in reinforced concrete buildings and to propose pre-sizing parameters. In order for these goals to be met, an optimization software program was developed. The program combines the analysis of structures by the grid model, reinforced concrete sizing, and the simulated annealing optimization heuristic. Sizing is compliant with the NBR 6118 (2007) Brazilian standard, according to which flexural, shearing, torsion, and web reinforcements and serviceability limit states (deflection and crack width limitation) are checked. Besides the dimensions of the situations mentioned above, the influence the cost of each material (steel, concrete and formwork) has on the overall cost of structures was also determined.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.627-636
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• 2002

Identification and sizing of surface breaking vertical cracks using angle beam ultrasonic testing in practical situation quite often become very difficult tasks due to the presence of non-relevant signals caused by geometric reflectors. The present work introduces effective and systematic approaches to take care of such a difficulty by use oi angle beam ultrasonic testing models that can predict the expected signals from various targets very accurately. Specifically, the model-based TIFD (Technique for Identification of Flaw signals using Deconvolution) is Proposed for the identification of the crack tip signals from the non-relevant geometric reflection signals. In addition, the model-based Size-Amplitude Curve is introduced for the reliable sizing of surface breaking vertical cracks.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.405-414
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• 2009

This paper proposed a methodology based on ultrasonic diffraction technique to inspect the depth of a crack initiated from a notch of CT specimen by fatigue test, and its usefulness was verified by experiments. Especially, in order to identify accurately the diffractive waves from the crack tip in the situation where there are extra diffractive elements such as a notch, we have tried imaging by transducer scan and analyzed the propagation path of diffracted wave. Two specimens with and without a crack were experimented. Higher frequency and larger refractive angle of transducer showed a tendency to decrease the error in the measurements, and the measured crack depth showed an error less than 0.38 mm in case of 4 MHz $60^{\circ}-60^{\circ}$. The proposed methodology is applicable to weak diffractive sources, and so that it would be useful to inspect micro cracks and for their depth sizing.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.7-12
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• 2009

The flaws detected by the non-destructive surface test methods shall be sized by means of the volumetric test such as an UT(ultrasonic test) or an ECT(eddy current test) for the purpose of analyzing and repairing them. It is generally known that the ECT is a comparatively effective technique for the small size cracks which are located shallowly from the surface. On this study, the ECT technique was tried to size the depth of the crack-like EDM notches, and it is identified that the ECT is an appropriate depth sizing technique for the shallow cracks less than 3mm in the Martensitic CA6NM material.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.883-888
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• 2014

This work presents the influence of noise originating from the tube itself on the detectability and sizing accuracy for laboratory-induced outer diameter axial cracks in nuclear steam generator tubes. The variations of signal amplitude and phase angle of the same cracks were analyzed when increasing the signal-to-noise ratio of the tube itself from 9 to 18. It was experimentally verified that the detectability for small cracks was enhanced by increasing the signal-to-noise ratio. The phase angle also rotated to a value representing the actual position and depth of a crack when increasing the signal-to-noise ratio.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1998.04a
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• pp.309-316
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• 1998

In this paper, a newly derived formulation of a crack detection model is presented and its feasibility to detect cracks in structures is verified experimentally. To meet this objective, the followig approach is utilized. Firstly, the crack detection scheme which consists of the damage localization model and the crack detection model is formulated. Secondly, the feasibility and practicality of the complete procedure of the crack detection model is evaluated by locating and sizing cracks in clamped-clamped beams for which a f3w modal parameters were measured for sixteen uncracked and cracked states. Major results observed from the crack detection exercises include that far most damage cases, the predicted crack locations falls within very close to the inflicted locations of cracks in the test beam and the size of crack values estimated at the predicted locations are very close to the inflicted magnitudes.

• 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.