• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.182-188
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• 2016

Significant piping wall thinning caused by Flow-Accelerated Corrosion (FAC) and Erosion-Corrosion (EC) continues to occur, even after the Mihama Power Station unit 3 secondary pipe rupture in 2004, in which workers were seriously injured or died. Nuclear power plants in many countries have experienced FAC and EC-related cases in steam cycle piping systems. Korea has also experienced piping wall thinning cases including thinning in the downstream straight pipe of a check valve in a feedwater pump line, the downstream elbow of a control valve in a feedwater flow control line, and failure of the straight pipe downstream of an orifice in an auxiliary steam return line. Cause analyses were performed by reviewing thickness data using Ultrasonic Techniques (UT) and, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images for the failed pipe, and numerical simulation results for FAC and EC cases in Korea Nuclear Power Plants. It was concluded that the main cause of wall thinning for the downstream pipe of a check valve is FAC caused by water vortex flow due to the internal flow shape of a check valve, the main cause of wall thinning for the downstream elbow of a control valve is FAC caused by a thickness difference with the upstream pipe, and the main cause of wall thinning for the downstream pipe of an orifice is FAC and EC caused by liquid droplets and vortex flow. In order to investigate more cases, additional analyses were performed with the review of a lot of thickness data for inspected pipes. The results showed that pipe wall thinning was also affected by the operating condition of upstream equipment. Management of FAC and EC based on these cases will focus on the downstream piping of abnormal or unusual operated equipment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.435-443
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• 2018

Most of aged water supply pipes have been replaced by the open cut method. However, this method has some limitations because water pipes, in many cases, are buried together with other underground facilities or are buried in the middle of high-traffic roads or in narrow alleyways where boring machines cannot be used. This research developed a pipe bursting device for small diameter pipes that enables pipe replacement without excavating the ground, by the busting of existing buried pipes followed by the traction and insertion of new pipes. As a results of examining the field applicability of the developed device, PE pipes and PVC pipes required the tractive force of 413.65~665.69 kgf and 457.43~791.35 kgf respectively, plus an additional 30 % tractive force per elbow. The proper number of bursting head was demonstrated that the connection of more than 2 heads could secure a stable bending radius of 15D. The developed device can be improved through field experiments involving various pipe types and pipe diameters, as well as presence/absence of elbow, so as to be utilized regardless of diverse variables according to the conditions of the soils surrounding existing pipes.

• 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 Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1999.05a
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• pp.421-421
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• 1999

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.122-129
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• 2020

To conduct probabilistic seismic fragility analysis for nuclear power plants, it is very important to define the failure modes and criteria that can represent actual serious accidents. The seismic design criteria for piping systems, however, cannot fully reflect serious accidents because they are based on plastic collapse and cannot express leakage, which is the actual limit state. Therefore, it is necessary to clearly define the limit state for reliable probabilistic seismic fragility analysis. Therefore, in this study, the limit state of the SCH80 3-inch steel pipe elbow, the vulnerable part of piping systems, was defined as leakage, and the in-plane cyclic loading test was conducted. Moreover, an attempt was made to quantify the failure criteria for the steel pipe elbow using the damage index, which was based on the dissipated energy that used the moment-deformation angle relationship.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.70-77
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• 2013

The present study has been carried out to analyze the effect of steam hammering on the steam piping system including the final superheater, the high pressure turbine, check valve and the first reheater by sudden stoping of main stop valve in a power plant. For the present steam hammering analysis, the well known Flowmaster software has been used to model the steam piping system and the time dependent characteristics of pressure and steam mass flow rate has been conducted. Using the result of the unsteady pressure and steam mass flow rate, the forces acting on the elbows in the piping system has been derived. From the present analysis, it has been elucidated that the elbow just before the main stop valve and the elbow near the connection pipe between bypass pipe and check valve had the largest force among the elbows in the steam piping system. The structural safety diagnostics study on the elbow and the supporting structures of the steam piping system of a power plant will be conducted in the future by the present results of the forces acting on the elbow.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2002.08a
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• pp.401-402
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• 2002

The flow characteristics of ice slurry which was made from $6.5{\%}$ ethylene glycol-water solution flowing in the special pipings including the enlargement, the contraction and the orifice were experimentally investigated. The flow patterns and the pressure drops were measured in acrylic pipes when the fraction of ice were varied from $0\;to\;30{\%}$. The pressure drop behavior of the contraction and the orifice appears to be similar to that of the elbow pipe, since these piping may provide similar frictional resistance to the elbow. In the mean while, the pressure drop increased unexpectedly high with the Ice fraction in the enlargement pipe. It seems that the onset of sharp increase in the pressure drop depends on the flowing time as well as the ice fraction and the flow rate.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.1017-1024
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• 2007

This study performed a series of burst tests at ambient temperature using real-scale elbow specimen containing a local wall-thinning defect at it's intrados or extrados and evaluated failure pressure of locally wall-thinned elbows. In the experiment, a 90-degree 100A, Sch. 80 standard elbow was employed, and various wall-thinning geometries, such as length, depth, and circumferential angle, were considered. From the results of experiment, the dependences of failure pressure of wall-thinned elbows on the defect geometries and locations were investigated. In addition, the reliability of existing models was examined by comparing the tests data with the results predicted from existing failure pressure evaluation models for locally wall-thinned elbow.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.21-32
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• 1993

A cracking failure of a austenitic stainless steel elbow in a naphtha cracking line in a petrochenmical plant occurred, resulting in leakage of organic compound flowing inside the elbow. Due to the failure, emergency shutdown of the plant was enforced to repair the troubled part of the line. The repair cost as well as production loss during the unscheduled plant shutdown has cost the company a great amount of financial loss. In this studies, a failure analysis of the cracked elbow was performed using NDT, chemical analysis, microstructural analysis including optical microscopy as well as scanning electron microscopy with EPMA, mechanical testings such as tensile testing, hardness testing and Charphy impact test fractography. The results indicated that several problems such as a welding defect and presence of a detrimental phase which was found to be relate to improper postforming heat treatment process was identified and the failure was concluded to be due to a low temperature embrittlement of the defect-containing elbows.