• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.142-148
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• 2013

Safety is a major concern in Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). Piping systems in NPPs are very complex and composed of many components such as tees, elbows, expanders and straight pipes. The high pressure and high temperature water flows inside piping components. As high speed water flows inside piping, the pipe wall thinning occurs in various reasons such as FAC (Flow Accelerated Corrosion), LDIE (Liquid Droplet Impingement Erosion) and Flashing. To inspect the wall thinning phenomenon and protect the piping from damages, piping components are checked by UT measurement in every overhaul. During every overhaul, approximately 200~300 components (40,000~60,000 UT data) are examined in NPPs. There are some methods from EPRI for evaluating wear rate of components. However, only few studies have been conducted to find out the raw data reliability for the wear rate evaluation. Securing the reliable raw data is the key factor for a reasonable evaluation. This paper suggests the reliability analysis method for the repeatedly measured data for wear rate evaluation.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.120-125
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• 2007

Put Abstract text here The strain distribution measurement for wall thinned pipe bends by ESPI is presented. Defect types observed in the steel piping in the nuclear power plants (NPP) are the crack at the weld part and the wall thinning defect in the pipe bends. Especially, the wall thinning defects in the pipe bends due to the flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) is a main type of defects observed in the carbon steel piping system. ESPI is one of the optical non-destructive testing methods and can measure the stress and the strain distribution of the object subjected by the tensile loading or the internal pressure. In this paper, the strain distribution of the wall thinned pipe bends due to the internal pressure will be measured by ESPI technique and the results are discussed. From the results, the size of the wall thinning defect can also be measured approximately.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.483-491
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• 2011

When pipe components made of carbon steel in nuclear, fossil, and industry are exposed to flowing fluid, wall thinning caused by FAC(flow accelerated corrosion) can be generated and eventually ruptured at the portion of pressure boundary. A study to identify the locations generating local wall thinning and to disclose turbulence coefficient related to the local wall thinning was performed. Experiment and numerical analyses for tee of down scaled piping components were performed and the results were compared. In particular, flow visualization experiment which was used alkali metallic salt was performed to find actual location of local wall thinning inside tee components. To disclose the relationship between turbulence coefficients and local wall thinning, numerical analyses were performed for tee components. The turbulence coefficients based on the numerical analyses were compared with the local wall thinning based on the measured data. From the comparison of the results, the vertical flow velocity component(Vr) flowing to the wall after separating in the wall due to the geometrical configuration and colliding with the wall directly at an angle of some degree was analogous to the configuration of local wall thinning.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.227-232
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• 2013

A number of components installed in the secondary system of nuclear power plants are exposed to aging mechanisms such as FAC (Flow-Accelerated Corrosion), Cavitation, Flashing, and LDIE (Liquid Droplet Impingement Erosion). Those aging mechanisms can lead to thinning of the components. In April 2013, one (1) inch small bore piping branched from the main steam line experienced leakage resulting from wall thinning in a 1,000 MWe Korean PWR nuclear power plant. During the normal operation, extracted steam from the main steam line goes to condenser through the small bore piping. The leak occurred in the downstream of an orifice. A control valve with vertical flow path was placed on in front of the orifice. This paper deals with UT (Ultrasonic Test) thickness data, SEM images, and numerical simulation results in order to analyze the extent of damage and the cause of leakage in the small bore piping. As a result, it is concluded that the main cause of the small bore pipe wall thinning is liquid droplet impingement erosion. Moreover, it is observed that the leak occurred at the reattachment point of the vortex flow in the downstream side of the orifice.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.19-24
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• 2015

Flow Accelerated Corrosion (FAC) causes unexpected accidents in a secondary side of a nuclear power plant. The secondary side pipes are mainly carbon steel tubes that have a protective magnetite ($Fe_3O_4$) layer on the inner surface. The stability of the protective magnetite layer depends on the parameters related to the FAC phenomena such as pH, temperature, flow rate, surface roughness etc. The dissolution of magnetite is basically the electrochemical reaction, but the most of the experiments of magnetite dissolution were carried out thermodynamically to determine the solubility of magnetite. The knowledge of the electrochemical properties of magnetite is required to understand the dissolution process of magnetite. This paper reviews the manufacture of the magnetite ($Fe_3O_4$) electrode, and summaries the electrochemical properties of the magnetite.

• Plant Journal
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.25-30
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• 2019

In this study, by varying flow patterns, which is one of the hydraulic factors of FAC, a strategy to reduce pipe wall thinning by mass transfer has been investigated. A similarity between heat transfer and mass transfer was verified via theoretical analysis, and local convective heat transfer coefficients were analyzed using a commercial numerical analysis program. When ribs were installed inside and outside of the internal surface in the straight section of the pipe, the maximum local heat transfer coefficient was shown to decrease substantially by up to 24.9% compared to the basic flow depending on the position and shape of ribs. If a guide vein was inserted in the pipe elbow, the maximum local heat transfer coefficient decreased by up to 26.7% compared to the basic flow depending on the internal surface area of the pipe by the guide vein.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.62-69
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• 2014

A huge number of carbon steel piping components installed in the secondary system of nuclear power plants are exposed to aging mechanisms such as FAC (Flow-Accelerated Corrosion), Cavitation, Flashing, and LDIE (Liquid Droplet Impingement Erosion). Those aging mechanisms can lead to thinning of the piping components. To manage the wall thinning degradation, most of utilities in the world predict the wall thinning rate based on the computational program such as CHECWORKS, COMSY, and BRT-CICERO, evaluate the UT (Ultrasonic Test) data, and determine next inspection timing, repair or replacement, if needed. There are several evaluation methods, such as band, blanket, and strip methods, commonly used for determining the wear of piping components from single UT inspection data. It has been identified that those single UT evaluation methods not only do not consider the manufacturing features of pipes, but also may exclude the data of the most thinned point when determining the representative wear rate of piping components. This paper describes a newly developed single UT evaluation method, E-Cross method, for solving above problems and introduces application examples for several pipes and elbows. It was identified that the E-Cross method using the length and width of UT data excluded the most thinned points appropriate as the single UT evaluation method for thinned piping components.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.7 s.238
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• pp.947-954
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to develop failure pressure evaluation models, which are applicable to straight pipes and elbows containing an internally wall thinning defect induced by flow-accelerated-corrosion (FAC). In this study, thus, three dimensional finite element (FE) analyses are performed to investigate the dependences of failure pressure of internally wall thinned pipe on the defect shape, the pipe geometry, and the defect location and bend radius of elbow. Also, the existing failure pressure assessment models for externally wall thinned pipes are examined. Based on these, the new models for assessing failure pressure of piping components with an internally wall thinning defect are proposed. Comparison of failure pressure, predicted by proposed models, with FE analysis result shows good agreement regardless of pipe type, defect shape, and defect location and bend radius.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.191-198
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• 2008

Flow accelerated corrosion (FAC) phenomenon of low alloy carbon steels in nuclear power plant has been known as one of major degradation mechanisms. It has a potential to cause nuclear pipe rupture accident which may directly impact on the plant reliability and safety. Recently, the equipotential switching direct current potential drop (ES-DCPD) method has been developed, by the present authors, as a method to monitor wall loss in a piping. This method can rapidly monitor the thinning of piping, utilizing either the wide range monitoring (WiRM) or the narrow range monitoring (NaRM) technique. WiRM is a method to monitor wide range of straight piping, whereas NaRM focuses significantly on a narrow range such as an elbow. WiRM and NaRM can improve the reliability of the current FAC screening method that is based on computer modeling on fluid flow conditions. In this paper, the measurements by ES-DCPD are performed with signal sensitivity analyses in the laboratory environment for extended period and showed the viability of ES-DCPD for real plant applications.