• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.157-164
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• 2017

A parallel slide gate valve (PSGV) is located between the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) and the steam turbine in a combined cycle power plant (CCPP). It is used to control the flow of steam and runs with repetitive operations such as startups, load changes, and shutdowns during its operation period. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the fatigue damage and the structural integrity under a large compressive thermal stress due to the temperature difference through the valve wall thickness during the startup operations. In this paper, the thermal-structural analysis and the fatigue life evaluation of a 16-inch PSGV, which is installed on the HP steam line, is performed according to the fatigue life assessment method described in the ASME B&PVC VIII-2; the method uses the equivalent stress from the elastic stress analysis.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.40 no.7
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• pp.653-658
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• 2016

High pressure components of a gas turbine engine are generally made of nickel-base superalloys, using precision casting process due to complicated geometries with intricate channels and cooling holes. Turbine components manufactured from directionally solidified and single crystal materials have columnar grains; however, it is found that the crystals do not grow in its preferred direction, although the orientation can be controlled. This anisotropy can lead to the variations of elastic and Hill's parameters in constitutive equations, and they alter stress distributions and the low cycle fatigue life. We aims to evaluate the effects of perturbed crystal orientations on the structural integrity of a directionally solidified nozzle using low cycle fatigue life. We also attempt to show the necessity for the control of allowed manufacturing errors and stochastic analysis. Our approaches included conjugate heat transfer and structural analysis, along with low cycle fatigue life assessment.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.311-320
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• 2014

Rotor blades are important devices that affect the power performance, efficiency of energy conversion, and loading and dynamic stability of wind turbines. Therefore, considering the characteristics of a wind turbine system is important for achieving optimal blade design. When a design is complete, a design evaluation should be performed to verify the structural integrity of the proposed blade in accordance with international standards or guidelines. This paper presents a detailed exposition of the evaluation items and acceptance criteria required for the design certification of wind turbine blades. It also presents design evaluation results for a 2-MW blade (KR40.1b). Analyses of ultimate strength, buckling stability, and tip displacement were performed using FEM, and Miner's rule was applied to evaluate the fatigue life of the blade. The structural integrity of the KR40.1b blade was found to satisfy the design standards.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.337-344
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• 2017

The demand of liquified natural gas is increasing due to environmental issues. This reason has resulted in increasing the capacity of liquified natural gas cargo tank. The Mark-III type primary barrier directly contacts liquified natural gas. Also, the primary barrier is under various loading conditions such as weight of liquified natural gas and sloshing loads. During a ship operation, various loads can cause fatigue failure. Therefore, the fatigue life prediction should be evaluated to prevent leakage of liquified natural gas. In the present study, the fatigue analysis of insulation system including primary barrier is performed using a finite element model. The fatigue life of primary barrier is carried out using a numerical study. The value of principle stress and the location of maximum principle stress range are calculated, and the fatigue life is evaluated. In addition, the effects on the insulation panel status and the arrangement of knot or corrugation are analyzed by comparing the fatigue life of various models. The insulation system which has best structural performance of primary barrier was selected to ensure structural integrity in fatigue assessment. These results can be used as a design guideline and a fundamental study for the fatigue assessment of primary barrier.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.485-492
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• 2009

The thermal fatigue crack(TFC) is one of the life-limiting mechanisms at the nuclear power plant operating conditions. In order to evaluate the structural integrity, various non-destructive test methods such as radiographic test, ultrasonic test and eddy current are used in the industrial field. However, these methods have restrictions that defect detection is possible after the crack growth. For this reason, acoustic emission testing(AET) is becoming one of powerful inspection methods, because AET has an advantage that possible to monitor the structure continuously. Generally, every mechanism that affects the integrity of the structure or equipment is a source of acoustic emission signal. Therefore the noise filtering is one of the major works to the almost AET researchers. In this study, acoustic emission signal was collected from the pipes which were in the successive thermal fatigue cycles. The data were filtered based on the results from previous experiments. Through the data analysis, the signal characteristics to distinguish the effective signal from the noises for the TFC were proven as the waveform difference. The experiment results provide preliminary information for the acoustic emission technique to the continuous monitoring of the structure failure detection.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.30-39
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• 2022

Maintaining structural integrity of major apparatuses in a nuclear power plant, including piping system, is recognized as a critical safety issue. The integrity of piping system is also a critical matter related to the safety of a nuclear power plant. The actual failure mode of a piping system due to a seismic load is the leakage due to a fatigue crack, and the structural damage mechanism is the low-cycle fatigue due to large relative displacement that may cause plastic deformation. In this study, in-plane cyclic loading tests were conducted under various constant amplitudes using specimens composed of steel straight pipes and a steel pipe tee in the piping system of a nuclear power plant. The loading amplitude was increased to consider the relative displacement generated in the piping system under seismic loads, and the test was conducted until leakage, which is the limit state of the steel pipe tee, occurred due to fatigue cracks. The limit state of the steel pipe tee was expressed using a damage model based on the damage index that used the force-displacement relationship. As a result, it was confirmed that the limit state of the steel pipe tee can be quantitatively expressed using the damage index.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.665-671
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• 2013

In a Korean Generation IV prototype sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), various types of high-temperature heat exchangers such as IHX (intermediate heat exchanger), DHX (decay heat exchanger), AHX (air heat exchanger), FHX (finned-tube sodium-to-air heat exchanger), and SG (steam generator) are to be designed and installed. In this study, the high-temperature design and integrity evaluation of the sodium-to-air heat exchanger AHX in the STELLA-1 (sodium integral effect test loop for safety simulation and assessment) test loop already installed at KAERI (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) and FHX in the SEFLA (sodium thermal-hydraulic experiment loop for finned-tube sodium-to-air heat exchanger) test loop to be installed at KAERI have been performed. Evaluations of creep-fatigue damage based on full 3D finite element analyses were conducted for the two heat exchangers according to the high-temperature design codes, and the integrity of the high-temperature design of the two heat exchangers was confirmed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.141-146
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• 2012

The rail surface defects which are generated on repeated rolling contact fatigue are getting increased according to high speed, high density, and minimum weight. In addition, Increasing noise and vibration are affected by these also impact load generated as well. Because of this phenomenon, more serious and critical damages were occurred. In fact, in order to control them, the rail grinding amount in Korea. This study evaluated how depth of hardening on rail surface is formed and suggested optimal rail grinding amount by RCF(rolling contact fatigue) test with generated contact pressure between KTX wheel and UIC60 rail by applying FEM analysis. Therefore, the amount was generated approximately 0.2mm/20MGT to maintain integrity of rail surface by getting rid of depth of hardening on rail according to rail accumulated passing tonnage.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.1388-1397
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• 2003

Since the reliability of adhesively bonded joints for composite structures is dependent on many parameters such as the shape and dimensions of joints, type of applied load, and environment, so an accurate estimation of the fatigue life of adhesively bonded joints is seldom possible, which necessitates an in-situ reliability monitoring of the joints during the operation of structures. In this study, a self-sensor method for adhesively bonded joints was devised, in which the adhesive used works as a piezoelectric material to send changing signals depending on the integrity of the joint. From the investigation, it was found that the electric charge increased gradually as cracks initiated and propagated in the adhesive layer, and had its maximum value when the adhesively bonded joint failed. So it is feasible to monitor the integrity of the joint during its lifetime. Finally, a relationship between the piezoelectric property of the adhesive and crack propagation was obtained from the experimental results.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.7
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• pp.607-614
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• 2008

Since pipes with wall-thinning defects can collapse at fluid pressure that are lower than expected, the collapse moment of wall-thinned pipes should be determined accurately for the safety of nuclear power plants. Wall-thinning defects, which are mostly found in pipe bends and elbows, are mainly caused by flow-accelerated corrosion. This lowers the failure pressure, load-carrying capacity, deformation ability, and fatigue resistance of pipe bends and elbows. This paper offers a support vector regression (SVR) model further enhanced with a fuzzy algorithm for calculation of the collapse moment and for evaluating the integrity of wall-thinned piping systems. The fuzzy support vector regression (FSVR) model is applied to numerical data obtained from finite element analyses of piping systems with wall-thinning defects. In this paper, three FSVR models are developed, respectively, for three data sets divided into extrados, intrados, and crown defects corresponding to three different defect locations. It is known that FSVR models are sufficiently accurate for an integrity evaluation of piping systems from laser or ultrasonic measurements of wall-thinning defects.