• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.132-146
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• 1995

Flaw classification(determination of the flaw type) and flaw sizing (prediction of the flaw shape, orientation and sizing parameters) are very important issues in ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation of weldments. In this work, new techniques for both classification and sizing of flaws in weldments are described together with extensive review of previous works on both topics. In the area of flaw classification, a methodology is developed which can solve classification problems using probabilistic neural networks, and in the area of flaw sizing, a time-of-flight equivalent(TOFE) sizing method is presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.3-16
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• 1997

In modern high performance engineering applications, the structural integrity of materials and structures are quite often evaluated using fracture mechanics. This evaluation in turn requires information on the flaw geometry (location, type, shape, size, and orientation). The ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation (NDE) method is one technique that is commonly used to provide such information. Flaw classification (determination of the flaw type ) and flaw sizing (prediction of the flaw shape, orientation and sizing parameters) are very important issues for quantitative ultrasonic NDE. In this paper new approaches to both classification and sizing of flaws are described together with extensive review of previous works on both topics. In the area of flaw classification, a methodology is developed which can solve classification problems using probabilistic neural networks, and in the area of flaw sizing, a time-of-flight equivalent (TOFE) sizing method is presented. The techniques proposed here are in a form that can be used directly in many practical applications to quantitative estimates of the flaw's significance.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.25-30
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• 2013

The periodic inspection of piping and pressure vessels welds in nuclear power plant has to provide reliable result related to weld flaws, such as location, maximum amplitude response, ultrasonic length, height and finally the nature or flaw pattern. The founded flaw in ultrasonic inspection is accepted or rejected based on these data. Specially, the amplitude of flaw response is used as basic parameter for flaw sizing and it may cause some deviation in length sizing result. Currently the ultrasonic inspections in nuclear power plant components are performed by specific inspection procedure which describing inspection technique include inspection system, calibration methodology and flaw characterizing. To perform ultrasonic inspection during in-service inspection, reference gain should be established before starting ultrasonic inspection by the requirement of ASME code. This reference gain used as basic criteria to evaluate flaw sizing. Sometimes, a little difference in establishing reference gain between calibration and field condition can lead to deviation in flaw sizing. Due to this difference, the inspection result may cause flaw sizing error. Therefore, the objective of this study is to compare and evaluate the ultrasonic amplitude difference between air filled and water filled pipe in nuclear power plant. Additionally, the accuracy of flaw sizing is estimated by comparing both conditions.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.20-24
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• 2015

During refueling Outage, In-service inspections(ISIs) for the Nuclear Power Plant components are mandatory requirement in accordance with ASME Code Sec. XI. Especially, in current ultrasonic testing is one of the most important NDT techniques that are used for volumetric examination methods for nuclear power plant components, and accurate sizing of flaw indication by UT is essential to assure the integrity of the components. However, ASME code specifies minimum requirement for vessel examination procedure, and so far many different flaw sizing approaches have been tried to apply. Through the Round Robin Test(RRT), the accuracy of ultrasonic flaw sizing using DAC techniques was measured with the mock-ups simulating typical pressure vessel welds. These mock-ups contain artificially introduced flaws of known size and location. This paper shows experimental comparison data on the accuracy of techniques using such as 6dB drop, 50%DAC, 20%DAC and 20%DAC with beam spread correction, and also shows that diverse DAC techniques can be effectively applied to the assessment of the flaw sizing for pressure vessel welds in the stage of welding and fabrication.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.46-49
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• 2008

NDE(Nondestructive examination) detects a flaw or discontinuity in materials. Flaws detected by the pre-service or in-service examinations shall be sized for the purpose of analysis and repair. A flaw that is initiated from the surface is difficult to determine its depth by NDE. The depth of the surface flaw can be measured using an ultrasonic diffracted wave. To find the optimum standard for ultrasonic parameter(For example, frequency & size of transducer), a mock-up test and simulation were established and studied. This inspection technology may show the depth sizing possibility of the flaw down to nearly two(2) mm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 1996.11a
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• pp.167-176
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• 1996

Flaw classification and sizing are very essential issues in quantitative ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation of various materials and structures including weldments. For performing of these tasks in an automated fashion, we are developing an intelligent ultrasonic evaluation system with a multi-axis portable scanner which can do consistent and efficient acquisition and processing of ultrasonic flaw signals. Here we present our efforts to develop of this intelligent system including design of the portable scanner, acquisition and processing of ultrasonic flaw signals, display of pseudo 3-D image of flaws, and classification and sizing of flaws in weldments.

• 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.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.16-22
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• 2010

Cast austenitic stainless steel(CASS) is used in the primary cooling piping system of nuclear power plant for it's relative low cost, corrosion resistance and easy of welding. However, the coarse-grain structure of cast austenitic stainless steel can strongly affect the inspectability of ultrasonic testing. The major problems encountered during inspection are beam skewing, high attenuation and high background noise of CASS component. So far, the best inspection performance involving CASS components have been achieved using low frequency TRL(Transmitter/Receiver side-by-side L wave) angle beam probe. But TRL technique could not detect shallow defect and it contains an uncertainty for sizing capability. Currently, most of researchers are studying to overcome these challenge issue. In this study, low-frequency phased array TRL technique used to detect and sizing the flaws in CF8A cast austenitic stainless steel.As conclusion, we could detect and size not only axial flaw but also circumferential flaw using low frequency phased array technique.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.14-19
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• 2009

NDE(Nondestructive examination) detects a flaw or discontinuity in materials. Flaws detected by the examination shall be evaluated for the decision basis of the integrity. The internal flaws of forging products can be detected by UT. However, UT has detection limits because of its reflected signal weakness. Normally, a 1mm or less flaw is known as the limit. If a flaw was detected, the size of flaw would be evaluated by AVG(or DGS) technique. To verify the evaluation data, alternative examination methods are needed. But there is no alternative examination methods until now. In this study, Phased array ultrasonic technique can be used to size the flaws in the generator rotor with focused beam of ultrasonic wave as a supplement method of AVG. Also, the phased array ultrasonic technique described enables the shape of flaw to be depicted exactly.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.216-227
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• 2005

The head penetrations for control rod drive mechanism and instrumentation systems are installed at the reactor pressure vessel head of PWRs. Primary coolant water and the operating conditions of PWR plants can cause cracking of these nickel-based alloy through a process called primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC). Inspection of the head penetrations to ensure the integrity of the head penetrations has been interested since reactor coolant leakages were found at U. S. reactors in 2000 and 2001. The complex geometry of the head penetrations and the very low echo amplitude from the fine, multiple flaws due to the nature of the see made it difficult to detect and size the flaws using conventional pulse-echo UT methods. Time-of-flight-diffraction technique, which utilizes the time difference between the flaw tips while pulse-echo does the flaw response amplitude from the flaw, has been selected for this inspection for it's best performance of the detection and sizing of the head penetration see flaws. This study defines the limits of the detectable and accurately sizable minimum flaw size which can be detected by the General TOFD and the Delta TOFD techniques for circumferentially and axially oriented flaws respectively. These results assures the reliability of the inspection techniques to detect and accurately size for various kind of flaws, and will also be utilized for the future development and qualifications of the TOFD techniques to enhance the detecting sensitivity and sizing accuracy of the flaws of the reactor head penetrations in nuclear power plants.