• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.109-113
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• 2002

In recent years, the radiotherapy equipment has become much more sophisticated, and with the complication comes an increased set of quality assurance (QA) responsibilities. Today's computer controlled linear accelerator requiring QA of not only the radiation integrity, but also the mechanical accuracy of the linear accelerator. The existing QA sheets are adequate for acceptance testing and commissioning but those sheets are somewhat descriptive form for routine QA. establishing the QA sheets for a facility are more efficient if the sheets could estimate the long-term stability for the result of QA. We are going to develope new prototype of mechanical QA sheet to visualize and to verify long-term stability of mechanical QA for clinical linear accelerator. The items included in mechanical QA sheet were 1) gantry rotation, 2) collimator rotation, 3) couch rotation, 4) optical distance indicator (ODI), and 5) laser alignment. We compared new prototype sheet with conventional sheet for several hospitals in Korea for those items. The QA acceptance criteria in this study mainly followed published recommendations. The contents of test for mechanical QA are the following. Confirm that the digital and/or mechanical gantry angle readouts are correct. Verify that digital and/or mechanical readouts of collimator angle agree with the true angle, as determined with the protractor. Measure the light field using a graph paper and compare with the digital readouts. Confirm digital readout accuracy. Verify that the sagittal laser, the left and right lasers, and the ceiling laser intersect at the isocenter. In the design of new QA sheet, we emphasized the representation of the long-term stability of mechanical QA by using Excel program. By using the new prototype QA sheet, we simplified and visualized the mechanical QA process, and could estimate the long-term stability of mechanical error of linear accelerator.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.39-43
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• 2002

Increasing use of plastics in food packaging materials has led to the issue of food-plastic packaging materials's mutual interactions. Although the plastic packaging materials are generally considered as inert, migration and sorption of fatty materials are some of the problems associated with their use. So, this work investigated the compatibility of three structurally different polymers, polypropylene (PP), polyethyleneterephthalate (PET) and ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVOH) with some structurally different food fats. The main goal was to study the sorption of food fats by the plastic films and to see what extent mechanical properties of the plastic films was affected by plasticization effect due to sorption of fatty materials. PP, PET, and EVOH films was immersed in pure triglycerides, and then extracted with hexane and analyzed for the amounts of fat migrated. The sorbed films were also investigated for change in mechanical properties. Result showed that structural factor of the films and fatty materials plays important role in th migration process. The fat with the simplest structure are migrated more easily that the fat with more complex structure. However, structural effect of migration was varied according to degree of crystallinity and density of plastic films. In addition to that, polarity of plastic film was affected migration of fatty materials significantly. Additional research is needed to justify the reason why migration of fatty materials into the films was affected by polarity and structural integrity.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.1009-1016
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• 2007

Finite element alternating method has been suggested and used effectively to obtain the fracture parameters in assessing the integrity of cracked structures. The method obtains the solution from alternating independently between the FEM solution for an uncracked body and the crack solution in an infinite body. In the paper, the finite element alternating method is extended in order to obtain the elastic-plastic stress fields of a three dimensional inner crack. The three dimensional crack solutions for an infinite body were obtained using symmetric Galerkin boundary element method. As an example of a three dimensional inner crack, a penny-shaped crack in a finite body was analyzed and the obtained elastc-plastic stress fields were compared with the solution obtained from the finite element analysis with fine mesh. It is noted that in the region ahead of the crack front the stress values from FEAM are close to the values from FEM. But large discrepancy between two values is observed near the crack surfaces.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.1392-1399
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• 1997

In order to determine the Mode I stress intensity factor ($K_1$) experimentally by means of the alternating current potential drop(ACPD) technique, the change in potential drop due to load for a ferromagnetic material containing a two-dimensional surface crack was examined. The cause of the change in potential drop and the effect of the magnetic flux on the change in potential drop were clarified by using the measuring systems with and without removing the magnetic flux from the circumference of the specimen. To remove the magnetic flux, a new measuring system was made by utilizing the characteristic of coaxial transmission line. The change in potential drop in the case without magnetic flux in the air was caused by the change in electromagnetic properties near the crack tip due to magnetization. The relationship between the change in potential drop and the change in $K_I$ was linealized by demagnetization and was found to be independent of the crack length.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.693-700
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• 2004

The probabilistic fracture mechanics(PFM) is a useful analytical tool to assess the integrity of reactor pressure vessel(RPV) at the event of pressurized thermal shock(PTS). In PFM, the probabilities of flaw initiation and propagation are estimated by comparing the applied stress intensity factor with the fracture toughness calculated by the simulation of various stochastic variables. It is known that the results of PFM analyses are dependent on the choice of the stochastic parameters and assumptions. Of the various variables and assumptions, we investigated the effects of the RT$_{NDT}$ shift equations, fracture toughness curves, and flaw distributions on the PFM results for the three PTS transients. The results showed that the combined effects of the RT$_{NDT}$ shift equations and fracture toughness curves are complicated and dependent on the characteristics of the transients, the chemistry of the materials, the fast neutron fluence, and so on.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.1051-1061
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• 1995

In order perform leak-before-break design of nuclear piping systems and integrity evaluation of reactor vessels, full stress-strain (.sigma. - .epsilon.) curves and fracture resistance (J-R) curves are required. However it is time-consuming and expensive to obtain J-R curves experimentally. The objective of this paper is to develop two methods for J-R curve prediction. In the first method, elastic-plastic finite element analyses for a series of crack length / specimen width ratio were performed. Accordingly the load versus load line displacement (P .delta.) curve corresponding to the fracture strain is obtained and the J-R curve based on the generalized locus method is obtained. In the second method, the correlation between .sigma.-.epsilon. curves and J-R curves was statistically analyzed and an empirical equation to predict the J-R curve from the .sigma.-.epsilon. test result is proposed. A good correlation between the predicted results based on the proposed methods and the experimental ones is obtained.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.10
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• pp.1483-1491
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• 2004

To assess the integrity of the pipeline is the most important problem to be solved first of all for prevention of any fracture accident of the pipeline. As a result of exerting such efforts, a number of plastic collapse assessment equations have been suggested, however, the scope of using or applying such assessment equations has not been exactly defined. In this study, the case that a surface crack existed in the circumferential direction in the external side of the natural gas pipeline and a bending load was applied to the pipeline was analytically identified as the most critical condition, and a plastic collapse assessment equation fur it was suggested. The flow stress of the API X65 linepipe was defined through the experiment conducted on SENT specimens. Also, a local assessing criterion of a 3-dimensional crack behavior considering not only the crack depth but also the crack length was suggested. Finally, a plastic collapse assessment equation for the API X65 linepipe was developed by performing the 3-dimensional finite element analysis.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.2383-2389
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• 2002

This paper describes an experimental study on fatigue life extension by using cold working process in fastener hole of aircraft structure. Cold working process was applied for A12024-7351 specimens by considering the effect of edge margin on fatigue life. It is generally recognized that cold working process offers a protective zone around fastener hole of aluminum aircraft structure due to the residual compressive stresses which lead to retardation of crack growth. Thus this process provides the beneficial effect of increasing the fatigue life of the component. there by decreasing maintenance costs. It has also been successfully incorporated into damage tolerance and structural integrity programs. Cold working specimens were tested at constant amplitude peak cyclic stresses. Fatigue life of cold working specimen compared with that of specimen fabricated with base material. The increase of fatigue life for cold working specimen is discussed by both considering the effect of residual compressive stresses measured by X-ray diffraction technique and quantitative effect of edge margin.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.24 no.2 s.173
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• pp.386-393
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• 2000

Fracture mechanics analysis (FMA) is an essential work for integrity evaluation of nuclear power plant. The flaws inspected by In-Service Inspection(ISI) should be confirmed by FMA for the decision of the operation status of stop or continuance. The basic data for FMA are the stress of the interested area. The purpose of this research is to develop a system which can obtain stress data efficiently based on various database. Mesh generation program generates mesh using MSC/PATRAN and provides input file for finite element analysis according to the databases (shape, dimension, transient and material). The stress data from the finite element analysis are stored to be stress database so that it can be applied to FMA. As an example, the system developed by this study is applied to pressurizer nozzle and confirmed to be a useful tool for efficient FMA.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.24 no.4 s.175
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• pp.858-865
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• 2000

It is well recently recognized that quench is one of the serious problems for the integrity of superconducting magnets, which is mainly attribute to the rapid temperature rising in the magnet due to some extrinsic factors such as conductor motion, crack initiation etc. In order to apply acoustic emission(AE)echnique effectively to monitor and diagnose superconducting magnets, it is essential to identify the sources of acoustic emission. In this paper, an acoustic emission technique has been used to monitor and diagnose quenching phenomenon in racetrack shaped superconducting magnets at cryogenic environment of 4.2K. For these purposes special attention was paid to detect AE signals associated with the quench of superconducting magnets. The characteristics of AE parameters have been analyzed by correlating with quench number, winding tension of superconducting coil and charge rate by transport current. In addition, the source location of quench in superconducting magnet was also discussed on the basis of correlation between magnet voltage and AE energy.