• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.1-6
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• 2012

A PHE (Process Heat Exchanger) in a nuclear hydrogen system is a key component required to transfer heat energy of $950^{\circ}C$ generated in a VHTR (Very High Temperature gas cooled Reactor) to the chemical reaction that yields a large quantity of hydrogen. A small-scale PHE prototype made of Hastelloy-X is being tested in a small-scale gas loop at Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. Previous research on the high-temperature structural analysis of the small-scale PHE prototype had been performed only using parent material properties. In this study, high-temperature structural analysis using weld properties in weld zone was performed and the analysis results compared with the previous research.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.48-53
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• 2011

A PHE (Process Heat Exchanger) is a key component required to transfer heat energy of $950^{\circ}C$ generated in a VHTR (Very High Temperature Reactor) to the chemical reaction that yields a large quantity of hydrogen. A small-scale PHE prototype made of Hastelloy-X is being tested in a small-scale gas loop at Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. In this study, as a part of the evaluation on the high-temperature structural integrity of the small-scale PHE prototype, we carried out macroscopic high-temperature structural analysis of the small-scale PHE prototype under the gas loop test conditions considering the pipeline stiffness.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2013

In around 2000, the U.S. NPPs have developed the various advanced engineering processes based on the INPO AP-913(Equipment Reliability Process Description) and showed the high performance in availability. With these benchmarking cases, the Korean NPPs have introduced the advanced engineering technology since 2005. The first step of the advanced engineering is to analyze and determine component importance for all components of a plant. This process is called Functional Importance Determination(FID). These results are basically utilized to determine the priority with limited resources in various areas. However, because the consistency of FID results is insufficient despite applying the same criteria in the existing operating NPPs, the degree of application is low. Therefore, this paper presents the improved methodology for FID interfacing system functions of Maintenance Rule Program and results of Single Point Vulnerability(SPV). This improved methodology is expected to contribute to enhance the reliability of FID data.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.173-178
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• 2012

To manage the wall thinning of carbon steel piping in nuclear power plants, the utility of Korea has performed thickness inspection for some quantity of pipe components during refueling outages and determined whether repair or replacement after evaluating UT (Ultrasonic Test) data. When the existing UT data evaluation methods, such as Band, Blanket, PTP (Point to Point) Methods, are applied to a certain pipe component, unnecessary re-inspecting situations may be generated even though the component does not thinned. In those cases, economical loss caused by repeated inspection and problems of maintaining the pipe integrity followed by decreasing of newly inspected components may be generated. EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) in USA has suggested several statistical methods, TPM (Total Point Method), LSS (Least Square Slope) Method, etc. to distinguish whether multiple inspecting components have thinned or not. This paper presents the analysis results for multiple inspecting components over three times based on both NAM (Near Area of Minimum) Method developed by KEPCO-E&C and the other methods suggested by EPRI.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.33-38
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• 2012

A PHE (Process Heat Exchanger) in a nuclear hydrogen system is a key component required to transfer heat energy of $950^{\circ}C$ generated in a VHTR (Very High Temperature Reactor) to a chemical reaction that yields a large quantity of hydrogen. Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has established a small-scale gas loop for the performance test on VHTR components and recently has manufactured a medium-scale PHE prototype made of Hastelloy-X. A performance test on the PHE prototype is scheduled in the gas loop. In this study, high-temperature structural analysis modeling, and macroscopic thermal and structural analysis of the medium-scale PHE prototype by imposing the established displacement boundary constraints in the previous research were carried out under the gas loop test condition. The results obtained in this study will be compared with performance test results.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.9
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• pp.2119-2129
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• 2020

Flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC), liquid droplet impingement erosion (LDIE), cavitation and flashing can cause continuous wall-thinning in nuclear secondary pipes. In order to prevent pipe rupture events resulting from the wall-thinning, most NPPs (nuclear power plants) implement their management programs, which include periodic thickness inspection using UT (ultrasonic test). Meanwhile, it is well known in field experiences that the thickness measurement errors (or deviations) are often comparable with the amount of thickness reduction. Because of these errors, it is difficult to estimate wall-thinning exactly whether the significant thinning has occurred in the inspected components or not. In the previous study, the authors presented an approximate estimation procedure as the first step for thickness measurement deviations at each inspected component and the statistical & quantitative characteristics of the measurement deviations using plant experience data. In this study, statistical significance was quantified for the current methods used for wall-thinning determination. Also, the authors proposed new estimation procedures for determining local wall-thinning to overcome the weakness of the current methods, in which the proposed procedure is based on analysis of variance (ANOVA) method using subgrouping of measured thinning values at all measurement grids. The new procedures were also quantified for their statistical significance. As the results, it is confirmed that the new methods have better estimation confidence than the methods having used until now.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1206-1215
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• 2005

The thermal stratification phenomena, frequently occurring in the component of nuclear power plant system such as pressurizer surge line, steam generator inlet nozzle, safety injection system (SIS), and chemical and volume control system (CVCS), can cause through-wall cracks, thermal fatigue, unexpected piping displacement and dislocation, and pipe support damage. The phenomenon is one of the unaccounted load in the design stage. However, the load have been found to be serious as nuclear power plant operation experience accumulates. In particular, the thermal stratification by the turbulent penetration or valve leak in the SIS and SCS pipe line can lead these safety systems to failure by the thermal fatigue. Therefore in this study an 1/10 scaledowned experimental rig had been designed and installed. And a series of experimental works had been executed to measure the temperature distribution (thermal stratification) in these systems by the turbulent penetration, valve leak, and heat transfer through valve. The results provide very valuable informations such as turbulent penetration depth, the possibility of thermal stratification by the heat transfer through valve, etc. Also the results are expected to be useful to understand the thermal stratification in these systems, establish the thermal strati­fication criteria and validate the calculation results by CFD Codes such as Fluent, Phenix, CFX.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.1-18
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• 2017

Metal fatigue is an important aging mechanism that material characteristics can be deteriorated when even a small load is applied repeatedly. An accurate fatigue evaluation is very important for component structural integrity and reliability. In the design stage of a nuclear power plant, the fatigue evaluations of the Class 1 components have to be performed. However, operating experience shows that the design evaluation can be very conservative due to conservatism in the transient severity and number of occurrence. Therefore, the fatigue monitoring system has been considered as a practical mean to ensure safe operation of the nuclear power plants. The fatigue monitoring system can quantify accumulated fatigue damage up to date for various plant conditions. The purpose of this paper is to describe the fatigue monitoring procedure and to introduce the fatigue monitoring program developed by the authors. The feasibility of the fatigue monitoring program is demonstrated by comparing with the actual operating data and finite element analysis results.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.838-849
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• 2017

This paper proposes penalty factor equations that take into consideration the weld strength over-match given in the classified form similar to the revised equations presented in the Code Case N-779 via cyclic elastic-plastic finite element analysis. It was found that the $K_e$ analysis data reflecting elastic follow-up can be consolidated by normalizing the primary-plus-secondary stress intensity ranges excluding the nonlinear thermal stress intensity component, $S_n$ to over-match degree of yield strength, $M_F$. For the effect of over-match on $K_n{\times}K_{\nu}$, dispersion of the $K_n{\times}K_{\nu}$ analysis data can be sharply reduced by dividing total stress intensity range, excluding local thermal stresses, $S_{p-lt}$ by $M_F$. Finally, the proposed equations were applied to the weld between the safe end and the piping of a pressurizer surge nozzle in pressurized water reactors in order to calculate a cumulative usage factor. The cumulative usage factor was then compared with those derived by the previous $K_e$ factor equations. The result shows that application of the proposed equations can significantly reduce conservatism of fatigue assessment using the previous $K_e$ factor equations.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.1-6
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• 2011

PHE(Process Heat Exchanger) is a key component required to transfer heat energy of $950^{\circ}C$ generated in a VHTR(Very High Temperature Reactor) to the chemical reaction that yields a large quantity of hydrogen. Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute established a small-scale gas loop for the performance test of components, which are used in the VHTR, and they manufactured a PHE prototype made of Hastelloy-X to be tested in the small-scale gas loop. Results from the elastic structural analysis on the PHE prototype were reported in the previous article. In order to investigate the macroscopic structural characteristics and behavior of the PHE prototype under the test condition of the small-scale gas loop far more in detail, elastic-plastic high-temperature structural-analysis of the PHE prototype was carried out in this study.