• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.112-120
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• 2004

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the piping failure frequency for the main feedwater system in domestic nuclear power plants(NPPs) for the application to an in-service inspection(ISI), leak before break(LBB) concept, aging management program(AMP), and probabilistic safety analysis(PSA). First, a database was developed for piping failure events in domestic NPPs, and 23 domestic piping failure events were collected. Among the 23 events, 12 locations of wall thinning due to flow accelerated corrosion(FAC) were identified in the main feedwater system in 4 domestic WH 3-loop NPPs. Two types of the piping failure frequency such as the damage frequency and rupture frequency were considered in this study. The damage frequency was calculated from both the plant population data and damage(s) including crack, wall thinning, leak, and/or rupture, while the rupture frequency was estimated by using both the well-known Jeffreys method and a new method considering the degradation due to FAC. The results showed that the damage frequencies based on the number of the base metal piping susceptible to FAC ranged from $1.26{\times}10^{-3}/cr.yr\;to\;3.91{\times}10^{-3}/cr.yr$ for the main feedwater system of domestic WH 3-loop NPPs. The rupture frequencies obtained from the Jeffreys method for the main feedwater system were $1.01{\times}10^{-2}/cr.yr\;and\;4.54{\times}10^{-3}/cr.yr$ for the domestic WH 3-loop NPPs and all the other domestic PWR NPPs respectively, while those from the new method considering the degradation were higher than those from the Jeffreys method by about an order of one.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.10
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• pp.3581-3590
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• 2023

High-temperature design evaluations were conducted on Type 316L stainless steel piping for a 700 ℃ large-capacity thermal energy storage verification test loop (TESET) under construction at KAERI. The hot leg piping with sodium coolant at 700 ℃ connects the main components of the loop heater, hot storage tank, and air-to-sodium heat exchanger. Currently, the design rules of ASME B31.1 and RCC-MRx provide design procedures for high-temperature piping in the creep range for Type 316L stainless steel. However, the design material properties around 700 ℃ are not available in those rules. Therefore, a number of material tests, including creep tests at various temperatures, were conducted to determine the insufficient material properties and relevant design coefficients so that high-temperature design on the 700 ℃ piping may be possible. It was shown that Type 316L stainless steel can be used in a 700 ℃ high-temperature piping system of Generation IV reactor systems or a renewable energy systems, such as thermal energy storage systems, for a limited operation time.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.617-621
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• 2003

The purpose of this paper is to analyze piping failure trend of safety pipings In domestic nuclear power plants. First, database for the piping failure was constructed with 105 data fields. The database includes plant population data, event data, and service history data. 7 kinds of piping failures in domestic NPPs were investigated. Among the 7 cases, detailed root causes were investigated for 3 cases. The first one is pipe wall thinning in main feedwater pipings of Westinghouse 3 loop type plants. The root cause of the wall thinning was flow accelerated corrosion near welding area. The next one is leak event in chemical and volume control system(CVCS) due to vibration. Some cracks occurred in socket welding area. The events showed that the integrity or socket weld is very vulnerable to vibration. The last one is also a leak event in primary sampling line in Korean standard reactor due to thermal fatigue. Although the structural integrity was not maintained by the events, there was no effect on nuclear safety in the above 3 piping failure eases.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.67-74
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• 2017

Recently there have been many concerns on structural integrity of nuclear piping under seismic loadings. In terms of failure of nuclear piping due to seismic loadings, an important failure mechanism is low cycle fatigue with large cyclic displacements. To investigate the effects of seismic loading on low cycle fatigue behavior of nuclear piping, the cyclic behavior of materials and nuclear piping needs to be accurately estimated. In this paper, the non-linear finite element (FE) analyses have been carried out to evaluate the effects of three different cyclic hardening models on cyclic behavior of materials and nuclear piping, such as isotropic hardening, kinematic hardening and combined hardening.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.321-331
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• 2015

A study on the application of cooling defect detection was performed on the basis of a preceding study on the heated defect detection in nuclear piping loop system, using lock-in infrared thermography. A loop system with piping defects was made by varying the wall-thinning length, the circumference orientation angle, and the wall-thinning depth. The test was performed using an IR camera and a cooling device. Distance between the cooling device and the target loop system was fixed at 2 m. For analyzing experimental results, the temperature distribution data for cooling, and phase data were obtained. Through the analysis of this data, the defect length was measured. The reliability of the measurements for cooling defect conditions was shown to be higher in the lock-in infrared thermography data than the infrared thermography data.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.1031-1038
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• 2001

In order to verify the analytical methods predicting failure behavior of cracked piping, full-scale pipe tests are crucial in nuclear power plant piping. For this reason, series of international test programs have been conducted. However, full-scale pipe tests require expensive testing equipment and long period of testing time. The objective of this paper is to develop a test system which can economically simulate the full-scale pipe test regarding the integrity evaluation. This system provides the failure behavior of cracked pipe by testing a wide-plate specimen. The system provides the failure behavior of cracked pipe by testing a wide-plate specimen. The system was developed for the integrity evaluation of nuclear piping based on the methodology of hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) simulation. Using this simulator, the piping integrity can be evaluated based on the elastic-plastic behavior of full-scale pipe, and the high cost full-scale pipe test may be replaced with this economical system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.225-236
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• 1994

The sudden discharge of the loop seal water, which is present upstream of the SEBIM POSRV, creates large momentum and inertia forces on the downstream of the discharge piping system. This study provides the procedures and results of analysis of the thermal-hydraulic transient in the SEBIM POSRV discharge piping during the valve opening. The analysis is peformed by RELAP5/MOD3. The appropriate modeling of the discharge piping system, SEBIM POSRV opening characteristics, and loop seal water discharge for the RELAP5/MOD3 analysis is suggested. Also performed is the sensitivity study for the selection of proper options for the junction and volume control. flags. The analysis results demonstrate the adequacy of the RELAP5/HOD3 for the thermal-hydraulic transient analysis of the loop seal water discharge of the SEBIM POSRV discharge piping system. From the sensitivity analysis results, it is shown that the smooth area change option with reasonable geometric pressure drop distribution, non-equilibrium option, and proper time step should be selected for loop seal water discharge analysis.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.54-60
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• 2010

Piping failures due to thermal fatigue have been widely reported in normally stagnant non-isolable reactor coolant branch lines. Since the thermal fatigue due to thermal stratification was not considered in the piping fatigue design in old NPPs, it is important to evaluate the effect of thermal stratification on the integrity of branch lines. In this study, geometrical screening criteria for Up-horizontal branch lines in MRP-132 were applied to SI(Safety Injection) lines of KSNP 2-loop and WH 3-loop. Some computational fluid dynamic(CFD) analyses on the Reactor Coolant System(RCS) branch lines were also performed to develop the regulatory guidelines for screening criteria. As a result of applying MRP-132 screening criteria, KSNP 2-loop and WH 3-loop SI lines are determined to need further detailed evaluation. Results of CFD analyses show that both valve isolation and amount of leakage through valve can be used as technical bases for the screening criteria on the thermal fatigue analysis.

• 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.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.57-64
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• 2010

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 the gas loop for the performance test of components, which are used in the VHTR, and they manufactured a PHE prototype to be tested in the loop. In this study, as part of the high-temperature structural-integrity evaluation of the PHE prototype, which is scheduled to be tested in the gas loop, we carried out high-temperature structural-analysis modeling, thermal analysis, and thermal expansion analysis of the PHE prototype. The results obtained in this study will be used to design the performance test setup for the PHE prototype.