• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.42-48
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• 2020

The effect of improving the tensile and J-R fracture toughness properties of SA508 Gr.1a on the LBB margin for the main steam pipe is investigated. The material properties and microstructure images of the existing main steam piping material SA106 Gr.C used in domestic nuclear power plants and the newly selected material SA508 Gr.1a were compared. For each material, LBB margins were calculated and compared through finite element analysis and crack instability evaluation. The LBB margin of the improved SA508 Gr.1a is found to be greatly improved compared to that of the existing SA106 Gr.C and SA508 Gr.1a. This is because of the increased material's strength and J-R fracture toughness compared to the previous materials. In order to analyze the effect of physical property change on the LBB margin, the sensitivity of each LBB margin according to the variation of tensile strength and J-R fracture toughness was analyzed. The effect of the change in tensile strength was found to be greater than that of the change in fracture toughness. Therefore, an increase in strength significantly influenced the improvement of the LBB margin of the improved SA508 Gr.1a.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.553-560
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• 2015

Fracture mechanics analysis for cracked pipes is essential for applying the leak-before-break (LBB) concept to nuclear piping design. For LBB assessment, crack instability and leak rate should be predicted accurately for through-wall cracked pipes. In a nuclear piping system, elbows are connected with straight pipes by circumferential welding; this weld region is often considered a critical location. Hence, accurate crack assessment is necessary for cracks in the interface between elbows and straight pipes. In this study, the stress intensity factor (SIF) and elastic crack opening displacement (COD) were estimated through detailed 3D elastic finite element (FE) analyses. Based on the results, closed-form solutions of shape factors for calculating the SIFs and elastic CODs were proposed for circumferential through-wall cracks in the abovementioned interfaces under internal pressure. In addition, the effect of the elbow on shape factors was investigated by comparing the results with the existing solutions for a straight pipe.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.10
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• pp.1528-1534
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• 2001

In order to improve Leak-Be(ore-Break methodology, more precisely the crack growth evaluation, a round robin analysis was proposed by the CEA Saclay. The aim of this analysis was to evaluate the crack initiation life, penetration life and shape of through wall crack under cyclic bending loads. The proposed round robin analysis is composed of three main topic; fatigue crack initiation, crack propagation and crack penetration. This paper deals with the first topic, crack initiation in a notched pipe under four point bending. Both elastic-plastic finite element analysis and Neuber's rule were used to estimate the crack initiation life and the finite element models were verified by mesh-refinement, stress distribution and global deflection. In elastic-plastic finite element analysis, crack initiation life was determined by strain amplitude at the notch tip and strain-life curve of the material. In the analytical method, Neuber's rule with the consideration of load history and mean stress effect, was used for the life estimation. The effect of notch tip radius, strain range, cyclic hardening rule were examined in this study. When these results were compared with the experimental ones, the global deformation was a good agreement but the crack initiation cycle was higher than the experimental result.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.1448-1459
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• 2023

A key element of the safety analysis is Loss of Coolant Analysis (LOCA) which must be performed using system thermal-hydraulic codes. These codes are extensively validated against separate effect and integral experiments. RELAP/SCDAPSIM is one such code that may be used to predict LBLOCA response in a CANDU reactor. The RD-14M experiment selected for the Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty study is a 44 mm (22.7%) inlet header break test with no Emergency Coolant Injection. This work has two objectives first is to simulate pipe break with RELAP and compare these results to those available from experiment and from comparable TRACE calculations. The second objective is to quantify uncertainty in the fuel element sheath (FES) temperature arising from model coefficient as well as input parameter uncertainties using Integrated Uncertainty Analysis package. RELAP calculated results are found to be in good agreement with those of TRACE and with those of experiments. The base case maximum FES temperature is 335.5 ℃ while that of 95% confidence 95^th percentile is 407.41 ℃ for the first order Wilk's formula. The experimental measurements fall within the predicted band and the trends and sensitivities are similar to those reported for the TRACE code.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.755-763
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• 2020

The critical flow phenomenon has been studied because of its significant effect for design basis accidents in nuclear power plants. Transition points from thermal non-equilibrium to equilibrium are different according to the geometric effect on the critical flow. This study evaluates the uncertainty parameters of the critical flow model for analysis of DBA (Design Basis Accident) with the MARS-KS (Multi-dimensional Analysis for Reactor Safety-KINS Standard) code used as an independent regulatory assessment. The uncertainty of the critical flow model is represented by three parameters including the thermal non-equilibrium factor, discharge coefficient, and length to diameter (L/D) ratio, and their ranges are determined using large-scale Marviken test data. The uncertainty range of the thermal non-equilibrium factor is updated by the MCDA (Model Calibration through Data Assimilation) method. The updated uncertainty range is confirmed using an LBLOCA (Large Break Loss of Coolant Accident) experiment in the LOFT (Loss of Fluid Test) facility. The uncertainty ranges are also used to calculate an LBLOCA of the APR (Advanced Power Reactor) 1400 NPP (Nuclear Power Plants), focusing on the effect of the PCT (Peak Cladding Temperature). The results reveal that break flow is strongly dependent on the degree of the thermal non-equilibrium state in a ruptured pipe with a small L/D ratio. Moreover, this study provides the method to handle the thermal non-equilibrium factor, discharge coefficient, and length to diameter (L/D) ratio in the system code.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.651-659
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• 2011

With the increase in the thermal power output of recently developed nuclear power plants, the applied forces and moments are increased in some piping systems, so that the leak-before-break (LBB) application criteria would not be satisfied in those pipes. In this paper, we present a method for obtaining the additive LBB margin in the pipes by considering the nonlinearity of the crack and material properties. Finite element analysis and the moment-rotation equation of beam theory were used to calculate the nonlinearity of the crack and material properties. Moreover crack stability analysis was performed using the method proposed in this study. The LBB margin was increased effectively through consideration of the nonlinearity of the crack and material properties in the pipe.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.1843-1853
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• 1996

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the crack stability of the nuclear main stresm pipes, considering the load reduction effect due to the presence of circumferential throuth-wall crack. Also, the optimization techniques are adoped tosimulate the crack effect on the elbow component of the piuping system. By using a general beam elemetn which contains a discontinuous cross-section, the piping analysis is accomplished to acquire the reduced load. Considering this reduced load, it is feasible for the LBB application in nuclear main stresm pipe. Also, by combining an optimization program and a genaral finite element analysis program, the appropriate dimensions of the simplified beam elemtn which represents the effect of crack in elbow could be successfully determined.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.66-73
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• 2014

This study was considered to occur the local wall thinning at elbow which is flowing the steam and high-pressure water of high-temperature. The angle of elbow is ${\Theta}=45^{\circ}$ and $67.545^{\circ}$. The damage behaviors of inner or outer wall thinning elbow under internal pressure were calculated by FEA(finite element analysis). We compared the simulated results by FEA with experimental data. The FEA results are as follows: In the FEA results of three types of wall thinning ratio, the circumferential and longitudinal stresses show the similar values regardless of the angle of elbow, respectively. The circumferential strain was greater at elbow of small angle, but the longitudinal strain was nearly same. The FEM stress of outer wall thinning elbow was slightly higher than that of the inner wall thinning elbow, and strain was also slightly higher. In the experiments, the circumferential strain was increased with the increase in the internal pressure, and increased rapidly on about 0.2% of strain. The longitudinal strain was small. The strain at break was much smaller than 0.2%. In the relation between pressure and eroded ratio, the criteria that can be used safely under operating pressure and design pressure were obtained. The results of FEA were in relatively good agreement with those of the experiment.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.446-451
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• 2009

Reliability evaluations of linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) pipe with respect of thermal exposure time have been investigated in accordance with RS M 0042, which is a reliability standard for polymer pipe. As the thermal exposure time is prolonged, a progressive increase, until 250 days, in tensile strength and a slight increase in hardness are observed, while a proportional decrease in elongation at break is showed. These results can be explained by the increase of crystallinity, followed by the increase of crosslinking density, chain scission and the decrease in chain mobility, due to thermal oxidation as the exposure time increases. Long term hydrostatic pressure test result implies the existence of transition point from ductile to brittle fracture. Oxidation induction time (OIT) test is employed to monitor the thermo-oxidative degradation of LLDPE pipe. This result shows that after the exposure time is 250 days, the depletion of antioxidants added in LLDPE pipe occurs. An empirical equation as function of exposure time, under $100^{\circ}C$ thermal-degradation condition, is proposed to assess the remaining amount of antioxidants owing to thermo-oxidative degradation. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy results show the increase of carbonyl (-C=O) and hydroxyl (O-H) function groups on the surface of thermally exposed LLDPE pipe. This result suggests that the hydrocarbon groups locally undergo the oxidation on the LLDPE surface due to thermal-degradation.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.181-190
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• 1998

An elastic analysis under wind load was performed for the double layered plastic greenhouse model developed particularly for minimizing damages under typhoons at Cheju Citrus Research institute in Seagipo city. General EVA film was used for the inner covering and the developed special film which would break the wind pressure down was used for the outer covering. The wind tunnel test showed this special film reduced the wind speed up to 86 to 98% under well controlled situation. Based on the elastic analysis performed in the study, the behavior of the greenhouse was changed significantly due to the boundary conditions. Not like other researchers before we applied dead load of the concrete support to the ground pipe and fixed support boundary conditions at the 4 corner pipes. The analysis shows that the greenhouse was lifted and pulled the pipe out of the ground due to the sucking wind pressure. The behavior of the greenhouse was quite similar to that one real greenhouse failure. Therefore, not only we need to find the realistic boundary conditions for the supports, but also need to find how to rest the pipe supports on the ground without economic loss.