• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.307-313
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• 2010

In this study, alternative designs for the bends used in district heating pipes are investigated. The district heating pipes, which are subjected to temperatures of 10 to $120^{\circ}C$ and a water pressure of $16\;kgf/cm^2$, have to withstand thermomechanical cyclic loads when in use. These pipes comprise three concentric tubes: a steel pipe (internal), polyurethane (PUR) insulator (middle), and a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) case (external). In addition, the bends in the district heating pipe system are covered with foam pads that cause aging. In this study, an alternative bend design that does not involve the use of a foam pad is proposed to overcome the aging problem in the bends. In the proposed design, "shear rings" are added to the surface of a bend, and its dimensions are determined by a combination of the statistical (Taguchi) method and FEM. The geometrical parameters such as thickness, height, and number of the rings significantly affect the design optimization, and hence, they affect the results of the FEM.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.346-351
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• 2005

The outlet feeder pipe thinning in a PHWR (Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor) is caused by high pressure steam flow inside the pipe, which is a well known degradation mechanism called FAC (Flow Assisted Corrosion). In order to monitor the degradation, the thickness of the outlet bends closed to the exit of the pressure tube should be measured and analyzed at every official overhaul. This paper develops a mobile feeder pipe inspection robot that can minimize the irradiation dose of human workers by automating the measurement process. The robot can move by itself on the feeder pipe by using an inch worm mechanism, which is constructed by two gripper bodies that can fix the robot body on the pipe, one extendable and contractable actuator, and a rotation actuator connected the two gripper bodies to move forward and backward, and to rotate in the circumferential direction

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.87-95
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• 2006

The outlet feeder pipe thinning in a PHWR (Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor) is caused by a high pressure steam flow inside the pipe, which is a well known degradation mechanism called a FAC (Flow Assisted Corrosion). In order to monitor the degradation, the thickness of the outlet bends close to the exit of the pressure tube should be measured and analyzed at every official overhaul. This paper describes a mobile feeder pipe inspection robot that can minimize the irradiation dose to human workers by automating the measurement process. The robot can move by itself on the feeder pipe by using an inch worm mechanism, which is constructed by two gripper bodies that can fix the robot body on to the pipe, one extendable and contractible actuator, and a rotation actuator connected to the two gripper bodies to move forward and backward, and to rotate in a circumferential direction.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.816-821
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• 2004

The outlet feeder pipe thinning in a PHWR (Pressured Heavy Water Reactor) is caused by high pressure steam flow inside the pipe, which is a well known degradation mechanism called FAC (Flow Assisted Corrosion). In order to monitor the degradation, the thickness of the outlet bends closed to the exit of the pressure tube should be measured and analyzed at every official overhaul. This paper develops an automatic feeder pipe inspection system that can minimize the irradiation dose by automating the measurement process. The robot can move by itself on the feeder pipe by using an inch worm mechanism, which is constructed by two gripper bodies that can fix their body on the pipe and one extendable and retractable body connected the two gripper bodies to move forward and backward.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.20 no.2 s.70
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• pp.18-25
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• 2005

This study performed finite element analysis on the pipe bend with various bend angles under loading conditions of internal pressure and combined pressure and bending, to investigate the effect of bend angle on the collapse behavior of pipe bend and on the stress state in the bend region. In the analysis, the pipe bends with bend angle of $5\~90^{\circ}$ were considered, and the bending moment was applied as in-plane closing and opening modes. From the results of analysis, it was found that the collapse moment of pipe bend increases with decreasing bend angle. As the bend angle decreases, also, the equivalent stress at intrados region increases regardless of bending mode. Under closing mode bending especially, the increase in stress at intrados is significant so that the maximum stress region moves from crown to intrados with decreasing bend angle.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2002.08a
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• pp.165-168
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• 2002

This paper describes the dynamics of the weak shock wave propagating inside some kinds of branched pipe bends. Computations are carried out by solving the two-dimensional, compressible, unsteady Euler Equations. The second-order TVD(Total Variation Diminishing) scheme is employed to discretize the governing equations. For computations, two types of branched pipe($90^{\circ}$ branch,$45^{\circ}$ branch) with a diameter of D are used. The incident normal shock wave is assumed at D upstream of the pipe bend entrance, and its Mach number is changed between 1.1 and 2.4. The flow fields are numerically visualized by using the pressure contours and computed schlieren images. The comparison with the experimental data performed for the purpose of validation of computational work. Reflection and diffraction of the propagating shock wave are clarified. The present computations predicted the experimented flow field with a good accuracy.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.11b
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• pp.456-461
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• 2001

This paper depicts the weak shock wave propagating inside some kinds of pipe bends. Computational work is to solve the two-dimensional, compressible, unsteady Euler Equations. The second-order TVD scheme is employed to discretize the governing equations. For the computations, the incident normal shock wave is assumed at the entrance of the pipe bend, and its Mach number is changed between 1.1 and 1.7. The turning angle and radius of the curvature of the pipe bend are changed to investigate the effects on the shock wave structure. The present computational results clearly show the shock wave reflection and diffraction occurring in the pipe bend. In particular, the vortex generation, which occurs at the edge of the bend, and its shedding mechanism are discussed in details.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.3 s.258
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• pp.322-330
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• 2007

This paper quantifies the effect of a bend angle of a pipe bend on plastic loads, via small strain and large strain FE limit analyses using elastic-perfectly plastic materials. To consider the effect of the attached straight pipe, two limiting cases are considered. One case corresponds to the pipe bend without the attached straight pipe, and the other to that with a sufficiently long attached straight pipe. For the former case, the FE results suggest that the limit load is not affected by the bend angle for both in-plane bending and internal pressure. For the latter case, however, the bend angle affects plastic loads. An interesting finding is that the plastic load smoothly changes from the limit load of the straight pipe when the bend angle approaches zero to the plastic load of the $90^{\circ}$ pipe bend when the bend angle approaches 90 degree. Based on such observations, closed-form plastic load solutions are proposed for the pipe bend with an arbitrary bend angle under in-plane bending and internal pressure.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.7
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• pp.607-614
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• 2008

Since pipes with wall-thinning defects can collapse at fluid pressure that are lower than expected, the collapse moment of wall-thinned pipes should be determined accurately for the safety of nuclear power plants. Wall-thinning defects, which are mostly found in pipe bends and elbows, are mainly caused by flow-accelerated corrosion. This lowers the failure pressure, load-carrying capacity, deformation ability, and fatigue resistance of pipe bends and elbows. This paper offers a support vector regression (SVR) model further enhanced with a fuzzy algorithm for calculation of the collapse moment and for evaluating the integrity of wall-thinned piping systems. The fuzzy support vector regression (FSVR) model is applied to numerical data obtained from finite element analyses of piping systems with wall-thinning defects. In this paper, three FSVR models are developed, respectively, for three data sets divided into extrados, intrados, and crown defects corresponding to three different defect locations. It is known that FSVR models are sufficiently accurate for an integrity evaluation of piping systems from laser or ultrasonic measurements of wall-thinning defects.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.52-58
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• 2019

This study numerically analyzed the icing process in a U-shaped pipe exposed to the outside by considering the mushy zone of freezing water. Numerical results showed that the flow was pulled outward due to the U-shaped bend in the freezing section exposed to the outside, which resulted in the ice wave formation on the wall of the bended pipe behind. At the same time, the formation of a corrugated ice layer became apparent due to the venturi effect caused by the ice. The factors affecting the freezing were investigated, including the change of the pipe wall temperature, the water inflow velocity, and the pipe bend spacing. It was found that, as a whole, the thickness of the freezing layer increased as the pipe wall temperature decreased. It was also found that the freezing layer became relatively thin when the inflow rate of water was increased, and that the spacing of the pipe bends did not significantly impact the change in the freezing layer.