• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.245-253
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• 2017

The relative displacement of a piping system installed between isolated and nonisolated structures in a severe earthquake might be larger when without a seismic isolation system. As a result of the relative displacement, the seismic risks of some components in the building could increase. The possibility of an increase in seismic risks is especially high in the crossover piping system in the buildings. Previous studies found that an elbow which could be ruptured by low-cycle ratcheting fatigue is one of the weakest elements. Fatigue curves for elbows were suggested based on component tests. However, it is hard to find a quantitative evaluation of the ultimate state of piping elbows. Generally, the energy dissipation of a solid structure can be calculated from the relation between displacement and force. Therefore, in this study, the ultimate state of the pipe elbow, normally considered as failure of the pipe elbow, is defined as leakage under in-plane cyclic loading tests, and a failure estimation method is proposed using a damage index based on energy dissipation.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.50-58
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• 2013

Various process piping usually carries out high flammable and explosible gas under high pressure and high temperature. Due to frequent change of design and structure it becomes more complicated and compactly located. The safety management level is relatively low since it is considered as simply designed component. In this study a safety assessment procedure is proposed for complicated piping system around a mixing drum in which natural gas and by-product gases were mixed. According to ASME code, pipe stress analysis was conducted for determining design margin at some key locations of the piping. These high stress locations can be used as major inspection points for managing the pipe integrity. Sensitivity analysis with outside temperature of the pipe and support constraint condition. Possible effect of hydroen gas to the pipe steel during the previous use of the by-product gas was also discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.28-33
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• 2018

Currently, the government has been expanding the supply of semi-low-pressure in order to solve the problems of unsupplied area of city gas and to secure the economical efficiency of small supplied area. It is mainly supplied from the central storage tank to each household by buried piping. It is necessary to provide such a shutoff valve that can block the excess flow gas due to pipeline leak or rupture when piping is damaged by other construction. For this study, System CFD code named Flownex has been used and a component corresponding to the actual EFV was developed. We compared Flownex results with experimental data to verify the accuracy of Flownex and confirmed the error rate to be around 2%. In this study, pipeline network modeling was done by selecting the LPG supply pipeline in a village and installed the component of the EFV at each junction. We selected the longest pipeline from the main pipeline and set scenarios so that the excess flow occurs by that the pipeline is ruptured before entering the household. The excess flow occurs by the pipeline rupture and the EFV is closed. At this time, we analyzed backflow effects to the other pipeline by closing EFV.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.2949-2957
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• 2020

Fatigue crack growth model has been developed for dissimilar metal weld joints of a piping component under cyclic loading, where in the crack is located at the center of the weld in the circumferential direction. The fracture parameter, Stress Intensity Factor (SIF) has been computed by using principle of superposition as K_H + K_M. K_H is evaluated by assuming that, the complete specimen is made of the material containing the notch location. In second stage, the stress field ahead of the crack tip, accounting for the strength mismatch, the applied load and geometry has been characterized to evaluate SIF (K_M). For each incremental crack depth, stress field ahead of the crack tip has been quantified by using J-integral (elastic), mismatch ratio, plastic interaction factor and stress parallel to the crack surface. The associated constants for evaluation of K_M have been computed by using the quantified stress field with respect to the distance from the crack tip. Net SIF (K_H + K_M) computed, has been used for the crack growth analysis and remaining life prediction by Paris crack growth model. To validate the model, SIF and remaining life has been predicted for a pipe made up of (i) SA312 Type 304LN austenitic stainless steel and SA508 Gr. 3 Cl. 1. Low alloy carbon steel (ii) welded SA312 Type 304LN austenitic stainless-steel pipe. From the studies, it is observed that the model could predict the remaining life of DMWJ piping components with a maximum difference of 15% compared to experimental observations.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.14-20
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• 2011

The end of design lifetime for Wolsong unit 1 will be reached on 20th November in 2012. So the license renewal documents for the continuous operation of Wolsong unit 1 is under reviewing now. Major components of primary system such as pressure tubes, feeder pipes including delayed neutron monitoring system tubing are being replaced and many components of secondary system are also being repaired. In this paper, the assessment on the wear degradation of delayed neutron monitoring system tubing(on the other hand, DN tube was called) was performed for the ageing management of the same component. The wear defects of this component was one of causes that resulted in heavy water leakage accidents. Therefore design specifications of Wolsong uint 1 and heavy water leakage accidents of pressurized heavy water reactors were reviewed and causes of wear defect for DN tubes were analyzed. Wear propagation equations based on the heavy water leakage history were made and the proper repairing time was possible to be expected if the continued operation was considered. Finally design change items of DN tubes that were conducted for the long term operation of Wolsong unit 1 are introduced.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.724-733
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• 2003

Fatigue design rules for welds in the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessels Code are based on the use of Fatigue Strength Reduction Factors(FSRF) against a code specified fatigue design curve generated from smooth base metal specimens without the presence of welds. Similarly, stress intensification factors that are used in the ASME B3l.1 Piping Code are based on component S-N curves with a reference fatigue strength based on straight pipe girth welds. But the determination of either the FSRF or stress intensification factor requires extensive fatigue testing to take into account the stress concentration effects associated with various types of component geometry, weld configuration and loading conditions. As the fatigue behavior of welded joints is being better understood, it has been generally accepted that the difference in fatigue lives from one type of weld to another is dominated by the difference in stress concentration. However, general finite element procedures are currently not available for effective determination of such stress concentration effects. In this paper, a mesh-insensitive structural stress method is used to re-evaluate the S-N test data, and then more effective method is proposed for pressure vessel and piping fatigue design.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.91-99
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• 2024

Piping systems are crucial facilities used in various industries, particularly in areas related to daily life and safety. Piping systems are fixed to the main structures of buildings and facilities but do not support external loads and serve as non-structural elements performing specific functions. Piping systems are affected by relative displacements owing to phase differences arising from different behaviors between two support points under seismic loads; this can cause damage owing to the displacement-dominant cyclic behavior. Fittings and joints in piping systems are representative elements that are vulnerable to seismic loads. To evaluate the seismic performance and limit states of fittings and joints in piping systems, a high-stroke actuator is required to simulate relative displacements. However, this is challenging because only few facilities can conduct these experiments. Therefore, element-level experiments are required to evaluate the seismic performance and limit states of piping systems connected by fittings and joints. This study proposed a method to evaluate the seismic performance of an elbow specimen that includes fittings and joints that are vulnerable to seismic loads in vertical piping systems. The elbow specimen was created by connecting straight pipes to both ends of a 90° pipe elbow using flexible groove joints. The seismic performance of the elbow specimen was evaluated using a cyclic loading protocol based on deformation angles. To determine the margin of the evaluated seismic performance, the limit states were assessed by applying cyclic loading with a constant amplitude.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1439-1450
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• 1995

Bellows is a familiar component in piping systems as it provides a relatively simple means of absorbing thermal expansion and providing system flexibility. In routine piping flexibility analysis by finite element methods, bellows is usually considered to be straight pipe runs modified by an appropriate flexibility factor; maximum stresses are evaluated using a corresponding stress concentration factor. The aim of this study is to develop a bellows finite element, which similarly includes more complex shell type deformation patterns. This element also does not require flexibility or stress factors, but evaluates more detailed deformation and stress patterns. The proposed bellows element is a 3-D, 2-noded line element, with three degrees of freedom per node and no bending. It is formulated by including additional 'internal' degrees of freedom to account for the deformation of the bellows corrugation; specifically a quarter toroidal section of the bellows, loaded by axial force, is considered and the shell type deformation of this is include by way of an approximating trigonometric series. The stiffness of each half bellows section may be found by minimising the potential energy of the section for a chosen deformation shape function. An experiment on the flexibility is performed to verify the reliability for bellows finite element.