• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.9-14
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• 2018

The piping system of a nuclear power plant plays a role of transferring high energy fluid to equipment and various devices. The safety and soundness of these piping systems are very closely related to the operability of the power plant. In the case of a welded part of a small diameter pipe, it may grow as a microcrack due to a lack of penetration, and it may grow to a size that affects the safety of the pipe due to the influence of mechanical vibration and fatigue load. Resonance refers to an increase in energy as the natural frequency of an object coincides with the frequency applied to the external force. When this resonance occurs, the frequency is the resonance frequency. In this study, when defects exist in the welds of small diameter pipe, the natural frequency of the pipe changes and resonance may occur. Since these resonances are likely to cause fatigue damage to the piping, resonance frequency changes due to the size and shape of the defects are analyzed and evaluated. As a result of the vibration test, the resonance frequency tended to decrease as the depth of the defect deepened, and the influence was larger when the defect existed at the bottom of the top of the trough. Also, it was confirmed that the Transverse cracks had an effect on the resonance frequency in the presence of the cracks in the weld bead, compared to the longitudinal cracks. As a result of this study, it is expected that the cause of the defect and the condition of the pipe can be monitored because the resonance frequency tendency according to the shape of the crack is analyzed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.190-202
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• 2018

Maintaining the integrity of the major equipment in nuclear power plants is critical to the safety of the structures. In particular, the soundness of the piping is a critical matter that is directly linked to the safety of nuclear power plants. Currently, the limit state of the piping design standard is plastic collapse, and the actual pipe failure is leakage due to a penetration crack. Actual pipe failure, however, cannot be applied to the analysis of seismic fragility because it is difficult to quantify. This paper proposes methods of measuring the failure strain and deformation angle, which are necessary for evaluating the quantitative failure criteria of the steel pipe elbow using an image measurement system. Furthermore, the failure strain and deformation angle, which cannot be measured using the conventional sensors, were efficiently measured using the proposed methods.

• 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.18 no.2
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• pp.50-53
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• 2022

To investigate the validity of the finite element analysis program to assess structural integrity of a spent nuclear fuel transport cask subjected to extreme impact loads, structural integrity of the cask for the case of an aircraft engine collision is evaluated using three FE analysis programs: Autodyn, Speed and ABAQUS explicit version. As a result of all analyses, it is confirmed that no penetration occurred in the cask wall. Even though the different programs are used, it is identified that there are insignificant differences in the FE analysis variables such as von Mises effective stress and equivalent plastic strain among the programs.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.36 no.12
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• pp.35-43
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• 2020

Currently, cofferdams of circular cross section are widely applied as temporary facilities for the installation of bridge foundations in river/sea bridge construction in Korea. Existing caisson, sheet pile, and cell type cofferdam are widely used, but these methods take a lot of time and cost for installation and dismantling. In the case of the existing sheet pile construction method, attention is needed to secure internal and external stability because of the damage to the sheet pile due to ground penetration and difficulty in connecting element members. In this study, penetration design of circular steel pipes using suction pressure was performed on the soft ground of the west coast, and it was confirmed that penetration construction using suction pressure was possible through field tests. It was confirmed that applying the ground analysis results using the cone penetration test (CPT) to the design rather than the standard penetration test (N value) results more similar to the field test results. In addition, it was confirmed that local failure of the inside of the cofferdam was induced when a suction pressure higher than the upper limit suction pressure was applied in the silty sand.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.564-569
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• 2011

The current establishment of city gas piping polyethylene (PE) tube used as bonding state or part of the health or safety of fusion is very important. A part of these fusion methods to determine the soundness of the short-term trials and long-term tests can be largely classified. Typical tests include short-term strength, tensile strength, impact strength, compressive strength, resiliency and compression. Polyethylene (PE) pipes installed in the domestic terms of overall penetration rate of 45% has been used. However, polyethylene (PE) pipes have reliability problems, and these occurs mostly in part by defective welding. Therefore, the test is necessary for safety. Non-destructive methods (ultrasonic testing) are difficult to be used. Therefore, Polypropylene copolymer (PP-C), polypropylene homopolymer (PP-H), and polyethylene (PE) pipe are used. Fusion of these materials is necessary in these field however, its technical, and basic research has not been studied well. In this research, short-term strength of welding parts, its tensile strength, hardness, fatigue, and microstructure have been analyzed to find the optimum process conditions to improve mechanical properties.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.90-100
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• 2021

Molten corium-concrete interaction (MCCI) is one of the most important phenomena that can lead to the potential hazard of late containment failure due to basemat penetration during a severe accident. In this study, MCCI analytical models of the CORQUENCH code were prepared through verification calculations of several experiments, which had been performed using concrete types similar to those of the calandria vault floor in CANDU-6 plants. The behaviors of thermal-hydraulic variables related to MCCI phenomena were analyzed under the conditions of dry floor and water flooding during the severe accident stemming from a hypothetic station blackout. Uncertainty analyses on the ablation depth were also carried out. It was estimated that the concrete ablation was not interrupted due to the continuous MCCI process under the dry condition but was terminated within 24 hours under the water flooding condition. It was confirmed that the water flooding as a mitigating action was effective to achieve the quenching and thermal stabilization of the melt discharged from the calandria vessel, showing that the present models are capable of reasonably simulating MCCI phenomena in CANDU-6 plants. This study is expected to provide the technical bases to the accident management strategy during the late-phase severe accidents.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.19-30
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• 2020

This numerical study is to investigate the seepage characteristics of the side of the structure in the event of leakage from the structural connection part of the drainage structure installed through the enlarged levee, and to analyze the effect of piping on the stabilization of the levee by the lateral penetration behavior. To take into account lateral seepage behavior, 2D and 3D numerical analyses were performed on the same model, and the effect of lateral seepage was analyzed to assess the validity of the numerical analysis. As a result, when leakage occurs and a lateral seepage is considered with the gate located on the riverside land, the maximum pore water pressure near the leakage point of the structure has been reduced by half compared to the normal seepage state where no leakage occurred. Excessive variation in the pore pressure was shown at the lower part of the structure, especially if lateral seepage is not considered. As a water level rises to the high water level, it shows the hydraulic gradient was larger than the critical hydraulic gradient, which will be vulnerable to long-term piping. If a gate is located in the inland and side seepage is not considered, the effect of the seepage water such as hydraulic gradient and seepage velocity is underestimated compared with the case of considering side seepage. The maximum hydraulic gradient is relatively small when lateral seepage is neglected if a gate is located in the riverside land and there was might be a risk of piping or loss of material. In addition, the period exceeding the critical hydraulic gradient was interpreted as a short time zone. As a result, it is considered that the possibility of piping can be underestimated if side seepage is ignored.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.19-34
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• 1996

A review was made of fatigue failures of nuclear power plant components in Japan, which were experienced in service and during periodical inspection. No case has been recently reported of a service fatigue failure of a reactor pressure vessel itself, excluding nozzle corner cracks, that occurred many years ago. But, service fatigue failures have been occasionally experienced in piping systems, pumps, and valves, on which fatigue design seems to have been inadequately applied. The causes of fatigue failures can be divided into two categories: mechanical-vibration-induced fatigue and thermal-fluctuation-induced fatigue. Vibration-induced fatigue failure occurs more frequently than is generally thought. The lesson gleaned from the present survey is a recognition that a service fatigue failure may occur due to any one or a combination of the following factors: (1) lack of communication between designers and fabrication engineers, (2) lack of knowledge about a possibility of fatigue failure and poor consideration about the effects of residual stresses, (3) lack of consideration on possible vibration in the design and fabrication stages, and (4) lack of fusion or poor penetration in a welded joint.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.102-108
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• 2023

A Chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenite stainless steel in dry cask storage system (DCSS) can occur with extending service time than originally designed. Cold spray coating (CSC) not only form a very dense microstructure that can protect from corrosive environments, but also can generate compressive stress on the surface. This characteristic of CSC process is very helpful to increase the resistance for CISCC. CSC with several powders, such as 304L, 316L and Ni can be optimized to form very dense coating layer. In addition, the impact energy generated as the CSC powder collides with the surface of base metal at a speed of Mach 2 or more can remove the residual tensile stress of welding area and serve the compress stress. CSC layers include no oxidation and no contamination with under 0.2% porosity, which is enough to protect from the penetration of corrosive chloride. Therefore, the CSC coating layer can be accompanied by a function that can be disconnected from the corrosive environment and an effect of improving the residual stress that causes CISCC, so the canister's CISCC resistance can be increased.