• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.27-36
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• 1989

Load tests are executed on instrumented model piles to evaluate the magnitudes of soil plugging resistances mobilized at open-end pile tips. The plugging resistances are calculated by some existing methods, which are compared with observation. A couple of the methods are found to give good results. A new computational method to predict the plugging resistance is proposed in this paper, which also gives fairly close prodiction to the measurement, and is much simpler than the other computational methods.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.670-676
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• 2003

To investigate the group plugging effect the fluid-elastic instability analysis has been performed on various column and row number of the KSNP steam generator lutes. This study compares the stability ratio of the plugged tube with that of the intact one. The information on the thermal-hydraulic data of the steam generator have been obtained by using the ATHOS3-MOD1 code with and without the thermal energy transfer at the plugged region. Both of the boundary conditions of hot-leg temperature and feedwater mass flow rate are fixed for this investigation. From the results of this study the stability ratios inside the group plugging zone are decreased slightly. At the outside of group plugging zone, however, most of the stability ratios tend to be increased.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.105-116
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• 2002

In special industrial fields such 3s nuclear power plants and chemical plants, it is often necessary to repair system components without plant shutdown or drainage of system having many piping structures which may have hazardous or expensive fluid. A temporary ice plugging method for blocking internal flow is considered as a useful method in that case. According to the pipe freezing guideline of the nuclear power plant, the length of a freezing jacket must be longer than twice of the pipe diameter. However, for applying the ice plugging to short pipes which do not have enough freezing length because of geometrical configuration, it is inevitable to use shorter jacket less than twice of the pipe diameter. In this study, the integrity evaluation for short pipes in the nuclear power plant Is conducted by an experiment and the finite element analysis. From the results, the ice plugging process in short pipes can be safely carried out without any plastic deformation and fracture.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.10-17
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• 2020

Securing the integrity of steam generator tubes is an essential requirement for safe operation of nuclear power plants. Therefore, tubes that do not satisfy integrity requirements are no longer usable and must be repaired according to the related requirements. In general, the repair criterion is that the damage depth is more than 40% of the tube wall thickness. However, the plugging limit can be changed and be applied, provided a technical proof is given that integrity can be secured against specific degradation at a specific plants and that approval can be obtained from a regulatory agency. A typical example is alternative repair criteria for defects within the tube sheet or tube support plates. In this paper, a background of establishing the plugging limit for steam generator tubes and changes in maintenance criteria are reviewed as examples.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.21-33
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• 2017

This paper presents the analysis of plugging effect especially when the large diameter steel pipe pile was installed by considering driveability (BPM, blow per meter). The Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) technique was used to simulate the driving of open-ended piles into soil. To consider the driveability, the applied driving energy for each pile was obtained from the analysis results by using the wave equation. The parametric studies were performed for different pile diameters, penetration depths of pile, soil elastic modulus and BPM. It was found that the SPI is almost constant with increasing both the pile diameter and the required driving energy. It is also found that the plugging effect increases with increasing the pile length, resulting in the increase of lateral earth pressure. Based on this study the apparent magnitude and distribution of the lateral earth pressure is proposed for inside portion mobilizing soil plug.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.27-36
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• 2016

This paper presents the investigation of the major influence factors on the degree of soil plugging for open-ended piles based on the Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) numerical technique. The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of soil plugging on the response of piles in various conditions. Through comparison of the results of field load tests, the CEL methodology was found to be in good agreement with the general trend observed by in situ measurement. Additionally, the parametric studies were performed by controlling the soil conditions, soil elastic moduli, end-bearing conditions and multi layers. It was found that the degree of soil plugging for sand layers was greater than that of clay layers. Also, the degree of soil plugging increased with an increase in both the soil stiffness and length of pile embedded in the bearing layer.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.439-448
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• 1993

The B-type gamma knife unit was installed at Kyung-Hee University Hospital in March 1992. The selective beam plugging method can be used to reduce the low percentage isodose profiles of normal sensitive organ and to modify the isodose curves of treatment volume for better shaping of the target volume. For representing the changes of the low percentage isodose profiles, the variations of dose distribution for several cases were discussed in this paper. The film dosimetry was peformed for the evaluation of calculated isodose profiles predicted by KULA dose planning system. The results were verified by RFA-3 automatic densitometry. The clinical application of selective beam shielding method was peformed in 17 patients in 100 patients who have undergone gamma knife radiosurgery for a year. The calculated and the measured isodose profiles for the high percentage regions were well consistent with each other. When the target of pituitary tumor is macro-size, the selective beam shielding method is the most applicable method. When the target size, however, is small, the correct selection of the proper helmet size is very important. All patients were exposed almost about 3~12 Gy for brain stem, and 3~11.2 Gy for optic apparatus. It is recommended that the same or other plugging patterns with multiple isocenters should be used for protection of the radiosensitive normal structures with precise treatment of CNS lesions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.465-476
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• 2000

In a nuclear power plant, steam generator tubes cover a major portion of the primary pressure-retaining boundary. Thus very conservative approaches have been taken in the light of steam generator tube integrity According to the present criteria, tubes wall-thinned in excess of 40% should be plugged whatever causes are. However, many analytical and experimental results have shown that no safety problems exist even with thickness reductions greater than 40%. The present criterion was developed about twenty years ago when wear and pitting were dominant causes for steam generator tube degradation. And it is based on tubes with single cracks regardless of the fact that the appearance of multiple cracks is more common in general. The objective of this study is to review the conservatism of the present plugging criteria of steam generator tubes and to propose a new coalescence model for two adjacent through-wall cracks existing in steam generator tubes. Using the existing failure models and experimental results, we reviewed the conservatism of the present plugging criteria. In order to verify the usefulness of the proposed new coalescence model, we performed finite element analysis and some parametric studies. Then, we developed a coalescence evaluation diagram.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.366-372
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• 2001

The ice plugging process consists of placing liquid nitrogen around a pipe and removing heat until the water in the pipe freezes and provides a solid plug or seal against fluid movement. This technique enables us to repair or inspect a pipe system without shutdown of entire system. A set of test apparatus for investigation of the liquid freezing phenomena during ice plugging is prepared. This study shows the characteristics of the liquid freezing and the heat transfer with various pipe and freezing jacket conditions. And in case there is flow of the fluid inside the pipe, the flow rate which can be able to form the ice plug is identified with the effect of the pipe diameter and freezing jacket length on the plug formation. The permissible maximum flow rate for the complete plug formation is approximately proportional to the freezing jacket length at the same pipe diameter condition.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.385-400
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• 2016

Bearing capacity of open-ended piles depends largely on inner frictional resistance, which is influenced by the degree of soil plugging. While a fully-plugged open-ended pile produces a bearing capacity similar to a closed-ended pile, fully coring (or unplugged) pile produces a much smaller bearing capacity. In general, open-ended piles are driven under partially-plugged mode. The formation of soil plug may depend on many factors, including wall thickness at the pile tip (or inner pile diameter), sleeve height of the thickened wall at the pile tip and relative density. In this paper, we studied the effects of wall thickness at the pile base and sleeve height of the thickened wall at the pile tip on bearing capacity using laboratory model tests. The tests were conducted on a medium dense sandy ground. The model piles with different tip thicknesses and sleeve heights of thickened wall at the pile tip were tested. The results were also discussed using the incremental filling ratio and plug length ratio, which are generally used to describe the degree of soil plugging. The results showed that the bearing capacity increases with tip thickness. The bearing capacity of piles of smaller sleeve length (e.g., ${\leq}1D$; D is pile outer diameter) was found to be dependent on the sleeve length, while it is independent on the sleeve length of greater than a 1D length. We also found that the soil plug height is dependent on wall thickness at the pile base. The results on the incremental filling ratio revealed that the thinner walled piles produce higher degree of soil plugging at greater penetration depths. The results also revealed that the soil plug height is dependent on sleeve length of up to 2D length and independent beyond a 2D length. The piles of a smaller sleeve length (e.g., ${\leq}1D$) produce higher degree of soil plugging at shallow penetration depths while the piles of a larger sleeve length (e.g., ${\geq}2D$) produce higher degree of soil plugging at greater penetration depths.