• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.122-128
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• 2010

The corrosion of the flexible tube in the automobile exhaust system is caused by the ambient water and chloride ions. Since welding is one of the key processes for the flexible tube manufacturing, it is required to select a proper welding method to prevent the flexible tube corrosion and to increase its lifetime. There are many studies about the efficiency of the welding method, but no systematic study is performed for the effect of welding method on the corrosion property of the austenitic stainless weldment. The aim of the present study is to provide information on the effect of two different welding methods of TIGW (tungsten inert gas welding) and PAW (plasma arc welding) on the corrosion property of austenitic stainless steel weldment. Materials used in this study were two types of the commercial austenitic stainless steel, STS321 and XM15J1, which were used for flexible tube material for the automotive exhaust system. Microstructure was observed by using optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). To evaluate the corrosion behavior, potentiodynamic and potentiostatic tests were performed. The chemical state of the passive film was analyzed in terms of XPS depth profile. Metallurgical analysis show that the ferrite content in fusion zone of both STS321 and XM15J1 is higher when welded by PAW than by TIGW. The potentiodynamic and potentiostatic test results show that both STS321 and XM15J1 have higher transpassive potential and lower passive current density when welded by PAW than by TIGW. XPS analysis indicates that the stable $Cr_2O_3$ layer at the outermost layer of the passive film is formed when welded by PAW. The result recommends that PAW is more desirable than TIGW to secure corrosion resistance of the flex tube which is usually made of austenitic stainless steel.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.543-551
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• 2011

Steam generator tubes for nuclear power plants contain the local shape transitions on their inner or outer surface such as dent, bulge, over-expansion, eccentricity, deflection, and so on by the application of physical force during the tube manufacturing and steam generator assembling and by the sludge (that is, corrosion products) produced during the plant operation. The structural integrity of tubes will be degraded by generating the corrosive crack at that location. The profilometry using the traditional bobbin probes which are currently applied for measuring the profile change of tubes gives us basic information such as axial locations and average magnitudes of deformations. However, the three-dimensional quantitative evaluation on circumferential locations, distributional angle, and size of deformations will have to be conducted to understand the effects of residual stresses increased by local deformations on corrosive cracking of tubes. Steam generator tubes of Korean standard nuclear power plants expanded within their tube-sheets by the explosive expansion method and suffered from corrosive cracks in the early stage of power operation. Thus, local deformations of steam generator tubes at the top of tube-sheet were measured with an advanced rotating probe and a laser profiling system for the two cases where the tubes expanded by the explosive expansion method and hydraulic expansion. Also, the trends of eccentricity, deflection, and over-expansion of tubes were evaluated. The advanced eddy current profilometry was confirmed to provide accurate information of local deformations compared with laser profilometry.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.2 s.257
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• pp.277-284
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• 2007

The steam generator in a nuclear power plant is a large heat exchanger that uses heat from a reactor to generate steam to drive the turbine generator. Rupture of a steam generator tube can result in release of fission products to environment outside. Therefore, an accurate integrity assessment of the steam generator tubes with cracks is of great importance for maintaining the safety of a nuclear power plant. The steam generator tubes are supported at regular intervals by support plates and rotations of the tubes are restrained. Although it has been reported that the limit load for a circumferential crack is significantly affected by boundary condition of the tube, existing limit load solutions do not consider the restraining effect of support plate correctly. In addition, there are no limit load solutions for circumferential cracks in U-bend region with the effect of the support plate. This paper provides detailed limit load solutions for circumferential cracks in top of tube sheet and the U-bend regions of the steam generator tube with the actual boundary conditions to simulate the restraining effect of the support plate. Such solutions are developed based on three dimensional finite element analyses. The resulting limit load solutions are given in a polynomial form, and thus can be simply used in practical integrity assessment of the steam generator tubes.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.69-73
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• 2011

In general, there are two types of PVT module depending on the existence of the glass in front of PV module: glazed and unglazed. On the other hand, the water-type PVT modules can be classified into two types, according to absorber type: the sheet-and-tube absorber PVT module and the fully wetted absorber PVT module. The aim of this study is to analyze the electrical and thermal performance of a water-type PVT module with fully wetted absorber. For this study, a prototype of unglazed PVT module with fully wetted absorber was designed and built, and both the thermal and electrical performances of the prototype module were measured in outdoor conditions. A conventional mono-crystalline Si PV module was tested alongside the PVT module for their electrical performance comparison. The results showed that the thermal efficiency of the PVT module was average 51% and its electrical efficiency was average 14.3% in mean fluid temperature $10-40^{\circ}C$, whereas the electrical efficiency of the conventional PV module was average 12.6%. It is found that the electrical efficiency of the PVT module was improved by approximately 14% compared to that of the PV module. The temperature of PVT module becomes lower due to the cooling effect by the fluid of the absorber. The results proved that the electrical efficiency was higher when the mean fluid temperature was lower.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.121-126
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• 2011

The heat from PV modules should be removed for better electrical performance, and can be converted into useful thermal energy. A photovoltaic-thermal(PVT) module is a combination of PV module with a solar thermal collector which forms one device that converts solar radiation into electricity and heat simultaneously. In general, there are two different types of PVT module: glazed PVT module and unglazed PVT module. On the other hand, two types of the PVT module can be distinguished according to absorber on PV module rear side: the sheet-and-tube absorber PVT module and the fully wetted absorber PVT module. In this paper, the experimental performance of water type unglazed PVT with fully wetted absorber was analyzed. The electrical and thermal performance of the unglazed PVT were measured in outdoor conditions, and the results were analyzed. The experimental results showed that the thermal efficiency of the PVT module was 42% average, and its electrical efficiencies were 15.2% and 14.2% average, respectively, for the mean fluid temperature of $10-20^{\circ}C$ and $21-30^{\circ}C$. Thermal efficiency depends on solar radiation, mean fluid temperature and ambient temperature. The PVT module temperature is related to the cooling effect of the PV module by the fluid of the absorber. The results proved that the electrical efficiency was higher when the mean fluid temperature was lower.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.7
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• pp.2718-2731
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• 2024

To ensure the operational safety of nuclear power plants, we present a Quadruped Inspection Robot that can be used for many types of steam generators. Since the Inspection Robot relies on the Holding Modules to grip the tube-sheet, it can be regarded as a hybrid robot with variable configurations, switching between 4-RRR-RR, 3-RRR-RR, and two types of 2-RRR-RR, and the variable configurations bring a great challenge to dimensional synthesis. In this paper, the kinematic model of the Inspection Robot in multiple configurations is established, and the analytical solution is given. The workspace mapping is analyzed by the solution-space, and the workspace of multiple configurations is decomposed into the workspace of 2-RRR to reduce the analysis complexity, and the workspace calculation is simplified by using the envelope rings. The optimization problem of the manipulator is transformed into the calculation of the shortest contraction length of the swing leg. The switching performance of the Inspection Robot is evaluated by stride-length, turning-angle, and workspace overlap-ratio. The performance indexes are classified and transformed based on the proportions and variation trends of dimensional parameters to reduce the number of optimization objective functions, and Pareto optimal solutions are obtained using an intelligent optimization algorithm.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.2508-2513
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• 2003

This paper presents a nuclear steam generator tube inspection/maintenance robot system. The robot assists in automatic non-destructive testing and the repair of nuclear steam generator tubes welded into a thick tube sheet that caps a hemispherical or quarter-sphere plenum which is a high-radiation area. For easy carriage and installation, the robot system consists of three separable parts: a manipulator, a water-chamber entering and leaving device for the manipulator and a manipulator base pose adjusting device. A software program to control and manage the robotic system has been developed on the NT based OS to increase the usability. The software program provides a robot installation function, a robot calibration function, a managing and arranging function for the eddy-current test, a real time 3-D graphic simulation function which offers remote reality to operators and so on. The image information acquired from the camera attached to the end-effecter is used to calibrate the end-effecter pose error and the time-delayed control algorithm is applied to calculate the optimal PID gain of the position controller. The developed robotic system has been tested in the Ulchin NPP type steam generator mockup in a laboratory.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.63-72
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• 2002

The main objective of this study is to propose a practical two-microphone impedance tube method to measure the sound transmission loss for flexible sound isolation sheets without the use of the time-consuming and expensive reverberation room. This method was based on the sound decomposition theory developed by Seybert using the spectral density functions of the incident and reflected sound waves. In order to verify the validity of the experimental results, the measured sound transmission losses from the proposed method were compared with the measured data from the reverberation room method and the calculated data from the theory satisfying the mass law of sound isolation material. The resulted trends of the sound transmission losses versus frequencies for several different sound isolation sheets were almost same for each other and agreed quite well in both methods except at some low frequency region. From the experimental results, it was found that the accuracy of sound isolation capability obtained by two-microphone impedance tube method depends upon the microphone spacing, the distance from the first microphone to the test sample surface and the test sample location.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.8479-8486
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• 2015

This study aim is occur in brain CT cause of beam hardening effect and reducing method, We will scan Bone opaque bead phantom on variation of image on the influence factor with equipment called 'Samatom Senation 16' with following listed herein : tube voltage, tube current, slice thickness, gantry angle, base line which affect beam-hardening effect. After that we are going to start Quantitative Analysis resulted in previous scanning and Qualitative Assessment with CT image sheet evaluation. result of quantitative analysis 140kVp $31.56{\pm}2.89HU$ on tube voltage, 150mA $-3.87{\pm}0.12HU$ on tube current, 3mm on slice thickness, and $13.31{\pm}1.03HU$ IOML on gantry angle which was the least beam-hardening effect. Like Qualitative Analysis, we went through Qualitative Assessment and most of valuers got a result of 140kVp on tube voltage, 150mA on tube current, 3mm on slice thickness. As before valuers evaluated gantry angle that scanned image from IOML or OML was the least beam-hardening effect occured. There are meaningful differences when we compare all theses factors statistically(P<0.05). therefore We consider that Minimizing artifact that caused by beam-hardening effect can provide better quality of image to deciphers and patients. if we rise tube voltage in permissible dose limit, set tube current in a limit that does not effect to image quality, use slice thickness too thin enough to harm resolution, use IOML or OML on gantry angle.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.376-379
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• 2014

During roll forming a sheet metal is continuously and progressively formed into a product of the required cross-section and longitudinal shape. An example product is a circular tube with a required diameter, wall-thickness and straightness. Roll forming occurs by passing the sheet through a series of forming rolls that are arranged in tandem. Each pair of forming rolls in the roll forming line plays a particular role in obtaining the required cross-section and longitudinal shape in the product. In recent years, that process is often applied to car body parts by automotive industries. In the current study, an optimal model design and proper roll-pass sequences as well as the number of forming rolls and bending angles were used to produce a sill side. The effects of the process parameters on the final shape formed by roll forming defects were evaluated.