• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.182-188
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• 2016

Significant piping wall thinning caused by Flow-Accelerated Corrosion (FAC) and Erosion-Corrosion (EC) continues to occur, even after the Mihama Power Station unit 3 secondary pipe rupture in 2004, in which workers were seriously injured or died. Nuclear power plants in many countries have experienced FAC and EC-related cases in steam cycle piping systems. Korea has also experienced piping wall thinning cases including thinning in the downstream straight pipe of a check valve in a feedwater pump line, the downstream elbow of a control valve in a feedwater flow control line, and failure of the straight pipe downstream of an orifice in an auxiliary steam return line. Cause analyses were performed by reviewing thickness data using Ultrasonic Techniques (UT) and, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images for the failed pipe, and numerical simulation results for FAC and EC cases in Korea Nuclear Power Plants. It was concluded that the main cause of wall thinning for the downstream pipe of a check valve is FAC caused by water vortex flow due to the internal flow shape of a check valve, the main cause of wall thinning for the downstream elbow of a control valve is FAC caused by a thickness difference with the upstream pipe, and the main cause of wall thinning for the downstream pipe of an orifice is FAC and EC caused by liquid droplets and vortex flow. In order to investigate more cases, additional analyses were performed with the review of a lot of thickness data for inspected pipes. The results showed that pipe wall thinning was also affected by the operating condition of upstream equipment. Management of FAC and EC based on these cases will focus on the downstream piping of abnormal or unusual operated equipment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.27-28
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• 2006

This study performs to investigate deformation of wall thinning pipe and to find out the position of the internal thinning defect by shearography. Shearography is one of optical methods those have applied to nondestructive testing (NDT) and the strain/stress analysis. This technique has the merit of the directly measuring the first derivative of displacement, sensitivity of which can be adjusted by the handling of optical component in interferometer. In this paper, we tested carbon steel pipe locally wall thinned and loaded internal pressure and developed the nondestructive out-of-plane deformation analysis technique fur internal thinning defect of elbow by shearography. From the results, it was confirmed that this technique is proper to the practical application on the pipe line system with internal defect.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.931-950
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• 2016

Ratcheting deformation of pressurized Z2CND18.12N stainless steel $90^{\circ}$ elbow pipe with local wall thinning subjected to constant internal pressure and reversed bending was studied using finite element analysis. Chen-Jiao-Kim (CJK) kinematic hardening model, which was used to simulate ratcheting behavior of pressurized $90^{\circ}$ elbow pipe with local wall thinning at extrados, flanks and intrados, was implemented into finite element software ANSYS. The local wall thinning was located at extrados, flanks and intrados of $90^{\circ}$ elbow pipe, whose geometry was rectangular cross-section. The effect of depth, axial length and circumferential angle of local wall thinning at extrados, flanks and intrados on the ratcheting behaviors of $90^{\circ}$ elbow pipe were studied in this paper. Three-dimensional elastic-plastic analysis with Chen-Jiao-Kim (CJK) kinematic hardening model was carried out to evaluate structural ratcheting behaviors. The results indicated that ratcheting strain was generated mainly along the hoop direction, while axial ratcheting strain was relatively small.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.512-518
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• 2008

Guided wave technology is advantageous for fast inspection of pipe wall thinning since the guided wave propagates long distance. In this investigation, the method to evaluate gradual wall thinning in a pipe based on the arrival time delay with magnetostrictive patch transducers is presented. Low frequency A0 Lamb waves were generated and measured by the present transducer and it was applied to arrival time delay measurement experiments on a test pipe having gradual wall thinnings artificially manufactured. From experiments, consistent results that wall thinning increases the arrival time delay of A0 waves were obtained. Consequently, the feasibility of the magnetostrictive patch transducers to evaluate wall thinning was verified.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.38-46
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• 2010

The wall thinning phenomenon of pipes was simulated as metal loss due to erosion and corrosion. Such wall thinning defects in the pipes of power plants are a very important safety consideration. In this study, we analyzed wall thinning defects that occurred by weld bead of weld zone of boost pump recirculation pipe. From the results of the analysis of pipe failures, numerical analysis was performed by Fluent v6.3.26 using the standard k-$\varepsilon$ model of the weld bead shape, such as an elliptical or a spherical shape, on the inner wall of the pipe. Using the results obtained, we showed the overlap effect by cavitations corrosion and erosion-corrosion at the bottom of the wall-thinning defect.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.131-137
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• 2020

A number of piping components in the secondary system of nuclear power plants (NPPs) are exposed to aging mechanisms, such as flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC), cavitation, flashing, solid particle erosion, and liquid droplet impingement erosion. Those mechanisms may lead to thinning, leaking, or rupture of the components. Due to the pipe ruptures caused by wall thinning in Surry unit 2 in the USA in 1986 and Mihama unit 3 in Japan in 1994, pipe wall thinning management has emerged as one of the most important issues in the nuclear industry. To manage pipe wall thinning, a foreign program has been utilized for NPPs in Korea since 1996. As our experience and knowledge of pipe wall thinning management have accumulated, our program needs to reflect our experience, requests from users, and the result of recent experiments using Flow Accelerated Corrosion Testing System (FACTS). FACTS is the empirical experimental facility developed by Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) for tests. Accordingly, KEPCO-E&C developed a 3D-based pipe wall thinning management program called ToSPACE in 2016. This paper describes a comparison between the FAC analysis results using ToSPACE and the experimental results using FACTS to verify their applicability to pipe wall thinning management in NPPs.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.120-125
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• 2007

Put Abstract text here The strain distribution measurement for wall thinned pipe bends by ESPI is presented. Defect types observed in the steel piping in the nuclear power plants (NPP) are the crack at the weld part and the wall thinning defect in the pipe bends. Especially, the wall thinning defects in the pipe bends due to the flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) is a main type of defects observed in the carbon steel piping system. ESPI is one of the optical non-destructive testing methods and can measure the stress and the strain distribution of the object subjected by the tensile loading or the internal pressure. In this paper, the strain distribution of the wall thinned pipe bends due to the internal pressure will be measured by ESPI technique and the results are discussed. From the results, the size of the wall thinning defect can also be measured approximately.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.61-66
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• 2001

Fracture behaviors of pipes with local wall thinning is very important for the integrity of nuclear power plant. In pipes of energy plants, sometimes, the local wall thinning may result from severe drosion-corrosion damage. However, effect of local wall thinning on strength and fracture behaviors of piping system were not well studied. In this paper, the monotonic bending tests were performed of full-scale carbon steel pipes with local wall thinning. A monotonic bending load was applied to straight pipe specimens by four-point loading at ambient temperature without internal pressure. From the tests, fracture behaviors and fracture strength of locally thinned pipe were manifested systematically. The observed failure modes were divided into four types; ovalization, ovalization+cracking, local buckling and local buckling+cracking. Also, maximum load was successfully evaluated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.12
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• pp.4060-4066
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• 2021

Flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) of carbon steel piping is a significant problem in nuclear power plants. The basic process of FAC is currently understood relatively well; however, the accuracy of prediction models of the wall-thinning rate under an FAC environment is not reliable. Herein, we propose a methodology to construct pipe wall-thinning rate prediction models using artificial neural networks and a convolutional neural network, which is confined to a straight pipe without geometric changes. Furthermore, a methodology to generate training data is proposed to efficiently train the neural network for the development of a machine learning-based FAC prediction model. Consequently, it is concluded that machine learning can be used to construct pipe wall thinning rate prediction models and optimize the number of training datasets for training the machine learning algorithm. The proposed methodology can be applied to efficiently generate a large dataset from an FAC test to develop a wall thinning rate prediction model for a real situation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.39-45
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• 2003

The failure mode of a pipe due to local wall thinning is increasingly more attention in the nuclear power plant industry. To assess the integrity of locally wall thinned pipe, it is necessary to perform many simulations under various conditions. Because the modeling for locally wall thinned elbow is more complicated than that of straight pipe the efficient modeling method for finite element analysis is necessary. In this study, the more simple efficient modeling method of three-dimensional finite element analysis for locally wall thinned elbow has been suggested and verified. And using the method, the failure mode of local wall thinned elbows that have different thinning lengths and circumferential angles is evaluated. From the results, we concluded that the collapse load of elbows has been decreased by the increase of wall thinning shape factors such as thinning lengths and circumferential angles.