• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.32 no.12
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• pp.1063-1071
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• 2008

This paper provides a failure pressure evaluation model for local wall-thinned elbows. In this study, parametric finite element analyses are performed on the elbows containing local wall-thinning defect at their intrados and extrados, and the failure pressures are obtained from the analysis results by applying a local failure criterion that was validated by real-scale pipe tests. An evaluation model including the effects of thinning depth, length, circumferential angle, thinning location, and elbow geometries on the failure pressure is derived based on the evaluated failure pressures. The proposed model agrees well with the results of finite element analyses and reasonably estimates the dependence of failure pressure on the wall-thinning dimensions and elbow geometries. Also, the comparison with experimental data demonstrates that the proposed evaluation model can accurately predict the failure pressure of local wall-thinned elbows.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.7
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• pp.607-614
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• 2008

Since pipes with wall-thinning defects can collapse at fluid pressure that are lower than expected, the collapse moment of wall-thinned pipes should be determined accurately for the safety of nuclear power plants. Wall-thinning defects, which are mostly found in pipe bends and elbows, are mainly caused by flow-accelerated corrosion. This lowers the failure pressure, load-carrying capacity, deformation ability, and fatigue resistance of pipe bends and elbows. This paper offers a support vector regression (SVR) model further enhanced with a fuzzy algorithm for calculation of the collapse moment and for evaluating the integrity of wall-thinned piping systems. The fuzzy support vector regression (FSVR) model is applied to numerical data obtained from finite element analyses of piping systems with wall-thinning defects. In this paper, three FSVR models are developed, respectively, for three data sets divided into extrados, intrados, and crown defects corresponding to three different defect locations. It is known that FSVR models are sufficiently accurate for an integrity evaluation of piping systems from laser or ultrasonic measurements of wall-thinning defects.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.21 no.1 s.74
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• pp.51-58
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• 2007

This study on the effects of local wall-thinned location on the fracture behavior of pipes was carried out, and the results were compared with the analytical results. Local wall-thinning for the bending test was machined with various sizes on the outside of pipes, in order to simulate the metal loss, due to erosion/corrosion. In addition, we had carried out FE analysis for the pipes with local wall thinning on the inside, and its results were comparatively studied with that of the outside. Three-dimensional elasto-plastic analyses were able to accurately simulate fracture behaviors of inner or outer wall thinning. Fracture types, obtained from the experiments and analyses, could be classified into ovalization, local buckling and crack initiation, depending on the thinned length and thinned ratio. Based on the results, the fracture behaviors of pipes with the outer wall thinning can be applied to estimate the fracture behaviors of pipes with the inner wall thinning.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.22 no.3_1spc
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• pp.518-524
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• 2013

Recently, probabilistic assessments of nuclear power plant components have generated interest in the nuclear industries, either for the efficient inspection and maintenance of older nuclear plants or for improving the safety and cost-effective design of newly constructed nuclear plants. In the present paper, the partial safety factor (PSF) of wall-thinned nuclear piping is evaluated based on a reliability index method, from which the effect of each statistical variable (assessment parameter) on a certain target probability is evaluated. In order to calculate the PSF of a wall-thinned pipe, a limit state function based on the load and resistance factor design (LRFD) concept is first constructed. As for the reliability assessment method, both the advanced first-order second moment (AFOSM) method and second-order reliability method (SORM) are employed to determine the PSF of each probabilistic variable. The present results can be used for developing maintenance strategies considering the priorities of input variables for structural integrity assessments of wall-thinned piping, and this PSF concept can also be applied to the optimal design of the components of newly constructed plants considering the target reliability levels.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.1200-1209
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• 2003

In this paper, a unified methodology based on the local stress concept to estimate residual strength of locally thinned pipes. An underlying idea of the proposed methodology is that the local stress in the minimum section for locally thinned pipe is related to the reference stress, popularly used in creep problems. Then the problem remains how to define the reference stress, that is the reference load. Extensive three-dimensional finite element (FE) analyses were performed to simulate full-scale pipe tests conducted for various shapes of wall thinned area under internal pressure and bending moment. Based on these FE results, the reference load is proposed, which is independent of materials. A natural outcome of this method is the maximum load capacity. By comparing with existing test results, it is shown that the reference stress is related to the fracture stress, which in turn can be posed as the fracture criterion of locally thinned pipes. The proposed method is powerful as it can be easily generalised to more complex problems, such as pipe bends and tee-joints.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.55-61
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• 2009

The wall thinning defect of nuclear power pipe is mainly occurred by the affect of the flow accelerated corrosion (FAC) of fluid. This type of defect becomes the cause of damage or destruction of in carbon steel pipes. Therefore, it is very important to measure defect which is existed not only on the welding part but also on the whole field of pipe. This study use dual-beam Shearography, which can measure the out-of-plane deformation and the in-plane deformation by using another illuminated laser beam and simple image processing technique. And this study proposes Infrared thermography, which is a two-dimensional non-contact nondestructive evaluation that can detect internal defects from the thermal distribution by the inspection of infrared light radiated from the object surface. In this paper, defect of nuclear power pipe were, measured using dual-beam shearography and infrared thermography, quantitatively evaluated by the analysis of phase map and thermal image pattern.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2016

Local wall thinning elbow due to the water flow is one of the main degradation phenomenon in carbon steel pipe of plant system. The API579 code of FFS (fitness for service) used in the chemical plant gives a guideline to protect local wall thin problem in a straight pipe, but it does not include an elbow. In this study, the locally wall thinned elbow, which is considered an extrados or intrados wall thinned elbow, was carried out considering in-plane or out-plane bending using FEM (finite element method) analysis, and some of results were also compared with the experimental data. The results could give the structure integrity assessment to protect the local wall thinned elbow.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.34-39
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• 2013

In the advanced research deducted infrared thermography (IRT) test using 4 inch pipe with artificial wall-thinning defect to measure on the wall-thinned nuclear pipe components. This study conducted for defect detection condition of nuclear small-bore pipe research using deducted condition in the advanced research. Defect process is processed by change for defect length, circumferential direction angle, wall-thinning depth. In the used equipment IR camera and two halogen lamps, whose full power capacitany is 1 kW, halogen lamps and Target pipe experiment performed to the distance of the changed 1 m, 1.5 m, 2 m. To analysis of the experimental results ensure for the temperature distribution data, by this data measure for defect length. artificial defect of 4 inch pipe is high reliability in the 2 m, but small-bore pipe is in the 1.5 m from the defect clearly was detected.

• 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 Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.9 no.3 s.28
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• pp.1-8
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• 2005

We studied on the nondestructive evaluation of the elastic wave signals of locally wall thinned straight pipe. Wavelet transform was applied for the time-frequency analysis of waveforms obtained by fracture wave detector due to the dropping steel ball. The time-frequency analysis provides time variation of each frequency component involved in a waveform, which makes it possible to evaluate the shape of local wall thinning at each frequency. In this study, comparison by wavelet transform of the AE signals and monotonic bending tests without internal pressure are conducted on 1.91 inch diameter full-scale carbon steel pipe specimens. As the results of tests, fracture behaviors could be shown by the characteristic of mechanical strength of locally wall thinned pipes and the waveforms could be evaluated for the integrity insurance of the piping system according to the length and depth range of the deffeted shape pipes in the real field.