• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.2017-2022
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• 2004

There are multistage preheaters in the power generation plan to improve the thermal efficiency of the plant and to prevent the components from the thermal shock. The energy source of these heaters comes from the extracted two phase fluid of working system. These two-phase fluid can cause the so-called Flow Accelerated Corrosion(FAC) in the extracting piping and the bubble plate of the heater for example, in case of point Beach Nuclear Power Plant and in the Wolsung Nuclear Power Plant. The FAC is due to the mass transport of the thin oxide layer by the convection. FAC is dependent on many parameters such as the operation temperature, void fraction, the fluid velocity and pH of fluid and so on. Therefore, in this paper velocity was calculated by FLUENT code in order to find out the root cause of the wall thinning of the feedwater heaters. It also includeed in the fluid mixing analysis model are around the number 5A feedwater heater shell including the extraction pipeline. To identify the relation between the local velocities and wall thinning, the local velocities according to the analysis results were compared with distribution of the shell wall thicknes by ultrasonic test.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.2664-2669
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• 2008

Feedwater heaters of many nuclear power plants have recently experienced severe wall thinning damange, which will increase as operating time progresses. Several nuclear power plants in Korea have experienced wall thinning damage in the area around the impingement baffle-installed downstream of the high pressure turbine extraction stream line- inside number 5A and 5B feedwater heaters. At that point, the extracted steam from the high pressure turbine is two phase fluid at high temperature, high pressure, and high speed. Since it flows in reverse direction after impinging the impingement baffle, the shell wall of the number 5 high pressure feedwater heater may be affected by flow-accelerated corrosion. This paper describes operation of experience and numerical analysis composed similar condition with real high pressure feedwater heater. This study applied squared, curved and new type impingement baffle plates to feedwater heater same as previous study. In addition, it shows difference of pressure distribution and value between single phase and two phase based on experience and numerical analysis.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.204-208
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• 2010

Local wall thinning in pipelines affects the structural integrity of industries like nuclear power plants (NPPs). In the present study, a pulsed eddy current (PEC) differential probe with two excitation coils and two Hall-sensors was fabricated to measure the wall thinning in insulated pipelines. A stainless steel test sample was prepared with a thickness that varied from 1 mm to 5 mm and was laminated by plastic insulation to simulate the pipelines in NPPs. The excitation coils in the probe were driven by a rectangular current pulse, the difference of signals from two Hall-sensors was measured as the resultant PEC signal. The peak value of the detected signal is used to describe the wall thinning. The peak value increased as the thickness of the test sample increased. The results were measured at different insulation thicknesses on the sample. Results show that the differential PEC probe has the potential to detect wall thinning in an insulated NPP pipelines.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.79-84
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• 2013

In general, pipelines at nuclear power plants are affected by various types of degradation mechanisms and may be ruptured after gradually thinning. FAC (Flow-Accelerated Corrosion) is typical aging mechanism affecting the secondary side piping system. In Korea nuclear power plants, CHECWORKS program have been used for management of wall thinning damages. However, sometimes, CHECWORKS program shows wrong results at the stage of NFA (Network Flow Analysis) in case of complex pipelines. This paper describes the calculation results of pressure drop in a complex pipeline and single line by using the CHECWORKS program and the analysis results are compared with those of engineering calculation results including errors between them.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.321-328
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• 2006

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

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.134-139
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• 2002

Fracture behaviors of pipes with local wall thinning are very important for the integrity of nuclear power plant. However, effects of local wall thinning on strength and fracture behaviors of piping system were not well studied. Acoustic emission(AE) has been widely used in various fields because of its extreme sensitivity, dynamic detection ability and location of growing defects. In this study, we investigated failure modes of locally wall thinned pipes and AE signals by bending test. From test results, we could be divided four types of failure modes of ovalization, crack initiation after ovalization, local buckling and crack initiation after local buckling. And fracture behaviors such as elastic region, yielding range, plastic deformation range and crack progress could be evaluated by AE counts, accumulative counts and time-frequency analysis during bending test. It is expected to be basic data that can protect a risk according to local wall thinning of pipes, as a real time test of AE.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.821-830
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• 2007

Feedwater heaters of many nuclear power plants have recently experienced severe wall thinning damage, which will increase as operating time progresses. Several nuclear power plants in Korea have experienced wall thinning damage in the area around the impingement baffle-installed downstream of the high pressure turbine extraction steam line- inside number 5A and 5B feedwater heaters. At that point, the extracted steam from the high pressure turbine is two phase fluid at high temperature, high pressure, and high speed. Since it flows in reverse direction after impinging the impingement baffle, the shell wall of the number 5 high pressure feedwater heater may be affected by flow-accelerated corrosion. This paper describes the comparisons between the numerical results using the FLUENT code and the down scale experimental data on effect of geometry of the impingement baffle plate on the shell wall thinning. Additionally, a new type impingement baffle plate was installed above the impingement baffle plate in the feedwater heater and then the numerical and experimental study were performed in the same progress.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2013.05a
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• pp.1029-1030
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• 2013

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.33-39
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• 2015

Pipe wall-thinning by flow-accelerated corrosion and various types of erosion is significant damage in secondary system piping of nuclear power plants(NPPs). All NPPs in Korea have management programs to ensure pipe integrity from degradation mechanisms. Ultrasonic test(UT) is widely used for pipe wall thickness measurement. Numerous UT measurements have been performed during scheduled outages. Wall-thinning rates are determined conservatively according to several evaluation methods developed by Electric Power Research Institute(EPRI). The issue of reliability caused by measurement error should be considered in the process of evaluation. The reliability analysis method was developed for single and multiple measurement data in the previous researches. This paper describes the application results of reliability analysis method to real measurement data during scheduled outage and proved its benefits.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.51-60
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• 2015

Local wall thinning and integrity degradation caused by several mechanisms, such as flow accelerated corrosion, cavitation, flashing and/or liquid droplet impingement, is a main concern in secondary steam cycle piping system of nuclear power plants in terms of safety and operability. Thinned pipe management program (TPMP) has being developed and optimized to reduce the possibility of unplanned shutdown and/or power reduction due to pipe failure caused by wall thinning. In this paper, newest technologies, standards and regulations related to the integrity assessment, repair and replacement of thinned pipe component are reviewed. And technical improvement items in TPMP to secure the reliability and effectiveness are also presented.