• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.35 no.10
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• pp.1337-1345
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• 2011

In pressurized water reactors (PWRs), the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) upper head contains numerous control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) nozzles. In the last 10 years, the incidences of cracking in alloy 600 CRDM nozzles and their associated welds has increased significantly. Several axial and circumferential cracks have been found in CRDM nozzles in European PWRs and U.S. nuclear power plants. These cracks are caused by primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC) and have been shown to be driven by welding residual stresses and operational stresses in the weld region. Therefore, detailed finite-element (FE) simulations for the Korea Nuclear Reactor Pressure Vessel have been conducted in order to predict the magnitudes of the weld residual stresses in the tube materials. In particular, the weld residual stress results are compared in terms for nozzle location, geometry factor$r_o$/t, geometry of fillet, and adjacent nozzle.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.520-526
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• 2015

Reinforcing bar splices are inevitable in reinforced concrete structure. In these days, there are three main types of splices used in reinforced concrete construction site - lapped splice, mechanical splice and welded splice. Low cost, practicality in construction site, less time consuming and high performance make gas pressure welding become a favorable splice method. However, reinforcing bar splice experiences thermal loading history during the welding procedure. This may lead to the presence of residual stress in the vicinity of the splice which affects the fatigue life of the reinforcing bar. Therefore, residual stress analysis and tensile test of the gas pressure welded splice are carried out in order to verify the load bearing capacity of the gas pressure welded splice. The reinforcing bar used in this work is SD400, which is manufactured in accordance with KS D 3504. The results show that the residual stresses in welded splice is relatively small, thus not affecting the performance of the reinforcing bar. Moreover, the strength of the gas pressure welded splice is high enough for the development of yielding in the bar. As such, the reinforcing bar with gas pressure welded splice has enough capacity to behave as continuous bar.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.18-22
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• 2014

Residual stresses that occur during the welding process, are the main cause of failure and defects in welded structures. This paper, presents the use of an electronic processing laser speckle interferometer to measure the residual stress of a welded pipe for a nuclear power plant. A tensile testing machine was used to evaluate a welded pipe that failed in compression. The inform plane deformation and modulus of elasticity of the base metal and welds were measured using an interferometer. Varying the load on the welded pipe had a larger effect on the deformation of the base metal the other properties of the base metal and welds. The elastic moduli of the base metal and weld of the welded pipe were 202.46 and 212.14 GPa, respectively, the residual stress was measured to be 6.29 MPa.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.84-92
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• 2023

As temporary storage facilities for spent nuclear fuels in domestic nuclear power plants are expected to be saturated, external intermediate storage facilities would be required in the future. Spent nuclear fuels are stored in metal canisters and then placed in a dry environment within concrete or metal casing for operation. In the United States, the dry storage method for spent nuclear fuels has been operated for an extended period. Based on the corrosion experiences of dry storage canisters in chloride environments, numerous studies have been conducted to reduce corrosion in welds. With the construction of intermediate storage facilities in Korea for spent nuclear fuels expected near coastal areas adjacent to nuclear power plants, there is a need for research on the corrosion occurrence of welds and mitigation methods for canisters in chloride environments. In this paper, we measured and compared the residual stresses in the Heat-Affected Zones (HAZ) after electron beam welding (EBW) and gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) processes for candidate materials such as 304L, 316L, and duplex stainless steel(DSS). We investigated the possibility of microstructure control through the application of surface modification processes using friction stir processing (FSP). Corrosion tests on each welded specimen revealed a higher corrosion rate in EBW welds compared to GTAW. Furthermore, it was confirmed that corrosion resistance improved due to phase refinement and redistribution of precipitates when FSP was applied.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.19-34
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• 1996

A review was made of fatigue failures of nuclear power plant components in Japan, which were experienced in service and during periodical inspection. No case has been recently reported of a service fatigue failure of a reactor pressure vessel itself, excluding nozzle corner cracks, that occurred many years ago. But, service fatigue failures have been occasionally experienced in piping systems, pumps, and valves, on which fatigue design seems to have been inadequately applied. The causes of fatigue failures can be divided into two categories: mechanical-vibration-induced fatigue and thermal-fluctuation-induced fatigue. Vibration-induced fatigue failure occurs more frequently than is generally thought. The lesson gleaned from the present survey is a recognition that a service fatigue failure may occur due to any one or a combination of the following factors: (1) lack of communication between designers and fabrication engineers, (2) lack of knowledge about a possibility of fatigue failure and poor consideration about the effects of residual stresses, (3) lack of consideration on possible vibration in the design and fabrication stages, and (4) lack of fusion or poor penetration in a welded joint.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.387-395
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• 2013

Recently, several circumferential cracks were found in the control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) nozzles of U.S. nuclear power plants. According to the accident analyses, coolant leaks were caused by primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC). The tensile residual stresses caused by welding, corrosion sensitive materials, and boric acid solution cause PWSCC. Therefore, an exact estimation of the residual stress is important for reliable operation. In this study, finite element simulations were conducted to investigate the effects of the tube geometry (thickness and radius) on the residual stresses in a J-groove weld for different CRDM tube locations. Two different tube locations were considered (center-hole and steepest side hill tube), and the tube radius and thickness variables ($r_o/t$=2, 3, 4) included two different reference values ($r_o$=51.6, t=16.9mm).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.7
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• pp.895-906
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• 2015

Background: Mitigation of primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC) is a significant issue in the nuclear industry. Advanced nickel-based alloys with lower susceptibility have been adopted, although they do not seem to be entirely immune from PWSCC during normal operation. With regard to structural integrity assessments of the relevant components, an accurate evaluation of crack growth rate (CGR) is important. Methods: For the present study, the extended finite element method was adopted from among diverse meshless methods because of its advantages in arbitrary crack analysis. A user-subroutine based on the strain rate damage model was developed and incorporated into the crack growth evaluation. Results: The proposed method was verified by using the well-known Alloy 600 material with a reference CGR curve. The analyzed CGR curve of the alternative Alloy 690 material was then newly estimated by applying the proven method over a practical range of stress intensity factors. Conclusion: Reliable CGR curves were obtained without complex environmental facilities or a high degree of experimental effort. The proposed method may be used to assess the PWSCC resistance of nuclear components subjected to high residual stresses such as those resulting from dissimilar metal welding parts.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.70 no.4
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• pp.431-443
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• 2019

The present paper illustrates a numerical investigation on the failure behaviour of ring-stiffened cylinder subjected to external hydrostatic pressure. The published test data of steel welded ring-stiffened cylinder are surveyed and collected. Eight test models are chosen for the verification of the modelling and FE analyses procedures. The imperfection as the consequences of the fabrication processes, such as initial geometric deformation and residual stresses due to welding and cold forming, which reduced the ultimate strength, are simulated. The results show that the collapse pressure and failure mode predicted by the nonlinear FE analyses agree acceptably with the experimental results. In addition, the failure mode parameter obtained from the characteristic pressure such as interframe buckling pressure known as local buckling pressure, overall buckling pressure, and yield pressure are also examined through the collected data and shows a good correlation. A parametric study is then conducted to confirm the failure progression as the basic parameters such as the shell radius, thickness, overall length of the compartment, and stiffener spacing are varied.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.69-76
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• 2021

In this work, we have performed a corrosion failure analysis of a leaking tube connected to an upper header of a condensate pre-heater in a heat recovery steam generator. It was revealed that the leakage position in the tube was the location where the materials were easily vulnerable due to tensile residual stresses induced by the material manufacturing process and welding process. In addition to an imbalance in the module induced by temperature difference during operation of the pre-heater, the weight of the modules and thermal fatigue provoked a type of stress of tensile-tensile fatigue on the tube. Thus, the leakage position of the pre-heater was exposed to the tensile stress on the inner surface of the tube facing the gas, which rendered the unstable oxide layer susceptible to corrosion and the formation of pits on the water side. The cracks propagated along with the degraded microstructure in a transgranular cracking mode under fatigue loading and finally resulted in water leakage.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.122-128
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• 2005

A feasibility study on the application of self?shielded flux cored arc welding to the on-site SM520 steel bridge box fabrication for express trains and high way construction instead of gas-shield flux cored arc welding was conducted in terms of weld soundness, mechanical properties, toughness and microstructures. All welded specimens made with the self?shielded FCAW process were tested by magnetic particle and ultrasonic techniques and they were found to be sound. All multipass weld specimens made with both self-shielded and gas-shielded FCAW processes showed yield and tensile strengths of $462{\sim}549\;MPa$ and $548{\sim}640\;MPa$, respectively. The impact values of Charpy V-Notch weld specimens also met with the required value of 40J at $-20^{\circ}C$. The hardness values of the top area of weldments were higher than those of the bottom area because of higher residual stresses in the near surface. It was found that welding characteristics of SM520 steel by the on-site welding conditions with self-shielded FCAW showed almost equivalent to those by gas-shielded FCAW in terms of sound welds, mechanical properties and microstructure.