• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.29-32
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• 2007

The final goal of this study is to develop the core technologies applicable to the design, operation and maintenance of welds in nuclear structures. This study includes predicting microstructure changes and residual stress for welded parts of nuclear power plant components. Furthermore, researches are performed on evaluating fatigue, corrosion, and hydrogen induced cracking and finally constructs systematically integrated evaluation system for structural integrity of nuclear welded structures. In this study, metallurgical and mechanical approaches have been effectively coordinated considering real welding phenomena in the fields of welds properties such as microstructure, composition and residual stress, and in the fields of damage evaluations such as fatigue, corrosion, fatigue crack propagation, and stress corrosion cracking. Evaluation techniques tried in this study can be much economical and effective in that it uses theoretical/semi-empirical but includes many additional parameters that can be introduced in real phenomena such as phase transformation, strength mismatch and residual stress. It is clear that residual stress makes great contribution to fatigue and stress corrosion cracking. Therefore the mitigation techniques have been approached by reducing the residual stress of selected parts resulting in successful conclusions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.228-235
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• 2016

Flaws at dissimilar metal welds (DMWs), such as reactor coolant systems components, Control Rod Drive Mechanism (CRDM), Bottom Mounted Instrumentation (BMI) etc., in nuclear power plants have been found. Notably, primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC) in the DMWs could cause significant reliability problems at nuclear power plants. Therefore, phased array ultrasound is widely used for inspecting surface break cracks and stress corrosion cracks in DMWs. However, inspection of DMWs using phased array ultrasound has a relatively low probability of detection of cracks, because the crystalline structure of welds causes distortion and splitting of the ultrasonic beams which propagates anisotropic medium. Therefore, advanced evaluation techniques of phased array ultrasound are needed for improvement in the probability of detection of flaws in DMWs. Thus, in this study, an investigation of focusing and steering phased array ultrasound in DMWs was carried out using a time reversal technique, and an adaptive focusing technique based on finite element method (FEM) simulation. Also, evaluation of focusing performance of three different focusing techniques was performed by comparing amplitude of phased array ultrasonic signals scattered from the targeted flaw with three different time delays.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.269-273
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• 2003

During the laser welding, weldments are suddenly heated by laser beam and cooled. This phenomenon gives occasion to complex welding residual stresses, which have a great influence on structural instability strength, in laser welds. However, a relevant research on this field is not sufficient until present and residual stress measurements have experimental and practical limitations. For these reasons a numerical simulation may be attractive in order to solve the residual stress problem. In order to determine the distribution of heat and welding residual stresses in laser welds with the nail-head shape, authors conduct the finite element analysis (two-dimensional unstationary heat conduction & thermal elasto-plastic analysis). From the result of this study, we can confirm the stress concentration is occurred at the place of melting line shape changed in laser welds with the nail-head shape.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.30-37
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• 1989

Effect of heat treatment on mechanical properties of an overlay weldment was investigated. Over welding was carried out on the structural C-Mn mild steel substrate to take required test specimens. Shielded metal arc welding process with 13Cr-0.2Ni stick electrode was applied. The heat treatment temperatures and holding times were $450{\circ}C., 550{\circ}C., 650{\circ}C., 750{\circ}C., 850{\circ}C.$ and 0.5hr, 2hr, 10hr, respectively. Mechanical tests and microscopic inspection were also carried out to investigate welds soundness. Test results indicated that carbon migration was dominant near bonded zone. At temperature of around 650.deg. C, carburized layer and decarburized layer were formed remarkably along overlay welds region and C-Mn mild steel region, respectively. The wideth of these layers became wider with increasing heat treatment temperature and/or holding time at the elevated temperature, and this relationship agreed with Larson-Miller parameter. Side bending test results demonstrated that the crack free region of overlay welds could be deduced from the relationship between temperature and holding time.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.7
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• pp.2550-2563
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• 2022

This study performed a precise dynamic finite element time history elastic-plastic seismic analysis considering the welds, which have been not considered in design stage, on the nuclear components subjected to severe seismic loadings such as beyond-design basis earthquakes for sustainable nuclear power plants. First, the dynamic finite element elastic-plastic seismic analysis was performed for a general design practice that does not take into account the welds of the pressurizer surge line system, one of safety class I components in nuclear power plants, and then the reference values for the accumulated equivalent plastic strain, equivalent plastic strain, and von Mises effective stress were set. Second, the dynamic finite element elastic-plastic seismic analyses were performed for the case of considering only the mechanical strength over-mismatch of the welds as well as for the case of considering both the strength over-mismatch and welding residual strain. Third, the effects of the strength over-mismatch and welding residual strain were analyzed by comparing the finite element analysis results with the reference values. As a result of the comparison, it was found that not considering the strength over-mismatch may lead to conservative assessment results, whereas not considering the welding residual strain may be non-conservative.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.1460-1465
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• 2012

The semi-automatic gas metal arc welding equipment was developed and the weldability of zinc coated steel pipes was evaluated in terms of strength, porosity and welding parameters including shielding gas composition. The good bead appearance and the reduction of porosity in the welds could be possibly obtained by adding $O_2$ to Ar. The strength and joint efficiency of welds made by the semi-automatic welding equipment was about 1.8 times higher compared with welds manually made. The integrity of welds was confirmed by the water pressure test as well, Finally, it is expected that the weld productivity will be enhanced even unskilled welders can produce quality welds by operating the semi-automatic welding equipment.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.68-74
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• 2017

Characteristics of dissimilar metal welds between alloy steel ASTM A387 Gr. 91 and carbon steel ASTM A516 Gr.70 made with Flux cored arc welding(FCAW) have been evaluated in terms of microstructure, mechanical strength, chemical analysis by EDS as well as corrosion test. Three heat inputs of 15.0, 22.5, 30.0kJ/cm were employed to make joints of dissimilar metals with E71T-1C wire. Post-weld heat treatment was carried out at $750^{\circ}C$ for 2.5 h. Based on microstructural examination, Intragranular polygonal ferrite and grainboundary ferrite were formed only in first layer of weld metal. Another layers consisted of acicular ferrite and $Widmannst{\ddot{a}}tten$ ferrite. The amount of acicular ferrite was increased with decreasing heat input and layer. Heat affected zone of alloy steel showed the highest hardness due to the formation of tempered martensite and lower bainite. Lower and upper bainite were formed in heat affected zone of carbon steel. Tensile strengths of dissimilar metal welds decreased with increasing heat inputs. Dissimilar metal welds showed a good hot cracking resistance due to the low HCS index below 4. The salt spray test of dissimilar metals welds showed that the weight loss rate by corrosion below 170 hours was decreased with increasing heat inputs due to the increase of the amount of acicular ferrite.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.66-73
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• 2010

Conventional fracture test of resistance spot weld had been performed without consideration of paint baking process in automobile manufacturing line. This study was aim to investigate the effect of paint baking on fracture mode and load carrying capacity in fracture test for resistance spot welded 780TRIP steels. With paint baking cycle after resistance spot welds, peel tests and microhardness were conducted on the as-welded and baked samples. Resistance spot welds in AHSS (Advanced High Strength Steels) are prone to display partial interfacial fractures during fracture test or vehicle crash. Baking cycle increased the load-carrying capacity of the resistance spot welded samples and improved the fracture appearance from partial to full button fracture for the L-type peel tests. Specially, the differences in fracture appearance are apparent when the nugget size of spot welds is small enough to produce the partial interfacial fracture. The comparison of macrohardness and microstructure between as-welded and baked samples showed that there are no large difference in change the fracture mode. However, the results of the instrumented indentation test suggested that fusion zone and HAZ of baked sample have less tensile and yield strength and proves that the tempering effects are applied and enhanced the resistance to fracture on welds with application of baking cycle.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.136-145
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• 2012

Resistance spot welding of TRIP780 steels was investigated to enhance understanding of weld fracture mode after tensile shear testing (TST) and L-shape tensile testing (LTT). The main failure mode for spot welds of TRIP780 steels was partial interfacial fracture (PIF). Although PIF does not satisfy the minimum button diameter (4${\surd}$t) for acceptable welds, it shows enough load carrying capacity of resistance spot welds for advanced high strength steels. In the analysis of displacement controlled L-shape tensile test results, cracks initiated at the notch of the faying surface and propagated through the interface of weldments, and finally, cracks change path into the sheet thickness direction. Use of the ductility ratio and CE analysis suggested that the occurrence of PIF is closely related to high hardness and brittle welds, which are caused by fast cooling rates and high chemical compositions of TRIP steels. Analysis of the hold time and weld time in a welding schedule demonstrated that careful control of the cooling rate and the size of a weld nugget and the HAZ zone can reduce the occurrence of PIF, which leads to sound welds with button fractures (BFs).

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2010

This paper describes the Visual Tool for automatic ultrasonic examination that is under developing as a part of the project for development of automatic ultrasonic wave acquisition and analysis program. This tool that is supported by various image processing techniques will be adopted to detect the flaws in the component and piping welds in NPP. Visual Tool will enhance the integrity of nuclear power plant. The object of this paper is to address the Visual Tool which is developing for automatic ultrasonic inspection of welds in NPP.