• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.315-322
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• 2008

Valves in power plants are leaking internally by various damages including insertion of foreign objects on seat, seat crack, defects and fatigue crack of stem packing or welds etc. due to severe operating conditions such as high temperature and high pressure for extended period time. Acoustic emission(AE) technology should be applied in order to diagnose precisely and evaluate these valve internal leak. In this paper, results of studies which have accomplished in actual power plant are presented. We have analyzed background noise, AE signal level and frequency spectrum through laboratory tests on the basis of various actual conditions in power plant, and also have considered evaluation methods on the background noise, AE properties and the detectable minimum leak rate according to valve leak conditions through comparing with results of field tests in power plant. As a result of these studies, we conformed that evaluation of internal leak conditions including discrimination of leak or not, and the detectable minimum leak rate is possible, and also it is expected to contribute to safe operation and prevention of energy loss in power plants.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.49 no.12
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• pp.924-929
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• 2011

It is well known that grain boundary cavitation is the main failure mechanism in austenitic stainless steel under tensile hold creep-fatigue interaction conditions. The cavities are nucleated at the grain boundary during cyclic loading and grow to become grain boundary cracks. The attenuation of ultrasound depends on scattering and absorption in polycrystalline materials. Scattering occurs when a propagation wave encounters microstructural discontinuities, such as internal voids or cavities. Since the density of the creep-fatigue cavities increases with the fatigue cycles, the attenuation of ultrasound will also be increased with the fatigue cycles and this attenuation can be detected nondestructively. In this study, it is found that individual grain boundary cavities are formed and grow up to about 100 cycles and then, these cavities coalesce to become cracks. The measured ultrasonic attenuation increased with the cycles up to cycle 100, where it reached a maximum value and then decreased with further cycles. These experimental measurements strongly indicate that the open pores of cavities contribute to the attenuation of ultrasonic waves. However, when the cavities develop, at the grain boundary cracks whose crack surfaces are in contact with each other, there is no longer any open space and the ultrasonic wave may propagate across the cracks. Therefore, the attenuation of ultrasonic waves will be decreased. This phenomenon of maximum attenuation is very important to judge the stage of grain boundary crack development, which is the indication of the dangerous stage of the structures.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.48-54
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• 2018

To improve the durability of the turbocharger, it is important to suppress cracking of the turbine housing; therefore, we investigated the initiation and growth of these cracks. First, we initiated a crack in the turbine housing using endurance experiments. After the endurance test, cracks mainly occurred in the valve seat, the nozzle area, and the scroll part of the turbine housing. The results of a fracture analysis of the cracks showed that cracks in the valve seat were initiated by fatigue fracture. This seems to be caused by the accumulation of mechanical and thermal stresses due to vibration of the turbine wheel and high-temperature exhaust gas. Also, cracks in nozzle and scroll area were initiated by intergranular corrosion due to the exhaust gas. Thus, although there are differences in the cause of initiation according to the site, a concentric waveform was observed in all fracture planes. This phenomenon indicates that cracks gradually grow due to repeated stress changes, and the main causes are the temperature difference of the exhaust gas and the vibration caused by the turbine shaft.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.702-709
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• 2018

A quick-hardened concrete track was developed to improve the aged ballasted track to a concrete track, and applied to earthworks and tunnels of main and urban railways. Rebars for reinforcement are not generally applied to prestressed concrete sleepers. On the other hand, many cracked sleepers have been observed in railroad sites. A wide sleeper, which is one of the main components of quick-hardened concrete track, should be structurally safe and crack-resistant in a ballasted and concrete track to avoid this problem. In particular, a wide sleeper manufactured by a post-tension method must have reinforcing bars applied to the rail-seat section. In this paper, static tests, dynamic tests, and fatigue tests were carried out to compare the flexural strength and crack resistance performance of a wide sleeper with and without reinforcing bars for a quick-hardened concrete track. As a result of the test, if some reinforcing bars are applied appropriately to the rail-seat section of a wide sleeper, it will be possible to prevent the occurrence of cracks, delay the expansion of the crack width, and the flexural fracture.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.79-84
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• 1996

One of the greatest dangers in mechanical face seals is the formation of heat checking and thermal stress cracks on the sliding surfaces. These thermal distortions due to non-uniform heating lead to increase the leakage of the sealed fluids and wear, and with balance of the seal can cause the seal faces to part. In this study heat checking and thermal stress cracks are investigated experimentally. These thermal distortions are explained using the thermal models of the conatct geometries between the seal ring and the seal seat. To overcome these thermal problems, the thermohydrodynamic seal is presented. The newly developed mechanical seal may substantially reduce the friction torque, frictional heating which causes heat checking and thermal stress cracks, and wear.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.62-67
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• 2022

The objective of this study was to perform failure analysis of an inlet pipe located in a governor valve of a steam turbine in a district heating system. During the operation, the temperature of the governor valve was increased to as high as ~500 ℃, which induced thermal expansion of the inlet pipe along both axial and radial directions. While the inlet pipe did not have contact with the valve seat, the side plane of the upside was constrained by the casing part, which led the inlet pipe to experience stress field in the form of fatigue and creep. The primary crack was initiated at about 30 mm below the top where the complex stress field was anticipated. These results suggest that the main failure mechanism is a combination of thermal fatigue and creep during the operation supported by the observation of apparent beach marks on the fracture surface and pores near the cracks, respectively.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.82-88
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• 2011

With a tendency for the application of thin magnesium alloy plates in portable electronic equipment such as cell phone and notebook PC, there is a requirement to develop a welding technology for the lap welding of these thin magnesium alloy. This paper presents the single pulsed laser welding of AZ31B magnesium alloy. The effects of fiber types and parameters such as peak power and pulse width on laser weldability were investigated. The results show that weld defects, especially solidification crack, were always generated in the weld. These defects couldn't be controlled by the simple square pulse, but could be improved through the application of variable pulse. It is because that variable pulse has effect of solidification delay by dropping peak power gradually.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.14-19
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• 2013

This paper presents an experimental study on the safety of a valve for a special gas cylinder. The test valves that were randomly dismantled from the special gas cylinder were experimented on the gas leakage and operation safeties. The crack, wear and deformation of the valve body, screw thread, safety disk, vent hole, stem and handle components that may affect to the gas leakage safety of a used valve were not found in this experimental study. A painted handle of a valve was partly stripped from the coated surface, and the surface of PT screw of a used valve body was rusted. But, these paint and rust problems do not affected to the gas leakage safety of used valves. And there was no gas leakage in the dismantled valve, and the permanent deformation and partial scars of a valve stem and O-rings were observed on the rubbing surfaces. Thus, the valve seat and O-rings are recommended to be replaced for a gas leakage safety of a dismantled valve. And it is necessary to repair and inspect handle fastening forces for a safe opening and closing operations of a valve.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.53-64
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• 2012

Deep and narrow welds can be produced by laser welding at high welding speeds with a narrow heat-affected zone (HAZ) and little distortion of the workpiece. This study aims to evaluate the usefulness of laser welding at automobile component manufacture. Microstructure observation, hardness test, tensile test and fatigue life test are performed by using the fiber laser welded SPFC590 steel sheets which is used widely in the manufacture of automotive seat frame. Three kinds of specimens are only a SPFC590 steel plate, quasi-butt joint plate and lap joint plate by laser welding. The following results that will be helpful to understand the static strength, fatigue crack initiation and growth mechanism were obtained. (1) The tensile strength of quasi butt joint specimens nearly equal to base metal specimens, but lap joint specimens fractured in shear area of weld metal. (2) The fatigue strength of quasi-butt joint specimen was approximately 8 percent lower than that of the base metal specimens. Furthermore, the lap joint specimens were less than 86 percent of the base metal specimens. (3) The lap joint fatigue specimens fractured at shear area in high level stress amplitude, while fractured at normal area in low level stress amplitude. From these results, the applicability of the laser welding to the automobile component is discussed.