• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.05a
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• pp.367-373
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• 1996

H$_{\infty}$ robust control theory is applied to the nuclear steam generator level control. Nuclear steam generator has the properties such as nonlinearity, non-minimum phase, and so, has some difficulties on level control. In a nuclear plant, it is more important to keep the operating variables under certain safety limits against various uncertainties than to meet the optimal performance. The designed H$_{\infty}$ controller shows robust level control against modelling error, disturbance in the nonlinear simulation. As the H$_{\infty}$ controller has both robustness and design transparency, it is adequate to the automation of level control and in licensibility

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.1381-1389
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• 2019

Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) widely found in both primary and secondary sides of steam generator (SG) tubing in pressurized water reactors (PWR) has become an important safety issue. Using eddy-current tests (ECTs), non-destructive evaluations are performed for the integrity management of SG tubes against intergranular SCC. To enhance the reliability of ECT, this study investigates the effects of oxide films on ECT's detection capabilities for SCC in laboratory-degraded SG tubing in high temperature and high pressure aqueous environment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.135-135
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• 1998

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.16 no.9 s.114
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• pp.904-911
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• 2006

A modified energy method for the fretting wear of the steam generator tube is proposed to calculate the wear-out depth between the nuclear steam generator tube and its support. Estimation of fretting-wear damage typically requires a non-linear dynamic analysis with the information of the gap velocity and the flow density around the tube. This analysis is very complex and time consuming. The basic concept of the energy method is that the volume wear rate due to the fretting-wear phenomena Is related to work rate which is time rate of the product of normal contact force and sliding distance. The wearing motion is due to dynamic interaction between vibrating tube and its support structure, such as tube support plate and anti-vibration bar. It can be assumed that the absorbed work rate would come from turbulent flow energy around the vibrating tube. This study also numerically obtains the wear-out depth with various wear topologies. A new dissection method is applied to the multi-span tubes to represent the vibrational mode. It turns out that both the secondary side density and the normal gap velocity are important parameters for the fretting-wear phenomena of the steam generator tube.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.34-42
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• 2017

Material defects in the Steam Generator Tubes (SGT) of sodium cooled fast breeder reactor (PFBR) can lead to leakage of water into sodium. The water and sodium reaction will lead to major accidents. Therefore, the examination of steam generator tubes for the early detection of defects is an important requirement for safety and economic considerations. In this work, the Magnetic Flux Leakage (MFL) based Non Destructive Testing (NDT) technique is used to perform the defect detection process. The rectangular notch defects on the outer surface of steam generator tubes are modeled using COMSOL multiphysics 4.3a software. The obtained MFL images are de-noised to improve the integrity of flaw related information. Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) features are extracted from MFL images and taken as input parameter to train the neural network. A comparative study on characterization have been carried out using feed-forward back propagation (FFBP) and cascade-forward back propagation (CFBP) algorithms. The results of both algorithms are evaluated with Mean Square Error (MSE) as a prediction performance measure. The average percentage error for length, depth and width are also computed. The result shows that the feed-forward back propagation network model performs better in characterizing the defects.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.841-848
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• 2009

A simple model to analyze non-linear density-wave instability in a sodium-cooled helically coiled steam generator is developed. The model is formulated with three regions with moving boundaries. The homogeneous equilibrium flow model is used for the two-phase region and the shell-side energy conservation is also considered for the heat flux variation in each region. The proposed model is applied to the analysis of two-phase instability in a JAEA (Japan Atomic Energy Agency) 50MWt No.2 steam generator. The steady state results show that the proposed model accurately predicts the six cases of operating temperatures on the primary and secondary sides. The sizes of three regions, the secondary side pressure drop according to the flow rate, and the temperature variation in the vertical direction are also predicted well. The temporal variations of the inlet flow rate according to the throttling coefficient, the boiling and superheating boundaries and the pressure drop in the two-phase and superheating regions are obtained from the unsteady analysis.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.112-119
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• 2014

In this work, it is aimed to develop the fabrication method of axial stress corrosion cracking (SCC) defects having various sizes, on the outer diameter surface of the steam generator (SG) tubings. To control the length of the artificial SCC defect, the specific area of the SG tubing samples was exposed to an acidic solution after a sensitization heat treatment. During the exposure to an acidic solution, a direct current potential drop (DCPD) method was adopted to monitor the crack depth. The size of the SCC defect was first evaluated by an eddy current test (ECT), and then confirmed by a destructive examination. From the comparison, it was found that the actual crack length was well controlled to be similar to the length of the surface exposed to an acidic solution (5, 10, 20 or 30 mm in this work) with small standard deviation. From in-situ monitoring of the crack depth using the DCPD method, it was possible to distinguish a non-through wall crack from a through wall crack, even though the depth of the non-through wall crack was not able to be precisely controlled. The fabrication method established in this work was useful to simulate the SCC defect having similar size and ECT signals as compared to the field cracks in the SG tubings of the operating Korean PWRs.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.40 no.12
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• pp.809-814
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• 2016

A standard procedure for determining water-steam properties has been established through an international collaboration in addition to a domestic effort. The current accepted international standard for industrial application is based on the IAPWS-IF97 (International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam-Industrial Formation 97). Based on this standard, the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers)/NIST (National Institute of Standard and Technology) developed the REPROP program in the USA, and the JSME (Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers) developed the steam table and calculation code. Upon applying this standard procedure, modified procedures were proposed for computational convenience, particularly in the supercritical pressure region where non-smooth variations of water-steam properties were distinctively observed. In this paper, the internationally adopted procedures and the progress of related activities are briefly summarized. Some practical considerations are presented for the efficient execution of computational code.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.58-65
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• 2016

Since, in case of high energy piping, steam jets ejected from the rupture zone may cause damage to nearby structure, it is necessary to design it into consideration of nuclear power plant design. For the existing nuclear power plants, the ANSI / ANS 58.2 technical standard for high-energy pipe rupture was used. However, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) and academia recently have pointed out the non-conservativeness of existing high energy pipe fracture evaluation methods. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a highly reliable evaluation methodology to evaluate the behavior of steam jet ejected during high energy pipe rupture and the effect of steam jet on peripheral devices and structures. In this study, we develop a method for analyzing the impact load of a jet by high energy pipe rupture, and plan to carry out an experiment to verify the evaluation methodology. In this paper, the basic data required for the design of the jet impact load experiment equipment under construction, 1) the load change according to the jet distance, 2) the load change according to the jet collision angle, 3) the load variation according to structure diameter, and 4) the load variation depending on the jet impact position, are numerically obtained using the developed steam jet analysis technique.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.77-87
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• 2018

In the case of high-energy line breaks in nuclear power plants, supersonic steam jet is formed due to the rapid depressurization. The steam jet can cause impingement load on the adjacent structures, piping systems and components. In order to secure the design integrity of the nuclear power plant, it is necessary to evaluate the load characteristics of the steam jet generated by high-energy pipe rupture. In the design process of nuclear power plant, jet impingement load evaluation was usually performed based on ANSI/ANS 58.2. However, U.S. NRC recently pointed out that ANSI/ANS 58.2 oversimplifies the jet behavior and that some assumptions are non-conservative. In addition, it is recommended that dynamic analysis techniques should be applied to consider transient load characteristics. Therefore, it is necessary to establish an evaluation methodology that can analyze the dynamic load characteristics of steam jet ejected when high energy pipe breaks. This research group has developed and validated the CFD analysis methodology to evaluate the transient behavior of supersonic impinging jet in the previous study. In this study, numerical study on the transient load characteristics of supersonic steam jet impingement was carried out and amplitude and frequency analysis of transient jet load was performed.