Reactor vessel head penetration J-groove welds inspection by TOFD technique

TOFD Technique을 이용한 원자로헤드 관통관 용접부 비파괴검사

The reactor pressure vessel head of PWR has penetrations for control rod drive mechanism and instrumentation systems. The Primary coolant water and operating temperature can cause the stress-corrosion cracking of these nickel-based alloy penetrations. It is difficult to detect and size flaws such as SCC in the reactor head penetrations using conventional W methods because of complex geometry, Therefore, the utilities are using the TOFD technique for the detection and sizing of the flaw. This study shows the correlation between the ultrasonic wave direction and the orientation of the flaw and the range of flaw depth which can be detected by the TOFD techniques.