Abstract
Nuclear power plants has a number of valves, which are operating at a high temperature-high pressure and radiation environment conditions. Nevertheless, it is important to maintain the reliability of the valves to ensure safe operation of the nuclear power plant. However, the aging of the valves by increasing of years of plant operation and the system transients due to the sudden load change are working the failures of the reliability of the valve. In this paper, we evaluate experimentally the performance change according to the thermal aging of the valve. Results show that the valve stem and the actuator leakages were enlarged by the thermal aging.