• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.8-17
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• 2003

Fracture behaviors of pipes with local wall thinning are very important for the integrity of nuclear Power Plant. In Pipes of energy Plants, sometimes, the local wall thinning may result from severe erosion-corrosion (E/C) damage. However, the effects of local wall thinning on strength and fracture behaviors of piping system were not well studied. In this paper, the monotonic bending tests were performed of full-scale carbon steel pipes with local wall thinning. A monotonic bending load was applied to straight pipe specimens by four-point loading at ambient temperature without internal pressure. From the tests, fracture behaviors and fracture strength of locally thinned pipe were manifested systematically. The observed failure modes were divided into four types; ovalization. crack initiation/growth after ovalization, local buckling and crack initiation/growth after local buckling. Also, the strength and the allowable limit of piping system with local wall thinning were evaluated.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.38-46
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• 2010

The wall thinning phenomenon of pipes was simulated as metal loss due to erosion and corrosion. Such wall thinning defects in the pipes of power plants are a very important safety consideration. In this study, we analyzed wall thinning defects that occurred by weld bead of weld zone of boost pump recirculation pipe. From the results of the analysis of pipe failures, numerical analysis was performed by Fluent v6.3.26 using the standard k-$\varepsilon$ model of the weld bead shape, such as an elliptical or a spherical shape, on the inner wall of the pipe. Using the results obtained, we showed the overlap effect by cavitations corrosion and erosion-corrosion at the bottom of the wall-thinning defect.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.1393-1400
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• 2009

The objective of this study is to validate local failure criteria, which were proposed based on the notched-bar specimen tests combining with finite element (FE) simulations, using the results of real-scale pipe failure tests. This study conducted burst test using wall-thinned pipe specimens, which were made of 4 inch Sch.80 ASTM A106 Gr.B carbon steel pipe, under simple internal pressure at ambient temperature and performed associated FE simulations. Failure pressures were estimated by applying the failure criteria to the results of FE simulations and were compared with experimental failure pressures. It showed that the local stress based criterion, given as true ultimate tensile stress of material, accurately estimated the failure pressure of wall-thinned pipe specimens. However, the local strain based criterion, which is fracture strain of material as a function of stress tri-axiality, could not predict the failure pressure. It was confirmed that the local stress based criterion is reliably applicable to estimation of failure pressure of local wall-thinned piping components.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.10 s.241
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• pp.1399-1406
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• 2005

Recently authors have proposed a new method to estimate failure strength of a pipe with local wall thinning subject to either internal pressure or global bending. The proposed method was based on the equivalent stress averaged over the minimum ligament in the locally wall thinned region, and the simple scheme to estimate the equivalent stress in the minimum ligament was proposed, based on the reference stress concept. This paper extends the new method to combined internal pressure and global bending. The proposed method is validated against FE results for various geometries of local wall thinning under combined loading. The effect of internal pressure is also investigated in the present study. Comparison of maximum moments, predicted according to the proposed method, with published full-scale pipe test data fur locally wall-thinned pipes under combined internal pressure and global bending, shows good agreement.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.242-246
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• 2004

Effects of circumferentially local wall thinning on the fracture behavior of pipes were investigated by monotonic four-point bending. Local wall thinning was machined on the pipes in order to simulate erosion/corrosion metal loss. The configurations of the eroded area included an eroded ratio of d/t= 0.2, 0.5, 0.6, and 0.8, and an eroded length of I = 10 mm, 25 mm, and 120 mm. Fracture type could be classified into ovalization, local buckling, and crack initiation depending on the eroded length and eroded ratio. Three-dimensional elasto-plastic analyses were also carried out using the finite element method, which is able to accurately simulate fracture behaviors excepting failure due to cracking. It was possible to predict the crack initiation point by estimating true fracture ductility under multi-axial stress conditions at the center of the eroded area.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.19 no.5 s.66
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• pp.65-70
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• 2005

Fracture behavior and pipe strength are very important to the integrity of energy plants, ocean structures, and so forth. The pipes of energy plants and ocean structures are subject to local wall thinning, resulting from severe erosion-corrosion damage. Recently, the effects of local wall thinning on fracture strength and fracture behavior of piping systems have been the focus of many studies. In this paper, the elasto-plastic analysis is performed by FE code ANSYS on straight pipes with wall thinning. We evaluated the failure mode, fracture strength and fracture behavior, using FE analysis. Also, the effect of the axial strain on deformations and failure modes was estimated by FE analysis.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.146-154
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• 2023

In nuclear power plants, ultrasonic test for pipe wall thickness measurement is used during periodic inspections to prevent pipe rupture due to pipe wall thinning. However, when measuring pipe wall thickness using ultrasonic test, a significant amount of measurement error occurs due to the on-site conditions of the nuclear power plant. If the maximum pipe wall thinning rate is decided by the measured pipe wall thickness containing a significant error, the pipe wall thinning rate data have significant uncertainty and systematic overestimation. This study proposes preprocessing of pipe wall thinning measurement data using support vector machine regression algorithm. By using support vector machine, pipe wall thinning measurement data can be smoothened and accordingly uncertainty and systematic overestimation of the estimated pipe wall thinning rate data can be reduced.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.742-749
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• 2003

Failure of a pipeline due to local wall thinning is getting more attention in the nuclear power plant industry. Although guidelines such as ANSI/ASME B31G and ASME Code Case N597 are still useful fer assessing the integrity of a wall thinned pipeline, there are some limitations in these guidelines. For instance, these guidelines consider only pressure loading and thus neglect bending loading. However, most Pipelines in nuclear power plants are subjected to internal pressure and bending moment due to dead-weight loads and seismic loads. Therefore, an assessment procedure for locally wall thinned pipeline subjected to combined loading is needed. In this paper, three-dimensional finite element(FE) analyses were performed to simulate full-scale pipe tests conducted for various shapes of wall thinned area under internal pressure and bending moment. Maximum moments based on true ultimate stress(${\alpha}$$\sub$u,t/) were obtained from FE results to predict the failure of the pipe. These results were compared with test results, which showed good agreement. Additional finite element analyses were performed to investigate the effect of key parameters, such as wall thinned depth, wall thinned angle and wall thinned length, on maximum moment. Also, the effect of internal pressure on maximum moment was investigated. Change of internal pressure did not show significant effect on the maximum moment.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.82-89
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• 2011

When pipe components made of carbon steel in nuclear, fossil, and industry plants are exposed to flowing fluid, wall thinning caused by FAC(flow accelerated corrosion) can be generated and eventually ruptured at the position of pressure boundary. The aim of this study is to identify the locations at which local wall thinning occurs and to determine the turbulence coefficient related to local wall thinning. Experiment and numerical analyses for the tee sections of down scaled piping components were performed and the results were compared. In particular, flow visualization experiment which was used alkali metallic salt was performed to find actual location of local wall thinning inside tee components. In order to determine the relationship between turbulence coefficients and local wall thinning, numerical analyses were performed for tee components in the main feedwater systems. The turbulence coefficients based on the numerical analyses were compared with the local wall thinning based on the measured data. From the comparison of the results, the vertical flow velocity component(Vr) flowing to the wall after separating in the wall due to the geometrical configuration and colliding with the wall directly at an angle of some degree was analogous to the configuration of local wall thinning.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.1702-1707
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• 2007

The reduction of pipe-thickness induced by flow accelerated corrosion (FAC) is one of the most serious problems on the maintenance of piping system in nuclear power plants (NNP). If the thickness of a pipe component is reduced below the critical level, it cannot sustain pressure and consequently results in leakage or rupture. For this reason, wall thinning by FAC has been inspected in secondary side piping systems in NPPs. In this research Round Robin Test (RRT) was conducted to verify confidence of wall thinning measurement system in NPP. 12 inspectors from 3 companies participated and 23 specimens were used according to standard practice in RRT. The gage R&R analysis was introduced in regard to repeatability and reproducibility that are affected to measurement system errors. Confidence intervals of thickness measurement system were obtained.