• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.386-395
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• 2010

The steam generator management program(SGMP) has recently defined the procedures for the qualification of eddy current hardware and technique. These procedures provide two basic methods for qualification. The first way is to qualify the equipment or the probe by using the flaw mechanism and method of the pulled tubes from the heat exchangers or the artificial flawed tubes. The second way is to verify the equivalency with the characteristics of the qualified equipment or probe. In this case, the qualified equipment or probe may be modified to substitute or replace instruments or probes without re-qualification provided that the range of essential variables defined in the examination technique specification sheet are met. This study is to describe the result of the comparative performance evaluation of bobbin coil eddy current probes manufactured by KEPCO Research Institute and probes manufactured by a foreign manufacturer. As a result of this study, although there were minor differences between the two kinds of probes, it was evaluated that the two kinds of probes were almost identical in the significant performance characteristics described in the KEPCO Research Institute guideline.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.339-345
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• 2008

The heat exchanger tube in nuclear power plants is mainly fabricated from nonferromagnetic material such as a copper, titanium, and inconel alloy, but the moisture separator & reheater tube in the turbine system is fabricated from ferromagnetic material such as a carbon steel or ferrite stainless steel which has a good mechanical properties in harsh environments of high pressure and temperature. Especially, the moisture separator & reheater tubes, which use steam as a heat transfer media, typically employ a tubing with integral fins to furnish higher heat transfer rates. The ferromagnetic tube typically shows superior properties in high pressure and temperature environments than a nonferromagnetic material, but can make a trouble during the normal operation of power plants because the ferrous tube has service-induced damage forms including a steam cutting, erosion, mechanical wear, stress corrosion cracking, etc. Therefore, nondestructive examination is periodically performed to evaluate the tube integrity. Now, the remote field testing(RFT) technique is one of the solution for examination of ferromagnetic tube because the conventional eddy current technique typically can not be applied to ferromagnetic tube such as a ferrite stainless steel due to the high electrical permeability of ferrous tube. In this study, we have designed RFT probes, calibration standards, artificial flaw specimen, and probe pusher-puller necessary for field application, and have successfully carry out RFT examination of the moisture separator & reheater tube of nuclear power plants.