• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.9
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• pp.1047-1052
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• 2012

Primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC) instances have been reported in the Alloy 600 reactor pressure vessel head penetration nozzle and the Alloy 82/182 dissimilar metal butt weld nozzle in several PWRs. Therefore, in-service inspection programs have been adopted worldwide to prevent failure at the weld region. If a PWSCC is observed at the dissimilar metal weld region during inspection, its structural integrity should be evaluated; however, this requires considerable time and effort, and this might lead to a decrease in the plant utilization coefficient. To prevent this, KHNP-CRI have established integrity assessment criteria and developed a computer program for the fast evaluation and judgment of PWSCC. In this paper, the results and current status of the same are presented. Through this study, criteria for the structural integrity evaluation of PWSCC have been established, and a computer program has been developed to realize technical means for the evaluation of PWSCC structural integrity.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.103-118
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• 1999

The structural integrity of the reactor pressure vessel under pressurized thermal shock (PTS) is evaluated in this study. For given material properties and transient histories such as temperature and pressure, the stress distribution is found and stress intensity factors are obtained for a wide range of crack sizes. The stress intensity factors are compared with the fracture toughness to check if cracking is expected to occur during the transient. A round robin problem of the PTS during a small break loss of coolant transient has been analyzed as a part of the international comparative assessment study, and the evaluation results are discussed. The maximum allowable nil-ductility transition temperatures are determined for various crack sizes.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.14-21
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• 2021

Inner shell material of LNG storage tanks that store ultra-low temperature LNG at -162℃ requires structural integrity assessment of a crack-like defect. From the viewpoint of conventional fracture mechanics, the assessment has mainly performed by single parameter using stress intensity factor K, J-integral and CTOD. However, the stresses in a material of crack tip are not unique caused by constraint loss due to size and geometry of the structure. Various attempts have been made to complement a single parameter fracture mechanics, typically with Q-stress. In this paper, we have performed a two-parameter approach by deriving the Q-stress coupling with J-integral suitable for the evaluation of the crack tip stress field in the non-linear elastic region. A quantitative evaluation of the constraint effect has performed by using the J-Q approach. It was evaluated that the SENB type specimen had a crack ratio of 0.1 to 0.7 and the wide type specimen had a crack ratio of 0.2 to 0.6.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.293-300
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• 2006

A liquid metal reactor (LMR) operated at high temperatures is subjected to both cyclic mechanical loading and thermal loading; thus, creep-fatigue is a major concern to be addressed with regard to maintaining structural integrity. The Korea Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor (KALIMER), which has a normal operating temperature of $545^{\circ}C$ and a total service life time of 60 years, is composed of various cylindrical structures, such as the reactor vessel and the reactor baffle. This study focuses on the creepfatigue crack initiation for a cylindrical Y-junction structure made of 316 stainless steel (SS), which is subjected to cyclic axial tensile loading and thermal loading at a high-temperature hold time of $545^{\circ}C$. The evaluation of the considered creep-fatigue crack initiation was carried out utilizing the ${\sigma}_d$ approach of the RCC-MR A16 guide, which is the high-temperature defect assessment procedure. This procedure is based on the total accumulated strain during the service time. To confirm the evaluated result, a high-temperature creep-fatigue structural test was performed. The test model had a circumferential through wall defect at the center of the model. The defect front of the test model was investigated after the $100^{th}$ cycle of the testing by utilizing a metallurgical inspection technique with an optical microscope, after which the test result was compared with the evaluation result. This study shows how creep-fatigue crack initiation for a high-temperature structure can be predicted with conservatism per the RCC-MR A16 guide.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.2158-2173
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• 2004

In this paper, the higher order terms in the crack tip stress fields are investigated macroscopically for more realistic assessment of structural material behaviors. For reactor pressure vessel material of A533B ferritic steel, effects of crack size and temperature have been evaluated using 3-point SENB specimens through a series of finite element analyses, tensile tests and fracture toughness tests. The T-stress, Q-parameter and q-parameter as well as the K and J-integral are calculated and mutual relationships are investigated also. Based on the evaluation, it has proven that the effect of crack size from standard length (a/W=0.53) to shallow length (a/W=0.11) is remarkable whilst the effect of temperature from -20$^{\circ}C$ to -60$^{\circ}C$ is negligible. Finally, the cleavage fracture toughness loci as a function of the promising Q-parameter or q-parameter are developed using specific test results as well as finite element analysis results, which can be applicable for structural integrity evaluation considering constraint effects.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.90-95
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• 2004

The probabilistic fracture analysis is used to determine the effects of uncertainties involved in material properties, location and size of flaws, etc, which can not be addressed using a deterministic approach. In this paper the probabilistic fracture analysis is applied for evaluating the RV(Reactor Vessel) under PTS(Pressurised Thermal Shock). A semi-elliptical axial crack is assumed in the inside surface of RV. The selected random parameters are initial crack depth, neutron fluence, chemical composition of material (copper, nickel and phosphorous) and $RT_{NDT}$. The deterministically calculated $K_I$ and crack tip temperature are used for the probabilistic calculation. Using Monte Carlo simulation, the crack initiation probability for fixed flaw and PNNL(Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) flaw distribution is calculated. As the results show initiation probability of fixed flaw is much higher than that of PNNL distribution, the postulated crack sizes of 1/10t in this paper and 1/4t of ASME are evaluated to be very conservative.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.79-84
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• 2009

Super duplex stainless steel has long life in severe environments by showing the enough strength and corrosion resistance. Therefore, the fracture mechanics approach needs to support the structural strength integrity for the used material. In this study, fatigue crack propagation behavior was investigated to super duplex stainless steel with 0.2% nitrogen. The various volume fraction and distribution of austenite structure for applied specimen in test were obtained by changing the heat treatment temperature and cycle. From test results, fatigue crack propagation rate showed two kinds of tendency between da/dN and ${\Delta}K$ according to distribution of austenite structure and structure anisotropy.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.610-616
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• 1990

The fracture mechanics analysis of surface cracks in plates and cylindrical geometries is important in the integrity evaluation of flawed structural components. The objective of this paper is, thus, to numerically investigate an interaction effect of two surface cracks in plate and cylindrical geometries. The effect of crack spacing on the magnitude of the stress intensity factor(K) is investigated using the line-spring model. For the case of a finite plate under uniaxial loading, the effect of crack spacing on the K values is negligible. However, for the case of a cylinder under moderate internal pressure, a significant increase in K values is observed at the deepest point of the surface crack.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.30 no.8 s.251
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• pp.993-1000
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• 2006

Operating experience of steam generators has shown that cracks of various morphology frequently occur in the steam generator tubes. These cracked tubes can stay in service if it is proved that the tubes have sufficient safety margin to preclude the risk of burst and leak. Therefore, integrity assessment using exact limit load solutions is very important for safe operation of the steam generators. This paper provides global and local limit load solutions for surface cracks in the steam generator tubes. Such solutions are developed based on three-dimensional (3-D) finite element analyses assuming elastic-perfectly plastic material behavior. For the crack location, both axial and circumferential surface cracks, and for each case, both external and internal cracks are considered. The resulting global and local limit load solutions are given in polynomial forms, and thus can be simply used in practical integrity assessment of the steam generator tubes.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.24 no.8 s.179
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• pp.2015-2021
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• 2000

In order to evaluate the integrity of nuclear power plant components, the analysis based on fracture mechanics is crucial. For this purpose, finite element method is popularly used to obtain J-integral. However, it is time consuming to design the finite element model of a cracked structure. Also, the J-integral should be verified by alternative methods since it may differ depending on the calculation method. The objective of this paper is to develop a three-dimensional elastic-plastic J-integral analysis system which is named as EPAS program. The EPAS program consists of an automatic mesh generator for a through-wall crack and a surface crack, a solver based on ABAQUS program, and a J-integral calculation program which provides DI (Domain Integral) and EDI (Equivalent Domain Integral) based J-integral calculation. Using the EPAS program, an optimized finite element model for a cracked structure can be generated and corresponding J-integral can be obtained subsequently.