• 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.35 no.1
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• pp.61-67
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• 2015

Recently, the initiation of outside diameter stress corrosion cracking (ODSCC) at the tube support plate region of domestic steam generators (SG) with Alloy600 HTMA tubes has been increasing. As a result, SGs with Alloy600 HTMA tubes must be replaced early or are scheduled to be replaced prior to their designed lifetime. ODSCC is one of the biggest threats to the integrity of SG tubes. Therefore, the accurate evaluation of tube integrity to determine ODSCC is needed. Eddy current testing (ECT) is conducted periodically, and its results could be input as parameters for evaluating the integrity of SG tubes. The reliability of an ECT inspection system depends on the performance of the inspection technique and abilty of the analyst. The detection probability and ECT sizing error of degradation are considered to be the performance indices of a nondestructive evaluation (NDE) system. This paper introduces an optimized evaluation method for ECT, as well as the sizing error, including the analyst performance. This study was based on the results of a round robin program in which 10 inspection analysts from 5 different companies participated. The analysis of ECT sizing results was performed using a linear regression model relating the true defect size data to the measured ECT size data.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.89-96
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• 2007

The bobbin probe examination is basic and the important method among other ECT techniques for the steam generator tube integrity assesment that is practiced during each plant outage. The bobbin probe is one of the essential components which consist of the whole ECT examination system, and provides us a decisive data for the evaluation of tube integrity in compliance with acceptance criteria described in specific procedures. The selection of examination probe is especially important because the quality of acquired ECT data is determined by the probe design characteristics, such as geometry and operation frequency, and has enormous effects on examination results. In this study, An optimal differential bobbin probe is designed for the steam generator tube inspection in nuclear power plants(NPPs). Based on the test results for electrical and ECT signal characteristics, the prototype bobbin probe satisfies all the criteria.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.93-100
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• 2016

Since the sodium-cooled fast reactor is operated in a hostile environment due to the use of liquid sodium as its coolant, advanced techniques for in-service inspection are required to periodically verify the integrity of the reactor. This paper presents the development of in-service inspection techniques for Proto-type Generation IV Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor. First, the 10 m long plate-type ultrasonic waveguide sensor has been developed for in-service inspection of reactor internals, and its feasibility was verified through several under-water and under-sodium experiments. Second, the combined inspection system for in-service inspection of ferromagnetic steam generator tubes has been developed. The remote field eddy current testing and magnetic flux leakage testing can be conducted simultaneously by using the developed inspection system, and the detectability was demonstrated through several damage detection experiments. Finally, the electro-magnetic acoustic transducer which can withstand high temperature and be installable in the remote operated vehicle has been developed for in-service inspection of the reactor vessel, and its detectability was investigated through damage detection experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.56-63
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• 2012

In this study, a field applicability of reboiler tube was evaluated by comparing ECT signal with IRIS signal about wall loss rate and remaining wall thickness using worked austenite STS 316L ASME standard calibration tube. In the case of wall-loss rate, as a result, tolerance about $20%{\times}4$ flat bottom hole and 10% O D groove(ECT), 80% defect and 10% O D groove(IRIS) occurred up to ${\pm}15%$. In the case of remaining wall thickness, ECT was satisfied with the both tolerance, but tolerance about 80% defect occurred up to ${\pm}15%$ in IRIS. Therefore, if the IRIS is performed for interpretation of non-relevant indication and measurement of wall-loss rate after ECT, reliability is supposed to be improved.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.10 no.1 s.38
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• pp.1-6
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• 2007

Railway wheels in service are regularly checked by ultrasonic testing, acoustic emission and eddy current testing method and so on. However, ultrasonic testing is sometimes inadequate for sensitively detecting the cracks in railway wheel which is mainly because of the fact of crack closure. Recently, many researchers have actively fried to improve precision for defect detection of railway wheel. The development of a nondestructive measurement tool for wheel defects and its use for the maintenance of railway wheels would be useful to prevent wheel failure. The induced current focusing potential drop(ICFPD) technique is a new non-destructive tasting technique that can detect defects in railway wheels by applying on electro-magnetic field and potential drops variation. In the present paper, the ICFPD technique is applied to the detection of surface and internal defects for railway wheels. To defect the defects for railway wheels, the sensor for ICFPD is optimized and the tests are carried out with respect to 4 surface defects and 6 internal defects each other. The results show that the surface crack depth of 0.5 mm and internal crack depth of 0.7 mm in wheel tread could be detected by using this method. The ICFPB method is useful to detect the defect that initiated in the tread of railway wheels

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.10c
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• pp.53-55
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• 2005

The signals of the eddy current testing(ECT) for the examination of the steam generator(SG) tubes in the nuclear power plant(NPP) determine the existence, size, and kind of defects using the variation of impedance signals when a testing coil, driven by alternating current, passes through the SG tube contains defects. The aim of this paper is building a database of the RPC probe signals on the basis of the sizes variation of defects and frequency variation of probe. In this paper 3-D numerical analysis of the ECT signals using the finite element method is performed. Through this study, it is shown variation of magnitude and phase of impedance according to variation of defect size and frequency. From the result of this paper, we can obtain the information which is useful in defect discrimination of SG tube in nuclear power plant.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.291-298
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• 2015

An array type probe for monitoring metal tubes is proposed in this paper which utilizes peak value and peak time of a pulsed eddy current(PEC) signal. The probe consists of an array of encircling coils along a tube and the outside of coils is shielded by ferrite to prevent source magnetic fields from directly affecting sensor signals since it is the magnetic fields produced by eddy currents that reflect the condition of metal tubes. The positions of both exciter and sensor coils are consecutively moved automatically so that manual scanning is not necessary. At one position of send-receive coils, peak value and peak time are extracted from a sensor PEC signal and these data are accumulated for all positions to form an array type peak value signal and an array type peak time signal. Numerical simulation was performed using the backward difference method in time and the finite element method for spatial analysis. Simulation results showed that peak value increases and the peak appears earlier as the defect depth or length increases. The proposed array signals are shown to be excellent in reflecting the defect location as well as variations of defect depth and length within the array probe.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.407-415
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• 2008

The tubes in heat exchanger are typically made from copper alloy, stainless steel, carbon steel, titanium alloy material. type-439 ferritic stainless steel is ferromagnetic material, and furnish higher heat transfer rates than austenitic stainless steels and higher resistance to corrosion-induced flaws. Ferritic stainless steel can typically be found in low-pressure(LP) feedwater heaters and moisture separator reheaters(MSRs). LP feedwater heaters generally utilize thin wall type-439 stainless steel tubing, whereas MSRs typically employ a heavier wall tubing with integral fins. Service-induced damage can occur on the OD(outside diameter) surface of type-439 ferritic stainless steel tubing which is employed for MSRs tubing, and the most typical damage mechanism is vibration-induced tube-to-TSP(tube support plate) wear and fatigue cracking. The wear has been reported that occurs mainly on the OD surface. Accordingly, in this study, we have evaluated the flaw sizing capability of magnetic saturation eddy current technique using magnetic saturation probe and flawed specimen.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.08a
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• pp.47-51
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• 2002

ECT(eddy currentign testing) is very effective technique to detect a flaw within a conductor. Co-based amorphous wire was used as a sensor head. The wire has almost 0 magneto-striction and high permeability. An uniform magnetic field was applied to 1mm thick copper plate and $25{\mu}m$ thick aluminum sheet conductor using spiral typed coil The size of the coil has $40mm{\times}40mm$ outer width and $8mm{\times}8mm$ inner width. The copper plate and aluminum sheet has 0.5mm and 0.1mm wide gap, respectively. The frequency range of applied field was 100kHz-600kHz. The induced voltage difference of 2.5mV was obtained in the maximum voltage and minimum one measured across the gap of the 1mm thick conductor. In the case of aluminum sheet, 0.4mV was obtained. From this results, the effectiveness of Co-based amorphous wire was confirmed in the ECT technique.