• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.10-20
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• 2001

The leak before break(LBB) concept is difficult to apply to a structure with a thin tube that is immersed in a water environment. A heat exchanger in a nuclear power plant is such a structure. The present paper addresses an application of the LBB concept to a heat exchanger in a nuclear power plant. The minimum leaked coolant amount(approximately 37.9 liters) containing the radioactive material which can activate the radiation detector device installed in near the heat exchanger is assumed. A postulated initial flaw size that can not grow to a critical flaw size within the time period to activate the radiation detector is justified. In this case, the radiation detector can activate the warning signal caused by coolant leakage from initially postulated flaws of the heat exchanger. The nuclear plant can safely shutdown when this occurs. Since the postulated initial flaw size can not grow to the critical flaw size, the structural integrity of the heat exchanger is not impeded. Particularly the informational scenario presented in this paper discusses an actual nuclear plant.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.40 no.9
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• pp.821-826
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• 2016

The leak before break (LBB) concept is used in pipe line design for nuclear power plants. For application of the LBB concept, leak rates through cracks should be evaluated accurately. Usually leak late analyses are performed for through-thickness cracks with constant cross-sectional area. However, the cross-sectional area at the inner pipe surface of a crack can be different from that at the outer surface. In this paper, leak rate analyses are performed for the cracks with linearly-varying cross-sectional areas. The effect of varying the cross-sectional area on leak rates was examined. Leak rates were also evaluated for cracks in bi-material pipes. Finally, the effects of crack surface morphology parameters on leak rates were examined.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.204-214
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• 1993

Work on fracture mechanics has provided a technical basis for elimination of main coolant loop double ended guillotine breaks from the structural design basis of reactor coolant system. Without main coolant loop pipe breaks, the tributary pipe breaks must be considered as design bases until further fracture mechanics work could eliminate some of these breaks from design consideration. This paper determines the core support barrel shell responses for the 3 inch pressurizer spray line nozzle break which is expected to be the only inlet break remaining in the primary side after leak-before-break evaluation is extended to smaller size pipes in the near future. The responses are compared with those due to 14 inch safety injection nozzle break and main coolant loop pipe break. The results show that, when the leak-before-break concept is applied to the primary side piping systems with a diameter of 10 inches or over, the core support barrel shell responses due to pipe breaks in the primary side are negligible for the faulted condition design.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.332-339
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• 2015

The leak before break (LBB) concept is widely used in designing pipe lines in nuclear power plants. According to the concept, the amount of leaking liquid from a pipe should be more than the minimum detectable leak rate of a leak detection system before catastrophic failure occurs. Therefore, accurate estimation of the leak rate is important to evaluate the validity of the LBB concept in pipe line design. In this paper, a program was developed to estimate the leak rate through circumferential cracks in pipes in nuclear power plants using the Henry-Fauske flow model and modified Henry-Fauske flow model. By using the developed program, the leak rate was calculated for a circumferential crack in a sample pipe, and the effect of the flow model on the leak rate was examined. Treating the crack morphology parameters as random variables, the statistical behavior of the leak rate was also examined. As a result, it was found that the crack morphology parameters have a strong effect on the leak rate and the statistical behavior of the leak rate can be simulated using normally distributed crack morphology parameters.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.7
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• pp.639-656
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• 2006

In order to apply the leak before break (LBB) concept to nuclear piping systems, the dynamic strain aging effect of low carbon steel materials has to be taken into account, in compliance with the requirements of the Korean Standard Review Guide (KSRG) 3.6.3-1. For this goal, J-R tests are needed for a range of various temperatures and loading rates, including dynamic loading conditions. In the dynamic loading J-R test, the unloading compliance method can not be applied to measure the crack growth and direct current potential drop (DCPD) method; this method also has a problem defining the crack initiation point. The normalization method is known as a very useful method to determine the J-R curve under dynamic loading because it does not need additional equipment or complicated loading sequences such as electric current or unloading. This method was accepted by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) as a standard test method E1820 A15 in 2001. However, it has not yet been clearly verified yet if the normalization method is sufficiently reliable to be applied to LBB. In this study, the basic background of the J-integral, LBB and dynamic loading J-R test are explained, and the current status for dynamic loading J-R test methods are reviewed from the view point of LBB for nuclear piping. In particular, the theoretical and historical background of the normalization method which has received attention recently, is summarized. Recent studies for this method are introduced and future works are suggested that may improve the reliability of LBB for nuclear piping.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.24 no.11
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• pp.2796-2803
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• 2000

For traditional Leak-Before-Break(LBB) analyses, symmetric conditions were assumed for a pipe-nozzle interface to simplify the analysis in calculating J-integral. However. this assumption could result in an overly conservative design criteria for a pipe-nozzle interface, Since the pipe-nozzle interface is asymmetric due to the difference of stiffness between pipe and nozzle, it is required to develop a new methodology considering the nozzle effect. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the effect of nozzle no the development of LBB design criteria for nuclear pipings. For this purpose, extensive finite element analysis were performed to evaluate the effect of nozzle on Crack Opening Area(COA), Detectable Leakage Crack(DLC) length and J-integral values. In conclusion, it was proven that the application of LBB concept could be extended for more nuclear piping system by considering the nozzle.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.32-41
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• 1999

If the Leak-Before-Break (LBB) concept is applicable to the nuclear piping design, it is not necessary to consider the dynamic effect due to pipe rupture. Therefore, the construction cost can be significantly reduced by eliminating unnecessary pipe whip restraints and jet impingement devices. The objective of this paper is to develop the Piping Evaluation Diagram (PED) for efficient application of LBB concept to piping system at an initial piping design stage. For this purpose, the 3-D finite element analyses were performed to evaluate the crack stability. And the stress-strain curve based on the pipe material tests were used to calculate the detectable leakage crack length. Finally, the present PED which was composed as a function of NOP load and allowable SSE load, was developed for an application of LBB concept to the safety injection and shutdown cooling line in Korean Next Generation Reactor (KNGR).

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.126-133
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• 2016

Recently, the research and development of Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors (SFRs) have made progresses. However, liquid sodium, the coolant of an SFR, is chemically unstable and sodium fire can be occurred when liquid sodium leaks from sodium pipe. To reduce the damage by the sodium fire, many fire walls and fire extinguishers are needed for SFRs. LBB concept in SFR might reduce the scale of sodium fire and decrease or eliminate fire walls and fire extinguishers. Therefore, LBB concept can contribute to improve economic efficiency and to strengthen defense-in depth safety. The LBB assessment procedure has been well established, and has been used significantly in light water reactors (LWRs). However, an LBB assessment of an SFR is more complicated because SFRs are operated in elevated temperature regions. In such a region, because creep damage may occur in a material, thereby growing defects, an LBB assessment of an SFR should consider elevated temperature effects. The procedure and method for this purpose are provided in RCC-MRx A16, which is a French code. In this study, LBB assessment was performed for PGSFR IHTS hot-leg pipe according to RCC-MRx A16 and the applicability of the code was discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.85-90
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• 2001

In order to apply the Leak-Before-Break(LBB)concept to nuclear piping, accurate estimation of J-integral and crack opening displacement(COD) is essential for complex loading, such as combined tension and bending. This paper proposes a new engineering method to estimate J-integral and the COD for circumferential through-wall cracked pipes subject to combined tension and bending loading. The proposed method to estimate the COD is validated against three published pipe test data, generated from a monotonically increasing bending load with a constant internal pressure, which shows excellent agreements.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.1446-1450
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• 1992

A method of prediction for the fatigue life of surface crack, that is, initial cracks grow and penetrate through the thickness, was presented in the previous study of the authors. Effects of parameters such as the initial crack depth, material factors, etc., for the life were also discussed. However, in the case of adapting the concept of LBB(Leak Before Break), the break fatigue life after the penetration of the thickness must be taken into account. Hence, a method to predict the break fatigue life is presented in this paper. Effects of the parameters for the break fatigue life are discussed and compared with the penetration fatigue life.