• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.25-32
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• 1999

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the fracture resistance characteristics of SA508 CL.1a carbon steel, TP347 stainless steel and their associated welds manufactured for primary coolant system of Ulchin 3,4 nuclear power plants. The effect of various parameters such as pipe size, welding method, chemical composition, crack plane orientation, metallography and fractography on the material properties were discussed. Test results showed that the effect of pipe size on fracture toughness is negligible while the effect of welding method on fracture toughness is significant. In addition, the drop of fracture toughness in the field fabrication weld of TP347 stainless steel is probably due to the large amount of $\sigma$-phase precipitated on the $\delta$-ferrite boundary and the large size dimples.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.132-134
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• 2007

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1691-1694
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• 2005

The fatigue characteristic of a material or a structure is derived from fatigue tests of standard specimens. However test results of standard specimens are very different from those of real structures or components. Therefore, to calculate more accurate fatigue life, the geometrical effect and surface condition must be considered by comparing test results of standard specimens with those of real structures or components. Thus the object of this paper is to evaluate the fatigue characteristic of a real waterwork pipe by conducting fatigue tests with standard specimens and non-standard(plate-shaped) specimens of base metal and weld metal. Also, to evaluate fatigue characteristic based on life distribution, statistical fatigue characteristic was analyzed by the normal distribution and related data of P-S-N curve.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.126-137
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• 2003

Many research works have been performed on the J-T approach for elastic-plastic crack-tip stress fields in a variety of plane strain specimens. To generalize the validity of J-T method, further investigations are however needed fur more practical 3D structures than the idealized plane strain specimens. The present study deals mainly with 3D finite element (FE) modeling of welded plate and straight pipe, and accompanying elastic, elastic-plastic FE analyses. Manual 3D modeling is almost prohibitive, since the models contain semi-elliptical interfacial cracks which require singular elements. To overcome this kind of barrier, we develop a program generating the meshes fur semi-elliptical interfacial cracks. We then compare the detailed 3D FE stress fields to those predicted with J-T two parameters. The validity of J-T approach is thereby extended to 3D yield-strength-mismatched weld joints, and useful information is inferred fur the design or assessment of pipe welds.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.40-47
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• 2011

KSNPs(Korea Standard Nuclear Power Plant) have been applied the break exclusion criteria to the high energy lines passing through containment penetration area to ensure that piping failures would not cause the loss of containment isolation function, and to reduce the resulting dynamic effects. Systems with the criteria are the Main Steam system, Feed Water system, Steam Generator Blowdown system, and Chemical & Volume Control system. In accordance with FSAR(Final Safety Analysis Report), a 100% volumetric examination by augmented in-service inspection of all pipe welds appled the break exclusion criteria is required for the break exclusion application piping. However, it is difficult to fully satisfy the requirements of inspection because 12", 8" and 6" weldolet weldments of Main Steam pipe line have complex structural shapes. To resolve the difficulty on the application of conventional UT(Ultrasonic Testing) technique, realistic mock-ups and UT calibration blocks were made. Simulations of conventional UT were performed utilizing CIVA, a commercial NDE(Nondestructive Examination) simulation software. Phased array UT experiments were performed through mock-up including artificial notch type flaws. A phased array UT technique is finally developed to improve the reliability of ultrasonic test at main steam line pipe to 12", 8" and 6" branch connection weld.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.9-14
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• 2018

The piping system of a nuclear power plant plays a role of transferring high energy fluid to equipment and various devices. The safety and soundness of these piping systems are very closely related to the operability of the power plant. In the case of a welded part of a small diameter pipe, it may grow as a microcrack due to a lack of penetration, and it may grow to a size that affects the safety of the pipe due to the influence of mechanical vibration and fatigue load. Resonance refers to an increase in energy as the natural frequency of an object coincides with the frequency applied to the external force. When this resonance occurs, the frequency is the resonance frequency. In this study, when defects exist in the welds of small diameter pipe, the natural frequency of the pipe changes and resonance may occur. Since these resonances are likely to cause fatigue damage to the piping, resonance frequency changes due to the size and shape of the defects are analyzed and evaluated. As a result of the vibration test, the resonance frequency tended to decrease as the depth of the defect deepened, and the influence was larger when the defect existed at the bottom of the top of the trough. Also, it was confirmed that the Transverse cracks had an effect on the resonance frequency in the presence of the cracks in the weld bead, compared to the longitudinal cracks. As a result of this study, it is expected that the cause of the defect and the condition of the pipe can be monitored because the resonance frequency tendency according to the shape of the crack is analyzed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.18-22
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• 2014

Residual stresses that occur during the welding process, are the main cause of failure and defects in welded structures. This paper, presents the use of an electronic processing laser speckle interferometer to measure the residual stress of a welded pipe for a nuclear power plant. A tensile testing machine was used to evaluate a welded pipe that failed in compression. The inform plane deformation and modulus of elasticity of the base metal and welds were measured using an interferometer. Varying the load on the welded pipe had a larger effect on the deformation of the base metal the other properties of the base metal and welds. The elastic moduli of the base metal and weld of the welded pipe were 202.46 and 212.14 GPa, respectively, the residual stress was measured to be 6.29 MPa.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.100-100
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• 2009

This paper is concerned with numerical analyses of residual stresses in welds and material's susceptibility to stress corrosion cracking (SCC) for the primary piping system in nuclear power plants: Both the dissimilar metal weld (DMW) for stainless steel to low alloy steel joints and the similar metal weld (SMW) for forged stainless steel to cast stainless steel joints are considered. Thermal elasto-plastic analyses using the finite element method (FEM) are performed to predict residual stresses generated in fabrication welding and its related processes for both the DMW and SMW, including effects of quenching for cast stainless steel piping, machining of the DMW root, and grinding of the SMW root. As a result, the effect of quenching should be included in the evaluation of residual stresses in the SMW for the cast stainless steel piping. It is deemed that residual stresses in both the DMW and SMW would not affect the SCC susceptibility of the welds providing that the welding processes are completed without any weld repair on the inside wall of the joint. However, the grinding process if performed on the safe-end to piping weld, would produce a high level of residual stresses in the inner surface region and thus a stress improvement process (e.g. buffing) should be considered to reduce susceptibilities to SCC.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.47-52
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• 2015

In this study, it was tried to analyze the effects of welding parameters on the weld penetration and aspect ratio when a STS316L pipe was welded in a horizontal position by GTAW. Experiments were systematically designed using a L18 orthogonal array, and the effects of welding parameters were statistically analyzed by ANOVA(Analysis of Variance). The shielding gas type has the largest effect on both the penetration and aspect ratio. The welding current type and shielding gas flow rate have a little effect on the penetration, whereas the electrode tip angle has a little effect on the aspect ratio. When welded at a selected welding condition, which is composed of He shielding gas, pulse current of 300/45 A, electrode tip angle of 90o, and shielding gas flow rate of 30 l/min, the estimated interval at least 95 % confidence was $1.99{\pm}0.18mm$ for the penetration and $0.31{\pm}0.04$ for the aspect ratio. From the confirmation experiments, the average penetration and aspect ratio were well agreed with the estimation as 1.96 mm and 0.30, respectively. Additionally, the effects of the welding speed and welding current on the penetration and aspect ratio were experimented and analyzed by linear regression. The penetration was linearly increased with the decrease of the welding speed and with the increase of the welding current, but the aspect ratio showed a tendency to a little decrease with the increase of both the welding speed and current.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.74-83
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• 2020

A number of so-called 'Type IV' cracking was reported to occur at the welded joints of the P91 steel or P92 steel reheat steam piping systems in Korean supercritical thermal power plants. The reheat steam piping systems are subjected to severe thermal and pressure loading conditions of coolant higher than 570℃ and 4MPa, respectively. In this study, piping analyses and design evaluations were conducted for the piping system of a specific thermal plant in Korea and suggestions were made how structural integrity could be improved so that type IV cracks at the welded joints could be prevented. Integrity evaluations were conducted as per ASME B31.1 code with implicit consideration of creep effects which was used in original design of the piping system and as per nuclear-grade RCC-MRx code with explicit consideration of creep effects. Comparisons were made between the evaluation results from the two design rules. Another approach with modification or reduction of the redundant supports in the piping systems was investigated as a tool to mitigate thermal stresses which should essentially contribute to prevention of Type IV cracking without major modification of the existing piping systems. In addition, a post weld heat treatment method and repair weld method which could improve integrity of the welded joint of P91 steel were investigated.