• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.1843-1853
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• 1996

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the crack stability of the nuclear main stresm pipes, considering the load reduction effect due to the presence of circumferential throuth-wall crack. Also, the optimization techniques are adoped tosimulate the crack effect on the elbow component of the piuping system. By using a general beam elemetn which contains a discontinuous cross-section, the piping analysis is accomplished to acquire the reduced load. Considering this reduced load, it is feasible for the LBB application in nuclear main stresm pipe. Also, by combining an optimization program and a genaral finite element analysis program, the appropriate dimensions of the simplified beam elemtn which represents the effect of crack in elbow could be successfully determined.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.281-286
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• 2008

Wall thinning defect due to flow accelerated corrosion is one of major aging phenomena in most power plant industries, and it results in reducing load carrying capacity of the piping systems. A failure testing system was set up for real scale elbows containing various simulated wall thinning defects, and monotonic in-plane bending tests were performed under internal pressure to find out the failure behavior of thinned elbows. Various finite element models were generated and analysed to figure out and simulate the behavior for other thinning shapes and loading conditions. This paper presents the decreasing trends of load carrying capacity according to the thinning dimensions which were revealed from the investigation of finite element analysis results. A mechanical integrity evaluation model for thinned elbows was proposed, also. This model can be used to calculate the TES plastic load of thinned elbows for general internal pressure, thinning location, and in-plane bending direction.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.1174-1179
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• 2003

Cast austenitic stainless steel is used for several components, such as primary coolant piping, elbow, pump casing and valve bodies in light water reactors. These components are subject to thermal aging at the reactor operating temperature. Thermal aging results in spinodal decomposition of the delta-ferrite leading to increased strength and decreased toughness. This study shows that ferrite content can be predicted by use of the artificial neural network. The neural network has trained learning data of chemical components and ferrite contents using backpropagation learning process. The predicted results of the ferrite content using trained neural network are in good agreement with experimental ones.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.460-466
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• 2004

Cast austenitic stainless steel is used for several components, such as primary coolant piping, elbow, pump casing and valve bodies in light water reactors. These components are subject to thermal aging at the reactor operating temperature. Thermal aging results in spinodal decomposition of the delta-ferrite leading to increased strength and decreased toughness. This study shows that ferrite content can be predicted by use of the artificial neural network. The neural network has trained teaming data of chemical components and ferrite contents using backpropagation learning process. The predicted results of the ferrite content using trained neural network are in good agreement with experimental ones.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.191-198
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• 2008

Flow accelerated corrosion (FAC) phenomenon of low alloy carbon steels in nuclear power plant has been known as one of major degradation mechanisms. It has a potential to cause nuclear pipe rupture accident which may directly impact on the plant reliability and safety. Recently, the equipotential switching direct current potential drop (ES-DCPD) method has been developed, by the present authors, as a method to monitor wall loss in a piping. This method can rapidly monitor the thinning of piping, utilizing either the wide range monitoring (WiRM) or the narrow range monitoring (NaRM) technique. WiRM is a method to monitor wide range of straight piping, whereas NaRM focuses significantly on a narrow range such as an elbow. WiRM and NaRM can improve the reliability of the current FAC screening method that is based on computer modeling on fluid flow conditions. In this paper, the measurements by ES-DCPD are performed with signal sensitivity analyses in the laboratory environment for extended period and showed the viability of ES-DCPD for real plant applications.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.221-242
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• 2023

Internal and external corrosion are common in pressure pipes used in a variety of industries, often resulting in defects that compromise their integrity. This economically and industrially significant problem calls for both preventive and curative technical solutions to guarantee the reliability of these structures. With this in mind, our study focuses on the influence of composite and metallic patch repairs on the limit loads of pipes, particularly elbows, the critical component of piping systems. To this end, we used the nonlinear extended finite element method (X-FEM) to study elbows, a priori corroded on the internal surface of the extrados section, then repaired with composite and metallic patches. In addition, the effect of the geometry of composite materials and metal patches was examined, in particular the effect of their thickness and material on the increase in limit loads of repaired structures. The results obtained provide information on the effectiveness and optimization of patch repair of corroded elbows, with the aim of increasing their service life.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.499-505
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• 2017

In this study, the limit loads calculated by the $m_{\alpha}-tangent$ method based on the linear finite element analysis are compared with the closed form solutions that are proposed by various authors. The objects of the analysis is to select the elbow and the branch pipe which are representative structure of piping system. The applicability of the $m_{\alpha}-tangent$ method are investigated by applying it to cases with various geometries. The internal pressure and the in-plane bending moment are considered and the $m_{\alpha}-tangent$ method is in good agreement with the existing solutions in case of elbows. However, the limit loads calculated by the $m_{\alpha}-tangent$ method for branch junctions do not agree well with the existing solutions and do not show any tendency. The reason is a biased result due to the stress concentration of the discontinuous parts.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.9
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• pp.1293-1298
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• 2010

In most power plants, wall thinning in carbon-steel pipes due to flow-accelerated corrosion is one of the major aging phenomena, and it reduces the load-carrying capacity of the piping system. Various types of wall-thinning defects were manufactured in real-scale elbows, and monotonic in-plane bending tests were performed under internal pressure to evaluate the failure behavior of the elbows. In this paper, the behavior of elastic and plastic limit leads of locally thinned elbows in a real-scale failure test is presented. The loads determined on the basis of TES (twice elastic slope) were considered to be the limit loads of locally thinned elbows so that the integrity of the thinned elbows could be maintained, even when a small amount of plastic deformation might have occurred.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.169-176
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• 2020

There is a growing interest in hydrogen energy utilization since an alternative energy development has been demanded due to the depletion of fossil fuels. Hydrogen is produced by the reforming reaction of natural gas and biogas, and the electrolysis of water. An solid oxide electrolyte cell (SOEC) is reversible system that generates hydrogen by electrolyzing the superheated steam or producing the electricity from a fuel cell by hydrogen. If the water can be converted into steam by waste heat from other processes it is more efficient for high-temperature electrolysis to convert steam directly. The reasons are based upon the more favorable thermodynamic and electrochemical kinetic conditions for the reaction. In the present study, steam at over 180℃ and 3.4 bars generated from a boiler were converted into superheated steam at over 700℃ and 3 bars using a cylindrical steam superheater as well as the waste heat of the exhaust gas at 900℃ from a solid refuse fuel combustor. Superheated steam at over 700℃ was then supplied to a high-temperature SOEC to increase the hydrogen production efficiency of water electrolysis. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was conducted on the effects of the number of 90° elbow connector for piping, insulation types and insulation layers of pipe on the exit temperature using a commercial Fluent simulator. For two pre-heater injection method of steam inlet and ceramic wool insulation of 100 mm thickness, the highest inlet temperature of SOEC was 744℃ at 5.9 bar.