• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.37-42
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• 2005

The non-destructive Inspection of the fillet weldment has difficulties due to its geometrical complexity and uneasy access. The surface shear horizontal wave (SH-wave), however, has been successfully applied to the detection of cracks on the surface and sub-surface of the filet weldment heel part. The conventional ultrasonic inspection using the surface SH-wave is usually a contact method using piezoelectric transducer. Thus, it is not suitable for a field application because the reliability and repeatability of inspection are significantly affected by test conditions such as couplant, contact pressure and pre-process. In order to overcome this problem, a non-contact SH-wave inspection method using EMAT is propose. The experimental results with this non-contact method are compared with those with a conventional ultrasonic method in fillet weldment with slit type defects. It is shown that the non-contact inspection technique requires simple procedure and less time in the fillet weldment inspection.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.308-314
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• 2021

Neutron dose level at bottom head of a reactor pressure vessel (RPV) was calculated using reactor vessel neutron transport for a Korean nuclear power plant A. At 34 EFPY with a 40-year (2042) design life after plating repair, irradiation fast neutron effect was 6.6x10¹⁵ n/cm². As helium(He) gas can be generated by Ni only at 1/10⁶ level of 5 × 10²¹ n/cm², He generation possibility in the Ni plating layer is very little during 40 years of operation (2042, 34 EFPY). Thermal neutrons can significantly affect the generation of He from Ni metal. At 10 years after a repair, He can be generated at a level of about 0.06 appm, a level that can add general welding repair without any consideration. After 40 years of repair, 9.8 appm of He may be generated. Although this is a rather high value, it is within the range of 0.1 to 10 appm when welding repair can be applied. Clad repair by Ni electroplating technology is expected to greatly improve the operation efficiency by improving the safety and shortening the maintenance period of the nuclear power plant.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.677-687
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• 2017

Aircraft can often be exposed to a variety of environments and vibrations such as engine, hydraulic pump, aerodynamic force. These may cause cracking and destruction of the mechanical structure and sub-components by high-cycle fatigue. The axial piston type pump which is usually applied to the aircraft hydraulic pump can be necessarily accompanied by the fluid pulsation by continuous rotation of the axial piston. The fatigue crack was identified at the dampener fitting welding zone to prevent vibration damping during the running of aircraft equipped with this type of pulsation hydraulic pump. In order to understand the root cause of this matter, fracture and component analyses were carried out and also integral type dampener fitting was applied to prevent recurrence of the crack as a subject of design improvements. Structural integrity stress analysis, fatigue analysis, qualification test and aircraft system equipped test was conducted to verify the design validity in application to integral type dampener fitting. The test results were sufficiently satisfactory with the demand lifetime of the material from the various types of test as conducted and the subject of design improvement in this study could be objectively evaluated that shall be applied to the operational aircraft.

• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.20-26
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• 2023

Lab-on-a-disc is a circular disc shape of cartridge that can be used for blood-based liquid biopsy to diagnose an early stage of cancer. Currently, liquid biopsies are regarded as a time-consuming process, and require sophisticated skills to precisely separate cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) floating in the bloodstream for accurate diagnosis. However, by applying the lab-on-a-disc to liquid biopsy, the entire process can be operated automatically. To do so, the lab-on-a-disc should be designed to prevent blood leakage during the centrifugation, transport, and dilution of blood inside the lab-on-a-disc in the process of liquid biopsy. In this study, the main components of lab-on-a-disc for liquid biopsy are fabricated by injection molding for mass production, and ultrasonic welding is employed to ensure the bonding strength between the components. To guarantee accurate ultrasonic welding, the flatness of the components is optimized numerically by using the response surface methodology with four main injection molding processing parameters, including the mold & resin temperatures, the injection speed, and the packing pressure. The 27 times finite element analyses using Moldflow® reveal that the injection time and the packing pressure are the critical factors affecting the flatness of the components with an optimal set of values for all four processing parameters. To further improve the flatness of the lab-on-a-disc components for stable mass production, a quarter-disc shape of lab-on-a-disc with a radius of 75 mm is used instead of a full circular shape of the disc, and this significantly decreases the standard deviation of flatness to 30% due to the reduced overall length of the injection molded components by one-half. Moreover, it is also beneficial to use a quarter disc shape to manage the deviation of flatness under 3 sigma limits.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.92-100
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• 1997

Weld repair of ASTM A-470 class 8 high pressure (HP) steam turbine rotor steel has been performed to extend the service life of older fossil units. Microhardness measurements were conducted across the weldment from unaffected base metal (BM) to weld metal (WM). The hardness of the BM was VHN 253, however it dropped up to VHN 227 at the heat affected zone (HAZ) close to unaffected BM for multipass SAW. This area of hardness drop is called "siftening zone" and has a width of 0.5-0.6mm. During creep rupture test, failure occurred around the softening zone and rupture time was 772.4hr at 19Ksi (132 Mpa) and 593.deg. C. Multipass MIG and TIG welding have been employed to reduce the softening zone width. The softening zone width for MIG was 0.3-0.4mm and for TIG was zero-0.4mm depending on heat inputs. However creep rupture time was decreased as softening zone width reduced. Creep rupture time also showed a close relationship with heat inputs in TIG process. The higher heat input, the longer rupture time. Most failure occurred at intercritical HAZ (ICHAZ), however rupture location was shifted to coarse grained HAZ (CGHAZ) as heat input decreased. The rupture surface showed tearing and dimple which indicated transgranular fracture. fracture.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2014

Flip chip bonded LED packages possess lower thermal resistance than wire bonded LED packages because of short thermal path. In this study, thermal and bonding properties of flip chip bonded high brightness LED were evaluated for Au-Sn thermo-compression bonded LEDs and Sn-Ag-Cu reflow bonded LEDs. For the Au-Sn thermo-compression bonding, bonding pressure and bonding temperature were 50 N and 300oC, respectively. For the SAC solder reflow bonding, peak temperature was $255^{\circ}C$ for 30 sec. The shear strength of the Au-Sn thermo-compression joint was $3508.5gf/mm^2$ and that of the SAC reflow joint was 5798.5 gf/mm. After the shear test, the fracture occurred at the isolation layer in the LED chip for both Au-Sn and SAC joints. Thermal resistance of Au-Sn sample was lower than that of SAC bonded sample due to the void formation in the SAC solder.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.30-30
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• 2009

GTA 용접에서 용입, 용접부의 크기와 형상이 형성되는 아크 물리학적 현상을 이해함에 있어서 에너지 분포특성은 매우 중요한 인자이다. GTA 용접에서 아크 길이의 변화와 사용된 실드 가스 종류에 따라 음극인 텅스텐 전극 팁의 아크 루트 직경에 큰 변화를 주며, 양극인 모재 쪽의 에너지 분포에 영향을 미치며 된다. 기존의 연구자들은 저전류나 중전류 영역의 GTA 용접에서 텅스텐 전극의 선단각과 용입 형태와 의 관계를 plasma 기류 등에 의해 고찰하거나, 최대 아크압력에 미치는 전극형상의 영향에 대하여 연구하였다. 용접부에 작용하는 아크 압력의 분포는 결국 운동 에너지의 분포이다. 기존의 연구자들에 비하여 보다 간편한 실험을 통하여 양극 모재위의 아크 압력에 의한 에너지 분포특성을 규명하는 연구가 필요하다. 본 연구의 목적은 GTA 용접의 용접전류 100A~200A 영역에서 아크 길이 변화와 Ar 가스에 $H_2$ 혼합에 따른 측정된 아크 압력으로부터 기존연구자들의 아크 물리학적 결과들을 활용하여 양극 모재 위에 작용하는 전류밀도 분포를 유도하는 것이다. GTA 용접에서 아크 길이의 변화와 Ar 가스에 $H_2$ 혼합은 아크 압력분포에 큰 영향을 미치며, 이에 따라 에너지 분포특성에 많은 영향을 미친다. 아크 길이가 증가함에 따라 Ar가스와 $H_2$ 혼합가스의 에너지 분포는 감소하였고, Ar가스에 $H_2$ 혼합에 의해 아크 에너지가 증가하여 용입형상에 큰 영향을 미칠 것으로 판단된다. 이에 대한 연구는 향후 GTA 용접 응용분야 확대 적용될 것이며, 아크 물리학 연구에 기초적이고 아주 중요한 과학적인 자료가 될 것으로 판단된다.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.49 no.8
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• pp.628-634
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• 2011

SA508 Gr.4N Ni-Cr-Mo low alloy steel, in which Ni and Cr contents are higher than in commercial SA508 Gr.3 Mn-Mo-Ni low alloy steels, may be a candidate reactor pressure vessel (RPV) material with higher strength and toughness from its tempered martensitic microstructure. The inner surface of the RPV is weld-cladded with stainless steels to prevent corrosion. The goal of this study is to evaluate the microstructural properties of the clad interface between Ni-Cr-Mo low alloy steel and stainless weldment, and the effects of post weld heat treatment (PWHT) on the properties. The properties of the clad interface were compared with those of commercial Mn-Mo-Ni low alloy steel. Multi-layer welding of model alloys with ER308L and ER309L stainless steel by the SAW method was performed, and then PWHT was conducted at $610^{\circ}C$ for 30 h. The microstructural changes of the clad interface were analyzed using OM, SEM and TEM, and micro-Vickers hardness tests were performed. Before PWHT, the heat affected zone (HAZ) showed higher hardness than base and weld metals due to formation of martensite after welding in both steels. In addition, the hardness of the HAZ in Ni-Cr-Mo low alloy steel was higher than that in Mn-Mo-Ni low alloy steel due to a comparatively high martensite fraction. The hardness of the HAZ decreased after PWHT in both steels, but the dark region was formed near the fusion line in which the hardness was locally high. In the case of Mn-Mo-Ni low alloy steel, formation of fine Cr-carbides in the weld region near the fusion line by diffusion of C from the base metal resulted in locally high hardness in the dark region. However, the precipitates of the region in the Ni-Cr-Mo low alloy steel were similar to that in the base metal, and the hardness in the region was not greatly different from that in the base metal.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.553-560
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• 2015

Fracture mechanics analysis for cracked pipes is essential for applying the leak-before-break (LBB) concept to nuclear piping design. For LBB assessment, crack instability and leak rate should be predicted accurately for through-wall cracked pipes. In a nuclear piping system, elbows are connected with straight pipes by circumferential welding; this weld region is often considered a critical location. Hence, accurate crack assessment is necessary for cracks in the interface between elbows and straight pipes. In this study, the stress intensity factor (SIF) and elastic crack opening displacement (COD) were estimated through detailed 3D elastic finite element (FE) analyses. Based on the results, closed-form solutions of shape factors for calculating the SIFs and elastic CODs were proposed for circumferential through-wall cracks in the abovementioned interfaces under internal pressure. In addition, the effect of the elbow on shape factors was investigated by comparing the results with the existing solutions for a straight pipe.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.37 no.9
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• pp.1159-1168
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• 2013

In pressurized water nuclear reactors (PWRs), the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) upper head contains penetration nozzles that use a control rod drive mechanism (CRDM). The penetration nozzle uses J-groove weld geometry. Recently, the occurrence of cracking in alloy 600 CRDM penetration nozzle has increased. This is attributable to primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC). PWSCC is known to be susceptible to the welding residual stress and operational stress. Generally, the tensile residual stress is the main factor contributing to crack growth. Therefore, this study investigates the effect on weld residual stress through different analysis methods for normal operating conditions using finite element analysis. In addition, this study also considers the effect of repeated normal operating condition cycles on the weld residual stress. Based on the analysis result, this paper presents a normal operating condition analysis method.