• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.820-830
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• 2016

Pipe wall thinning by flow-accelerated corrosion and various types of erosion is a significant and costly damage phenomenon in secondary piping systems of nuclear power plants (NPPs). Most NPPs have management programs to ensure pipe integrity due to wall thinning that includes periodic measurements for pipe wall thicknesses using nondestructive evaluation techniques. Numerous measurements using ultrasonic tests (UTs; one of the nondestructive evaluation technologies) have been performed during scheduled outages in NPPs. Using the thickness measurement data, wall thinning rates of each component are determined conservatively according to several evaluation methods developed by the United States Electric Power Research Institute. However, little is known about the conservativeness or reliability of the evaluation methods because of a lack of understanding of the measurement error. In this study, quantitative models for UT thickness measurement deviations of nuclear pipes and fittings were developed as the first step for establishing an optimized thinning evaluation procedure considering measurement error. In order to understand the characteristics of UT thickness measurement errors of nuclear pipes and fittings, round robin test results, which were obtained by previous researchers under laboratory conditions, were analyzed. Then, based on a large dataset of actual plant data from four NPPs, a quantitative model for UT thickness measurement deviation is proposed for plant conditions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.9
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• pp.2119-2129
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• 2020

Flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC), liquid droplet impingement erosion (LDIE), cavitation and flashing can cause continuous wall-thinning in nuclear secondary pipes. In order to prevent pipe rupture events resulting from the wall-thinning, most NPPs (nuclear power plants) implement their management programs, which include periodic thickness inspection using UT (ultrasonic test). Meanwhile, it is well known in field experiences that the thickness measurement errors (or deviations) are often comparable with the amount of thickness reduction. Because of these errors, it is difficult to estimate wall-thinning exactly whether the significant thinning has occurred in the inspected components or not. In the previous study, the authors presented an approximate estimation procedure as the first step for thickness measurement deviations at each inspected component and the statistical & quantitative characteristics of the measurement deviations using plant experience data. In this study, statistical significance was quantified for the current methods used for wall-thinning determination. Also, the authors proposed new estimation procedures for determining local wall-thinning to overcome the weakness of the current methods, in which the proposed procedure is based on analysis of variance (ANOVA) method using subgrouping of measured thinning values at all measurement grids. The new procedures were also quantified for their statistical significance. As the results, it is confirmed that the new methods have better estimation confidence than the methods having used until now.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.481-488
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to suggest how to manage healing forests. Field investigation and surveys were conducted to produce results and 313 questionnaires collected from workers in the forestry sector and ordinary people were analyzed. The results were as follows: it is required to preserve flowering plants, scenic trees, and ecological trees in the understory vegetation, and to remove trees that block the forest landscape, leaving about 50 to 60 percent of the understory vegetation. The preferred density order of broadleaf trees was analyzed as follows: Betula platyphylla > Liriodendron tulipifera > Quercus acutissima. The preferred density order of coniferous trees was analyzed as follows: Abies holophylla > Cryptomerias japonica and Chameacyparis obtusa > Larix kaempferi > Pinus densiflora > Pinus koraiensis. The preferred density in healing forests was 81-89% compared to the number of residual trees for quantitative thinning. Specifically, the preferred density were 87% for P. koraiensis, 86% for L. kaempferi, 81% for P. densiflora, 83% for C. japonica, 84% for C. obtusa and 89% for Q. acutissima. In the case of healing forests, it is recommended to periodically conduct a small-scale thinning with different densities according to the species and diameter of trees based on the results of this study.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.693-699
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• 2006

An accurate and compact map is essential to an autonomous mobile robot system. For navigation, it is efficient to use an occupancy grid map because the environment is represented by probability distribution. But it is difficult to apply it to the large environment since it needs a large amount of memory proportional to the environment size. As an alternative, a topological map can be used to represent it in terms of the discrete nodes with edges connecting them. It is usually constructed by the Voronoi-like graphs, but in this paper the topological map is incrementally built based on the local grid map using the thinning algorithm. This algorithm can extract only meaningful topological information by using the C-obstacle concept in real-time and is robust to the environment change, because its underlying local grid map is constructed based on the Bayesian update formula. In this paper, the position probability is defined to evaluate the quantitative reliability of the end nodes of this thinning-based topological map (TTM). The global TTM can be constructed by merging each local TTM by matching the reliable end nodes determined by the position probability. It is shown that the proposed TTM can represent the environment accurately in real-time and it is readily extended to the global TTM.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.317-321
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• 2008

Piping in the Nuclear Power plants (NPP) are mostly consisted of carbon steel pipe. The wall thinning defect is mainly occurred by the affect of the flow accelerated corrosion (FAC) of fluid which flows in carbon steel pipes. This type of defect becomes the cause of damage or destruction of piping. Therefore, it is very important to measure defect which is existed not only on the welding partbut also on the whole field of pipe. Over the years, Infrared thermography (IRT) has been used as a non destructive testing methods of the various kinds of materials. This technique has many merits and applied to the industrial field but has limitation to the materials. Therefore, this method was combined with lock-in technique. So IRT detection resolution has been progressively improved using lock-in technique. In this paper, the quantitative analysis results of the location and the size of wall thinning defect that is artificially processed inside the carbon steel pipe by using IRT are obtained.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.24 no.11
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• pp.22-28
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• 2007

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.170-176
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• 2012

In the nuclear industry, wall thinning defect of straight pipe occur the enormous loss in life evaluation and safety evaluation. To use non-destructive technique, we measure deformation, vibration, defect evaluation. But, this techniques are a weak that is the measurement of the wide area is difficult and the time is caught long. In the secondary side of nuclear power plants mostly used steel pipe, artificiality wall thinning defect make in the side and different thickness make to the each other, wall thinning defect part of deformation measure by using shearography. In addition, optical measurement through deformation, vibration, defect evaluation evaluate pipe and thickness defects of pressure vessel is to evaluate quantitatively. By shearography interferometry to measure the pipe's internal wall thinning defect and the variation of pressure use the proposed technique, the quantitative defect is to evaluate the thickness of the surplus. The amount of deformation use thickness of surplus prediction of the actual thickness defect and approximately 7 percent error by ensure reliability. According to pressure the amount of deformation and the thickness of the surplus through DB construction, nuclear power plant pipe use wall thinning part soundness evaluation. In this study, pressure vessel of thickness defect measure proposed nuclear pipe of wall thinning defect prediction and integrity assessment technology development. As a basic research defected theory and experiment, pressure vessel of advanced stability and soundness and maintainability is expected to contribute foundation establishment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.109 no.3
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• pp.350-360
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to identify and prioritize the key indicators and drivers of forest thinning. The research for this study was designed in two-phases: 1) sequential, exploratory, mixed methods research that was initiated with a qualitative phase (Delphi technique), and 2) the quantitative phase (Analytic Hierarchy Process technique). Results indicated that management and planning were the most important factors in the first level of criteria among the "management and planning," "directing and monitoring," "supervision," and "quality of thinning work." On the sub-criteria level, "the quality of forest management planning" was indicated as the most important factor among the ten sub-criteria. Our results have shown that the developed forest thinning evaluation factors were a well-represented characteristic for a variety of forest thinning work in Korea.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.193-203
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• 1999

In order to investigate systematically the steady shear flow properties of aqueous po1y(ethylene oxide) (PEO) solutions having various molecular weights and concentrations, the steady flow viscosity has been measured with a Rheometrics Fluids Spectrometer (RFS II) over a wide range of shear rates. The effects of shear rate, concentration, and molecular weight on the steady shear flow properties were reported in detail from the experimentally measured data, and then the results were interpreted using the concept of a material characteristic time. In addition, some flow models describing the non-Newtonian behavior (shear-thinning characteristics) of polymeric liquids were employed to make a quantitative evaluation of the steady flow behavior, and the applicability of these models was examined by calculating the various material parameters. Main results obtained from this study can be summarized as follows: (1) At low shear rates, aqueous PEO solutions show a Newtonian viscous behavior which is independent of shear rate. At shear rate region higher than a critical shear rate, however, they exhibit a shear-thinning behavior, demonstrating a decrease in steady flow viscosity with increasing shear rate. (2) As an increase in concentration and/or molecular weight, the zero-shear viscosity is increased while the Newtonian viscous region becomes narrower. Moreover, the critical shear rate at which the transition from the Newtonian to shear-thinning behavior occurs is decreased, and the shear-thinning nature becomes more remarkable. (3) Aqueous PEO solutions show a Newtonian viscous behavior at shear rate range lower than the inverse value of a characteristic time $1/{\lambda}_E$, while they exhibit a shear-thinning behavior at shear rate range higher than $1/{\lambda}_E$. For aqueous PEO solutions having a broad molecular weight distribution, the inverse value of a characteristic time is not quantitatively equivalent to the critical shear rate, but the power-law relationship holds between the two quantities. (4) The Cross, Carreau, and Carreau-Yasuda models are all applicable to describe the steady flow behavior of aqueous PEO solutions. Among these models, the Carreau-Yasuda model has the best validity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.29-33
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• 2004

This paper presents ESPI system for the measurement of thermal expansion coefficient of STS430 up to 1,000$^{\circ}C$. Existing methods, strain gauge and moire have the limitation of contact to object and do not supply the coefficient up to 800$^{\circ}C$. There needs to measure the data up to 800$^{\circ}C$, because heat resistant materials have high melting temperature up to 1,000$^{\circ}C$. In previous studies related to thermal strain analysis, the quantitative results are not reported by ESPI at high temperature, yet. In-plane ESPI and vacuum chamber for the reduction of air turbulence and oxidation are designed for the measurement of the coefficient up to 1,000$^{\circ}C$and speckle correlation fringe pattern images are processed by commercial image filtering tool-smoothing, thinning and enhancement- to obtain quantitative results, which is compared with references data. The comparison shows two data are agreed within 4.1％ blow 600$^{\circ}C$ however, there is some difference up to 600$^{\circ}C$. Also, the incremental ratio of the coefficient is changed up to 800$^{\circ}C$. The reason is the phase transformation of STS430 probably begins at 800$^{\circ}C$.