• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.11
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• pp.1934-1941
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• 2006

As the operating time of heat exchangers progresses, fouling caused by water-borne deposits and the number of plugged tubes increase and thermal performance decreases. Both fouling and tube plugging are known to interfere with normal flow characteristics and to reduce thermal efficiencies of heat exchangers. The heat exchangers of Korean nuclear power plants have been analyzed in terms of heat transfer rate and overall heat transfer coefficient as a means of heat exchanger management. Except for fouling resulting from the operation of heat exchangers, all the tubes of heat exchangers have been replaced when the number of plugged tubes exceeded the plugging criteria based on design performance sheet. This paper describes a plugging margin evaluation method taking into account the fouling of shell-and-tube heat exchangers. The method can evaluate thermal performance, estimate future fouling variation, and consider current fouling level in the calculation of plugging margin. To identify the effectiveness of the developed method, fouling and plugging margin evaluations were performed at a component cooling heat exchanger in a Korean nuclear power plant.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.1384-1389
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• 2004

As operating time of heat exchangers progresses, fouling generated by water-borne deposits and the number of plugged tubes increase and thermal performance decreases. Both fouling and tube plugging are known to interfere with normal flow characteristics and to reduce thermal efficiencies of heat exchangers. The heat exchangers of domestic nuclear power plants have been analyzed in terms of the heat flux and heat transfer coefficient at test conditions as a means of heat exchanger management. Except for the fouling level generated in operation of heat exchangers, also, all of the tubes of heat exchangers have been replaced when the number of plugged tubes exceeds the plugging criteria based on design performance sheet. This paper describes the plugging margin evaluation mettled reflected the fouling of shell-and-tube heat exchangers, which can evaluate the thermal performance for heat exchangers, estimate the future fouling variations, and reflect the current fouling level. To identify the effectiveness of the developed method, the fouling and plugging margin evaluations were performed for a component cooling heat exchanger in a nuclear power plant.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.674-679
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• 1998

Small water leak experiment was carried out in liquid sodium atmosphere using a specimen of ferrite steel, which will be expected to be a material of the heat transfer tube of liquid metal fast breeder reactor. Self-plugging phenomena of leak path could be explained by the products of reaction and corrosion by sodium-water reaction. Also, re-opening mechanism of self-plugged path could be explained by the thermal transient and vibration of heat transfer tube. As a result, perfect re-opening time of self-plugged leak path was observed to be 129 minutes after water leak initiation. Re-opening shape of a specimen was appeared with double layer of circular type, and re-opening size of this specimen surface was about 2 mm diameter on sodium side.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.357-369
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• 2020

Different from the conventional planar fracture and simplified Newton model, for power-law slurries with a lower water-cement ratio commonly used in grouting engineering, flow model in geological rough fractures is built based on ten standard profiles from Barton (1977) in this study. The numerical algorithm is validated by experimental results. The flow mechanism, grout superiority, and water plugging of pseudo plastic slurry are revealed. The representations of hydraulic grouting properties for JRCs are obtained. The results show that effective plugging is based on the mechanical mechanisms of the fluctuant structural surface and higher viscosity at the middle of the fissure. The formulas of grouting parameters are always variable with the roughness and shear movement, which play a key role in grouting. The roughness can only be neglected after reaching a threshold. Grouting pressure increases with increasing roughness and has variable responses for different apertures within standard profiles. The whole process can be divided into three stationary zones and three transition zones, and there is a mutation region (10 < JRCs < 14) in smaller geological fractures. The fitting equations of different JRCs are obtained of power-law models satisfying the condition of -2 < coefficient < 0. The effects of small apertures and moderate to larger roughness (JRCs > 10.8) on the permeability of surfaces cannot be underestimated. The determination of grouting parameters depends on the slurry groutability in terms of its weakest link with discontinuous streamlines. For grouting water plugging, the water-cement ratio, grouting pressure and grouting additives should be determined by combining the flow conditions and the apparent widths of the main fracture and rough surface. This study provides a calculation method of grouting parameters for variable cement-based slurries. And the findings can help for better understanding of fluid flow and diffusion in geological fractures.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.55-60
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• 2003

As operating time of heat exchangers progresses, fouling generated by water-borne deposits increases and thermal performance decreases. The fouling is known to interfere with normal flow characteristics and reduce thermal efficiencies of heat exchangers. The heat exchangers of nuclear power plants have been analyzed in terms of the heat flux and heat transfer coefficient at test conditions based on the ASME OM-S/G-Part 2 as a means of heat exchanger management. It is hard to estimate the heat performance trend and to establish the future management plan. This paper describes the fouling evaluation method which can evaluate the thermal performance for heat exchangers and estimate the future fouling variations and the plugging margin evaluation method which can reflect the current fouling level developed in this study. To develop the fouling and plugging margin evaluation methods for heat exchangers, fouling factor was introduced based on the ASME O&M codes and TEMA standards. For the purpose of verifying the two evaluation methods, the fouling and plugging margin evaluations were performed for a component cooling heat exchanger in a nuclear power plant.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.1230-1237
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• 2009

The selective plugging strategy of Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR) involves the use of microbes that grow and produce exopolymeric substances, which block the high permeability zones of an oil reservoir, thus allowing the water to flow through the low permeability zones leading to increase in oil recovery. Bacillus licheniformis TT33, a hot water spring isolate, is facultatively anaerobic, halotolerant, and thermotolerant. It produces EPS as well as biosurfactant and has a biofilm-forming ability. The viscosity of its cell-free supernatant is $120\;mPa{\cdot}s$ at $28^{\circ}C$. Its purified EPS contained 26% carbohydrate and 3% protein. Its biosurfactant reduced the surface tension of water from 72 to 34 mN/m. This strain gave $27.7{\pm}3.5%$ oil recovery in a sand pack column. Environmental scanning electron microscopy analysis showed bacterial growth and biofilm formation in the sand pack. Biochemical tests and Amplified Ribosomal DNA Restriction Analysis confirmed that the oil recovery obtained in the sand pack column was due to Bacillus licheniformis TT33.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.366-372
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• 2001

The ice plugging process consists of placing liquid nitrogen around a pipe and removing heat until the water in the pipe freezes and provides a solid plug or seal against fluid movement. This technique enables us to repair or inspect a pipe system without shutdown of entire system. A set of test apparatus for investigation of the liquid freezing phenomena during ice plugging is prepared. This study shows the characteristics of the liquid freezing and the heat transfer with various pipe and freezing jacket conditions. And in case there is flow of the fluid inside the pipe, the flow rate which can be able to form the ice plug is identified with the effect of the pipe diameter and freezing jacket length on the plug formation. The permissible maximum flow rate for the complete plug formation is approximately proportional to the freezing jacket length at the same pipe diameter condition.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2002.11b
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• pp.921-926
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• 2002

In this study, we investigate the plugging effect on the CE type steam generator tube. The natural frequency and mode shape will be changed due to decrease of the effective mass distribution along the tube. We compared the variation of stability ratio for plugged tube with that for unplugged one. The natural frequency increased because of removing the cooling water inside the steam generator tube, but the stability ratio decreased inversely because of changing the vibrational model shape. We also investigated the turbulent excitation effect.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.390.1-390
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• 2002

In this study, we investigate the plugging effect on the CE type steam generator tube. The natural frequency and mode shape will be changed due to decrease of the effective mass distribution along the tube. We compared the variation of stability ratio for plugged tube with that fur unplugged one. The natural frequency increased because of removing the cooling water inside the steam generator tube, but the stability ratio decreased inversely because of changing the vibrational mode shape. We also investigated the turbulent excitation effect.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.351-360
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• 2003

This study was carried out to settle the plugging problem which occurs frequently when agricultural wettable powder is used in pest control work using the crushing and the dispersing effects caused by irradiation of ultrasonic wave. Sonication was applied to the wettable powder suspension in a beaker for 30 seconds using a 28 kHz, 200 W PZT BLT, and the image of suspension before and after sonication was observed using a microscope and a SEM. The image of tow commercial wettable powder suspensions in water observed using an optics microscope showed that the agglomerated particles were irregularly distributed over the whole observed region when stirred mechanically, while showing more uniform distribution composed of comparatively single particles in the whole observed region after sonication. Concerning the above, the projected areas of particles in the four suspensions after sonication were decreased distinctively in the observed range of the microscope and the atomization of crystals was much developed. Over the measured range of 5.6∼4,157 ${\mu}$m particle size, the overall projected area of particles was decreased to 58.3∼89.6% on the average after sonication. When the SEM images of sonicated wettable powder suspensions dissolved in water and CH$_3$OH were compared to the suspensions before sonication, such phenomena as the atomization of particles, the expansion of voids between particles, the reduction and the decrease of agglomerated particle groups, and the progress of crack developments on the surface of flake-shaped particles were observed. It seemed possible that the plugging problem that occurs frequently in pest control machine when using wettable powder would be settled by the use of sonication.