A Study of the Detection for Underclad Cracks of Nuclear Pressure Vessel

원자력 압력용기의 피복하부 결함검출에 대한 고찰

It has not been performed to inspect the underclad cracking in Korea nuclear plant since there is no Code Requirements for inspection. However, underclad cracks in nuclear pressure vessels were reported firstly in 1970. The objection of this study is to be established the ultrasonic inspection techniques for underclad cracking. The ultrasonic inspection of bimetalic stainless steel weld is very difficult by high attenuation and multiple scattering at weld surface and weld/base metal interface. The various inspection methods using $70^{\circ}$ refracted longitudinal wave, 50/70 tandem transducer, $45^{\circ}\;and\;60^{\circ}$ single shear wave are compared. Experiments on limited specimens applied same condition to nuclear pressure vessels shows that $70^{\circ}$ refracted longitudinal wave method is the best one for the detection of underclad cracks. 50/70 tandem transducer using SPOT(Satellite Pulse Observation Technique) is more effective for underclad crack sizing than other sizing methods.