| ABSTRACT: | THE STATUS OF PERFORMANCE DEMONSTRATION IN TAIWAN
H. F. Shyu
Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, Lungtan, Taiwan, ROC.
The nuclear authority in Taiwan adopts the ASME Code Section XI, Appendix VIII as a mandatory
requirement for the in-service inspection of importance nuclear components. To fulfill this requirement, the
ultrasonic testing (UT) Level II of Taipower have to go abroad for the qualification of performance
demonstration (PD) hosted by the EPRI, USA. It is time consuming and costs much money. In order to set
up domestic PD capability, this project planned and purchased test pieces, prepared qualification procedures
and arranged examination site. A prototype PD system for manual carbon steel piping weld and stainless
steel piping weld UT has been established from 2002. Until August 2003, four times of the PD qualification
has been held. Seven of the twelve examinees were qualified. The next PD item, planned by this project,
will be the UT of dissimilar metal piping weld. Besides UT, some eddy current testing (ET) specimens for
steam generator tubing examination have also been prepared by a loop in our material laboratory.
Longitudinal and circumferential stress corrosion cracks (SCCs) were created on outside surface of Inconel
600TT tubes. With the help of these natural SCCs, the accuracy of crack depth evaluated by ET was
improved. Some tubes with SCCs were built within a Taipower’s steam generator mock-up for ET training
at the moment. More tubes with outside and inside SCCs will be added in for PD in the near future.
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