Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology

ISSN: 0022-3131 (Print) 1881-1248 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tnst20

Steam generator small bore piping socket weld

inspection using the phased array ultrasonic
technique

Byungsik Yoon, Yongsik Kim & Jeongseok Lee

To cite this article: Byungsik Yoon, Yongsik Kim & Jeongseok Lee (2014) Steam generator small
bore piping socket weld inspection using the phased array ultrasonic technique, Journal of
Nuclear Science and Technology, 51:2, 231-239, DOI: 10.1080/00223131.2014.855151

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2014.855151

Published online: 08 Nov 2013.

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Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 2014
Vol. 51, No. 2, 231–239, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2014.855151

TECHNICAL MATERIAL

Steam generator small bore piping socket weld inspection using the phased array
ultrasonic technique
Byungsik Yoon∗ , Yongsik Kim and Jeongseok Lee
KHNP Central Research Institute, NDE Technology Group, Yuseongdaero Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-343, Korea
(Received 24 June 2013; accepted final version for publication 6 October 2013)

As nuclear power plants age, the likelihood of failures in the small bore piping used in those plants caused
by exposure to mechanical vibrations during plant operations increases. While small bore piping failures
rarely cause plant shutdown, the management of small piping has been a keen area of interest since their
repair or maintenance requires a reactor trip. Steam generator (SG) drain pipe socket welds are small diam-
eter piping connections (nominal pipe schedule 3–4 inches) susceptible to mechanical vibration. SG drain
pipe socket weld failures have caused coolant leakage. Therefore, more reliable inspection technologies for
small bore piping need to be developed to detect problems at an early stage and prevent pipe failures. This
research aims to improve the reliability and accuracy of small bore piping inspections through the design,
manufacture and application of a new phased array ultrasonic testing technique and inspection system for
SG drain line socket welds.
Keywords: nuclear power plant; steam generator; ultrasonic testing; socket weld; phased array ultrasonic
testing; in-service inspection

1. Introduction ultrasonic testing for small bore piping socket welds,

Within the pressure boundary of a nuclear power
plant (NPP), there are 140–1500 small bore pipes in-
stalled for temperature or pressure sensing, draining or
sampling. These small bore pipes measure 2 inches or
less in external diameter and are mostly made of carbon
steel, stainless steel or Cr–Mo alloy materials. Socket
welding is used to branch out from the main line or
change the direction of the piping. Since these small
bore lines are susceptible to vibrations caused by nearby
pumps, high-cycle fatigue cracks are a common cause of
failure. Although the failure of small bore piping socket
welds has no impact on the safety of NPP operations,
it does add burden on the plant owner due to loss of
productivity and disruption of electricity supply caused
by the unplanned shutdown of the reactor for repair
purposes [1,2].
After a leakage was found on a steam generator (SG)
drain piping socket weld at Kori unit 3 in 2008, a com-
prehensive management program for small bore piping
socket welds in NPPs was established and volumetric
examination was added to the surface examination
already required by ASME Section XI for assessing the
integrity of small bore piping. Currently, Korean NPPs
carry out both conventional manual and automatic
but the reliability of the inspection is decreased because
there are limitations in terms of accessible areas [3,4].
To address the limited accessibility issue, an ad-
vanced phased array ultrasonic testing (PAUT) tech-
nology was attempted for the inspection of SG small
bore drain piping socket welds. In particular, a new
PAUT transducer and a manual-encoded scanner were
designed and manufactured for use in the inspection of
the small bore piping socket welds of the SG drain line.
The PAUT probe was tested on flawed specimens with
fabricated fatigue cracks to determine its defect detec-
tion capability based on which a more reliable inspec-
tion technique for small bore piping socket welds could
be developed.
2. Development of the inspection technique
2.1. Phased array ultrasonic testing
While conventional ultrasonic testing examines the
test piece using a fixed-angle beam with one piezoelectric
element, phased array ultrasonic technology uses multi-
ple piezoelectric elements and modulates the time delay
of the pulses applied to each element, thus electronically
controlling the characteristics of the ultrasonic beams.

∗
Corresponding author. Email: bsyoon@khnp.co.kr


C 2013 Atomic Energy Society of Japan. All rights reserved.
232 B. Yoon et al.
In phased array ultrasonic technology, each of the
piezoelectric elements is excitedby an electrical pulse in
a time-delayed manner for phase control, and the sound
waves emanated from the piezoelectric elements are al-
lowed to interfere or interact with one another before
focusing on a certain direction or depth. The ultrasonic
beam incidents reflected by a defect or a reflector are
received at each piezoelectric element, and the received
signals are time shifted (in-phased) considering the time
delay applied to the respective transducer element when
transmitting the waves before being summed together
[5]. Figure 1 shows an example of beams generated at
different angles in PAUT.
2.2. Small bore piping socket weld
A socket weld is used to branch out small bore piping
or connect it to the main pipeline. As these thin pipes are
susceptible to vibration from nearby pumps, high-cycle
fatigue cracks are the most frequently observed failure
mechanism of the pipes. ASME Section III 4542.9-1
(2010 edition) describes the socket welding of small bore
piping with nominal pipe schedule of 2 inches or smaller.
The code requires a 1.5-mm gap on socket welding, but
there is no requirement for verifying the gap after weld-
ing work. Figure 2 shows the configuration of the socket
weld defined in the ASME code.
2.3. Design of phased array ultrasonic transducer
To design a phased array ultrasonic transducer for
socket weld inspections, various design parameters were
Figure 1. Phased array ultrasonic technology generating multi-angle ultrasonic.
considered. The intention of this research was to develop
an ultrasonic phased array transducer with an array of
16 piezoelectric elements for use in inspecting the socket
welds of stainless steel small bore piping. The operating
frequency of the transducer was decided at 3.5 MHz,
which is widely considered the appropriate frequency
level for stainless steel inspection in general. After de-
termining the number of piezoelectric elements and the
frequency of the transducer, the most important variable
in determining the characteristics of the phased array
ultrasonic transducer was the element pitch, i.e. the dis-
tance between the centers of two adjacent elements [6,7].
Caution was exercised in deciding the pitch size since
it determines whether the wave interference effect gives
rise to side lobes or grating lobes. Ultrasonic modeling
was performed on the ultrasound beams coming from
the piezoelectric elements at varying pitch sizes to deter-
mine an appropriate element pitch size. CIVA of CEA,
a French firm, was used for modeling and the Kirchhoff
approximation solution was applied. With the designed
shear wave phased array ultrasonic transducer maintain-
ing direct contact with the stainless steel test body, shear
waves were created from the test material at angles be-
tween 0◦ and 80◦ , and the sound field around the main
beam was mapped. Figure 3 shows the calculated ultra-
sound field modeling results at a 0.4-mm pitch and at
beam refraction angles of 45◦ and 80◦ .
The modeling results showed no side lobes or grating
lobes other than the main beam that could affect the in-
spection, confirming the validity of the selected design
parameter values of the phased array ultrasonic trans-
ducer. Table 1 shows the design specifications for the
 Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, Volume 51, No. 2, February 2014
Figure 2. Socket weld configuration (ASME Section III 4542.9-1).
ultrasonic transducer and wedge determined based on
the modeling results.
These design specifications verified through model-
ing were used to manufacture the ultrasonic transducer.
Figure 4 shows the phased array ultrasonic transducer
and wedge manufactured in this research.
2.4. Manually operated ring-type encoded
scanner
Since the socket weld area of a drain pipe at the
bottom of a SG is very thin and the space around the
weld extremely narrow, it is difficult for the inspector to
keep the ultrasonic transducer in steady contact with the
piping while scanning and verifying the reflected signals,
without reducing the reliability of the inspection. This
research addresses such inspection difficulties through
the development of a manually operated ring-type
encoded scanner that enables firm contact between
the probe and the small bore piping under inspection.
Figure 5 shows the three-dimensional design ge-
ometry as well as the manufactured manual
scanner.
233
3. Experimental specimen and system
3.1. Flawed specimen
Experimental specimens of SG drain line socket weld
pipes with fabricated flaws were introduced into the re-
search in order to develop a more reliable inspection
technique. Fatigue crack specimens were made of 304
stainless steel materials and one end of their piping was
welded with a coupler and the other with a valve. Con-
sidering the required leg length of the welds, two spec-
imens were developed with weld leg length ratios of
1:1 and 1:2, respectively. Figure 6 shows manufactured
flawed specimen of SG drain line socket weld.
The most frequent types of flaws found on socket
welds were introduced to the experimental specimens.
Specifically, each specimen had six fabricated flaws:
three flaws on the piping side of the weld and three on the
valve side. Flaw types included fatigue crack initiated at
the triple point where the base metal, coupler and weld
materials meet; horizontal lack of fusion (HLOF) grow-
ing at the boundary between the base and weld materi-
als and vertical lack of fusion (VLOF) caused by poor
adhesion of the weld bead to the coupler material. The
details of such flaws are shown in Table 2.
234 B. Yoon et al.

Figure 4. Phased array ultrasonic transducer and wedge for

SG small bore piping socket weld inspection.

Figure 3. Ultrasonic sound field modeling results at (a) 45◦

and (b) 80◦ refraction angles at a 0.4-mm pitch.

3.2. Experimental system

The phased array ultrasonic system used in this re-
search was ZETEC’s Omniscan, a portable, 16-channel
device easily carried to field inspections. The acquired
signals from the Omniscan were stored in a lap-
top via transmission control protocol/internet protocol

Table 1. Phased array probe and wedge specifications.

Item Parameter Design value

Probe Frequency 3.5 MHz

Number of elements in primary axis 16
Primary axis pitch 0.4 mm
Inter-element spacing 0.05 mm
Element width 7.0 mm
Total active length 9.5 mm

Wedge Wedge angle 35◦

Wedge length 18 mm
Wedge width 11 mm
Sound velocity 2337 m/s
Contour 12.7 mm Figure 5. Manually operated ring-type encoded scanner for
the small bore socket weld piping of steam generators.
 Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, Volume 51, No. 2, February 2014
Figure 6. Manufactured flawed specimen of SG drain line socket weld.
connection, and Ultravision version 1.1Q6 was used to
evaluate the stored signals. The configuration of the ex-
perimental system is shown in Figure 7.
First, the newly developed scanner was attached to
a flawed specimen and the reference point was estab-
lished. The scanner was then rotated circumferentially
a full 360◦ to acquire and evaluate reflected signals. The
setting parameters of the phased array ultrasonic system
used in the experiment are shown in Table 3. After input
of the setting parameters for the probe operation, ultra-
sound beams were generated at multiple angles ranging
from 35◦ to 80◦ .
4. Experimental results
Flaw detection experiments were performed on the
socket weld specimens embedded with fatigue cracks
and LOF defects using the new inspection system
235
designed in this research. For the socket weld specimens
with fatigue cracks, signal acquisition was made on both
the coupler and valve sides with the scanner attached
to the pipe side since the valve body is made of cast
stainless steel making probe contact more difficult. The
signals from the valve side of the flawed weld specimens
with leg length ratio of 1:1 are shown in Figure 8. The
signal display is divided by four panes. The upper left is
C-scan (top view), upper right is A-scan and lower left
is 90◦ skew-applied B-scan (side view). These signals are
all dependent S-scan (sectorial view) which is located on
lower right side of window. If the data cursor of S-scan
is moved to specific refracted angle, all the signals show
the specific refracted angle.
As shown in the figure, three flaws including the LOF
and fatigue cracks were detected at around 63.5◦ among
the refraction angles ranging from 35◦ to 80◦ . After-
wards, the lengths of the detected flaws were measured
236 B. Yoon et al.

Table 2. Flaws introduced to specimens (unit: mm). from the B-scan image. In this experiment, the length
sizing is performed by 12 dB drop method. Flaw depths
Flaw size
could not be measured because the crack tip signal was
No. Orientation Flaw type Length Depth unidentifiable from the acquired data.
As shown in Figure 8, Flaw #6 is a fatigue-induced
1 Circ. Crack 7.06 3.53
crack which was initiated at the triple point and grew to-
2 Circ. Crack 8.26 2.41
3 Circ. VLOF 6.38 4.52 wards the inner diameter of the piping. Since the fatigue
4 Circ. Crack 6.20 2.13 crack was growing vertical to the direction of the trav-
5 Circ. HLOF 5.16 6.17 eling sound waves, the signal amplitude was relatively
6 Circ. Crack 6.73 3.78 high.
7 Circ. Crack 6.27 3.35
The experimental result of the flawed specimen with
8 Circ. HLOF 8.08 6.91
9 Circ. Crack 4.83 2.01 a weld leg length ratio of 1:2 is shown in Figure 9. As
10 Circ. Crack 6.96 6.53 shown in the figure, one LOF and two fatigue cracks
11 Circ. VLOF 6.15 4.50 were detected and the length of those flaws measured
12 Circ. Crack 7.06 3.45 from B-scan signals.
Table 4 shows the sizing results of the 12 flaws in-
serted and detected on the specimens. The root mean
square error (RMSE) of all the flaws was 1.1 mm. The

Table 3. Phased array system parameters for experimental.

Parameter Setting value

Gain 40 dB
Digitizing frequency 50 MHz
Inspection mode Pulse-echo
Steering angle 35◦ –80◦
Figure 7. Experimental configuration of the phased array Angle resolution 1◦
ultrasonic system. Voltage 80 V

Figure 8. Signals from the valve side weld of flawed specimens with 1:1 leg length ratio.
 Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, Volume 51, No. 2, February 2014 237

Figure 9. Valve side weld signal of flawed specimens with 1:2 leg length ratio.

length measurements revealed that deviations are more 5. Field application

prone to shallow height flaws that grow in the same di-
rection as the ultrasound wave propagation. Specially,
the crack no. 7 which propagates to coupler material side
shows a large deviation because the ultrasonic beam is
parallel to the crack orientation.
The inspection system developed in this research is
applied for flaw detection in the drain piping of actual
SGs “A,” “B,” and “C” installed at an NPP. The inspec-
tion system composed of an encoded ring scanner fitted
with a phased array ultrasonic transducer was attached

Figure 10. SG drain pipe socket weld inspection.

238 B. Yoon et al.

Figure 11. SG “A” drain line valve socket weld inspection result.

Table 4. Flaw length sizing results of flawed specimens (unit: As PAUT enables inspections with multiple ultra-
mm). sonic signals at multiple steering angles, the number of
No. Type Actual Measured Deviation signal modes for analysis is high. Figure 11 shows the
inspection results of the SG “A” drain line socket weld
1 Crack 7.06 8.00 0.94 joint. The figure shows a range of signals to be evaluated.
2 Crack 8.26 8.50 0.24 The S-scan signals on the bottom right of the screen
3 VLOF 6.38 5.50 −0.88
4 Crack 6.20 7.50 1.30 show the entire range of inspection angles from 35◦ to
5 HLOF 5.16 6.50 1.34 80◦ . The top and bottom left signals represent C-scan
6 Crack 6.73 7.50 0.77 and B-scan signals for a specific angle selected from the
7 Crack 6.27 8.50 2.23 S-scan. When the inspector selects a certain location on
8 HLOF 8.08 9.00 0.92 the B-scan or C-scan, the corresponding signal is dis-
9 Crack 4.83 4.50 −0.33
10 Crack 6.96 5.50 −1.46 played on the A-scan screen.
11 VLOF 6.15 7.00 0.85 As with the case shown in Figure 9, a triple point sig-
12 Crack 7.06 7.00 −0.06 nal (TPS) was identified on the B-scan. Though SG “A”
had a history of weld leak repairs, no abnormal signals
existed to indicate any flaw around the TPS. Inspections
were also conducted on the SG “B” and “C” socket weld
to the drain line socket weld piping of a SG. Figure 10 connections and as both were found free of cracks or
shows how the scanner with a phased array ultrasonic weld flaws they were determined sound.
transducer was attached to the SG drain pipe. With the
scanner thus attached, the inspector moved the ring
scanner circumferentially a full 360◦ and the phased
array ultrasonic inspection system collected and saved 6. Conclusion
the reflected signals coming from the pipe. At this point, This research aimed to increase the reliability of
the small encoder mounted in the inspection system pro- inspections of the drain line socket welds of SGs at
vided the specific circumferential locations correspond- NPPs through the design and manufacture of a 3.5-MHz
ing to the sound wave signals picked up by the inspection phased array ultrasonic transducer that composed of
system. Each received ultrasound signal identified with 16 piezoelectric elements that can create multiple ultra-
an encoder location was then saved in the system. sonic beams at multiple angles ranging from 35◦ to 80◦ .
 Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, Volume 51, No. 2, February 2014
Also developed was a manual operating scanner fitted
with the aforementioned phased array ultrasonic trans-
ducer and an encoder that provided location signals as
the scanner moved circumferentially around the small
bore piping while maintaining good contact with the test
piece.
Experimental testing was carried out using the
developed phased array ultrasonic probe and a manu-
ally operated ring-type encoded scanner on specimens
with embedded flaws such as fatigue cracks. All the
12 inserted defects were detected and the accuracy of
flaw length measurement was verified, confirming sat-
isfactory performance of the new system for inspecting
small bore piping socket weld connections. This phased
array ultrasonic inspection system was then applied for
inspecting real SG drain line socket welds at an NPP
in Korea to confirm its applicability in field conditions.
Compared to the conventional automatic ultrasonic
testing methodology, the new phased array ultrasonic
inspection system completed the inspection in one pass
rotation, significantly reducing the inspection time.
In addition, the new phased array inspection system
was able to acquire multiple data at one inspection.
In conclusion, the application of the PAUT inspection
system developed in this research for use in inspecting
SG drain line socket welds at NPPs not only saves time
239
and reduces the dose rate during inspections, but also
enables greater reliability and accuracy in the inspection
of small bore socket weld joints.
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