The structural integrity of seam-welded fossil high-energy piping has remained a major safety and operations-maintenance issue for US utility companies. Several failures of seamwelded superheat and hot reheat piping segments have occurred since 1992, two of them catastrophic. Advanced methods of inspecting piping welds with ultrasonic testing (UT), such as time-of-flight diffraction and focused...

BACKGROUND Central dialysate fluid delivery systems (CDDS) are used by dialysis centers in Japan, and although these systems are effective at delivering dialysate, they have a complex piping network with numerous sites where contamination can develop. In Japan, cleaning disinfectants have been clinically evaluated based on endotoxin levels and bacterial counts, but there have been no published ...

In this paper, the transient refrigerant gas flow in a two-cylinder rolling piston type rotary compressor is simulated using STAR-CD, a general computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. Three models with different suction piping systems are calculated respectively, one is two suction pipes were connected from accumulator to each cylinder separately (separate suction piping system), the other...

[1] Land drainage is common in peatlands. Artificially drained blanket peat catchments have been shown to have a significantly greater soil pipe density than intact catchments. This paper investigates the role of surface land drains in the enhancement of soil piping in blanket peats. The density of piping was found to significantly increase in a linear fashion with the age of the drainage. Thir...

case that brought down South Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk early this year”. The Los Angeles Times editorial page bemoaned that, “Science took an unnecessary leap forward Wednesday,” by attempting to find a technological fix to address political and religious objections to stem-cell research. “It’s an impressive advance, but scientists — and society — would be better off if they cou...

This paper presents findings from shake table experiments on cable-braced and unbraced welded hospital piping systems. The research identifies the capacity characteristics of a hospital piping system with and without bracings as well as the system’s weak points. The system was tested to the ICBO AC156 acceptance criteria for nonstructural components. The input motion of 1g was amplified to almo...

Studies at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington, are being conducted to evaluate nondestructive examination (NDE) approaches for inspecting coarse-grained, austenitic stainless steel reactor components. The work provides information to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on the utility, effectiveness, limitations, and reliability of advanced...

Buried or inaccessible piping systems within Nuclear Power plants present a challenge in terms of overall inspection. Limited access and complex piping configurations restrict the type of indirect or direct NDE methodologies which can be applied by inspectors. Due to the complexity of buried and above-grade piping systems routed in and around these facilities, many plants have been forced to lo...

Topside piping is the single largest source of the hydrocarbon releases (HCRs) on the offshore oil and gas (OOG) platforms in the North Sea region. Consequently, if the leaked hydrocarbons from the process pipework are ignited, it may lead to a catastrophic event, thereby causing significant economic losses, environmental damage, and posing serious threat to the safety of the onboard personnel....