l-H7~ Specimn

SICE-ICASE International Joint Conference 2006

Oct. 18-2 1, 2006 in Bexco, Busan, Korea
Pipe Corrosion Analysis by Time-Frequency Distribution
and Ridge Pattern
Gee-Yong Park1, Cheol-Kwon Lee2, Jung-Taek Kim2, and Kee-Choon Kwon2
Advanced Reactor Technology Development, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon, Korea
(Tel: +82-42-868-4653; E-mail: gyparkgkaeri.re.kr)
2
I&C and Human Factor Division, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daej eon, Korea
(Tel: +81-42-868- 1 8657/2404/2926}; E-mail: {ckleel, jtkim, kckwon} gkaeri.re.kr)
Abstract: A time-frequency analysis (TFA) is applied to the analysis of the vibration signals from a pipe where some
chemical corrosion is likely to occur by an acidic material being mixed in the coolant of nuclear power plants. The
spalling out of internal material pieces by the so-called flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) is expected to change the
structural vibration of a local point in the pipe, but this effect is too tiny to be recognized in the result of the Fourier
transform. From the analysis by TFA, it is identified that the TFA can provide important information such as the
amplitude fluctuations in the instantaneous frequency of each characteristic frequency. The analysis results show that
the peak or ridge pattern of the TFA varied according to the status of the chemical corrosion within the pipe.
Keywords: Time-Frequency Analysis, Cone-Kernel Distribution, Peak Pattern, Pipe Corrosion.

1. INTRODUCTION two pumps: One is a charging pump for increasing and

maintaining the operational pressure and the other is a
The nuclear power plant (NPP) consists of circulating pump which regulates the flow rate of the
sophisticated piping systems operating in very water. Both pumps are connected to the pipe via a
aggressive erosion and corrosion environments which flexible hose in order to minimize the effects of pump
make a piping system vulnerable to a wear and actuations.
degradation. Since the accident of a tube rupture of
Mihama NPP occurred, a monitoring of the piping
system has become important for safe and economic
Drain
operations of the existing and aged NPPs. ER PTD |t m

In spite of this fact, there is no practical way to

monitor the integrity of the internal local surface of a ~~~~~REP
pipe where some chemical corrosion is likely to occur
by an adim rl mixed in the coolant of M-1.4r;1 D4 _ A Irr

nuclear power plants except for an intermittent

inspection by an ultrasonic transmitter. In this study, we
measured the vibration signals from a pipe by using an
accelerometer because the accelerometer is convenient
to install and strong against harsh environments. The (a) Schematic of he test loop.
cause of using the vibration signals is that the spalling
out of internal material pieces by corrosion is expected
to change the structural vibration of a local point in the
pipe. From this expectation, the Fourier transform (FT)
was applied to identify a characteristic change of the
vibration signals according to the progression of a
chemical corrosion in the pipe. In this paper, the result
of the spectral analysis is described and, in order to
obtain a promising result, the TFA is applied and its
result is presented.
2. DATA ACQUISITION FROM
EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY (b) Test loop for FAC.
Fig. 1 Experimental facility of the FAC.
The data to be analyzed was acquired from a pipe
corrosion experiment loop which is a mock-up of a The elbow pipe and U-shaped pipe were chosen as
moisture separator and re-heater (MSR) drains in a NPP test specimens to maximize the effect of the FAC.
secondary side where flow-accelerated corrosions are Before the installation of sensors, the configuration of
likely to occur. Fig. 1 shows the experimental facility for the pipe and specimens was modeled by a finite element
the test loop to induce a FAC by a chemical reaction. method (FEM) and analyzed to identify the vibration
The operating temperature (150°C) and pressure (20 behavior of the piping system and CFD (Computational
bar) are similar to the real plant condition. There are Fluid Dynamic) models were used to predict the

89-950038-5-5 98560/06/$10 © 2006 ICASE

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characteristics of the flow within the piping elbow. The
flow characteristics are important for estimating the
amount of corrosion expected to occur. Fig.2 shows the
result of the CFD analysis for an elbow specimen.
Fig.2 CFD analyses of piping elbow
From the analysis results as shown in Fig.2, a
three-axis accelerometer was installed on the surface at
the middle of the outer arc for an elbow specimen and at
the middle of the half circle for an U-tube specimen,
with the decision of using the accelerometer to detect
the vibration on the pipe. The signals were acquired by
a data acquisition system with a sampling rate of 20
KHz. The vibration signal acquired from an elbow is
used for a signal analysis in this paper.
3. ANALYSIS OF FAC
3.1 Frequency analysis
The data acquired from the experimental test loop
was analyzed first by several conventional analysis
techniques such as an FT, an auto regressive method,
and so forth. Fig.3 shows the results of the FT, where
the spectrum in Fig.3(a) corresponds to the normal state,
Fig.3(b) is for the medium state (1-2 mm wear) of the
FAC, and Fig3.(c) is the case of the severe state (3-5
mm wear).
From the results of Fig.3, it was found that the
amplitude of characteristic frequencies at 0.5, 1.5, and
2.7 kHz varied proportionally to the corrosion progress.
And also the location of those characteristic frequencies
changed slightly according to the corrosion state within
the pipe. But both changes were too tiny to be used for a
identification of the degree of a wear and degradation
on the pipe.
atNoJU1 11tatedL
ai
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(h) Mvecii-iim Sitate ot- FA(
(c) Severe State of FAC
Fig.3 Results of frequency analysis.
3.2 Time-frequency analysis
In order to identify efficiently the occurrence of
corrosions and their status within a pipe, a time-
frequency method was applied. The time-frequency
analysis based on a time-frequency distribution (TFD) is
effective for the analysis of time-varying and transient
signals, which represent the intensity of energy for a
signal in the time-frequency domain. However they also
represent the cross-terms (interferences) which obscure
the true energy distribution over both the time and the
frequency dmis
For reducing the interference effects for a meaningful
interpretation, various TFDs were configured and tested,
including a data adaptive TFD devised by Lee [1]. From
the validation tests for various TFDs, the cone-kernel
distribution (CKD) [2] was identified to be one of the
best methods to present a time-frequency representation
by highly reducing the cross-terms, though some useful
properties such as the instantaneous frequency or the
instantaneous power density are sacrificed. While the
data adaptive TFD [1] usually showed a better
performance than the CKD for the transient signal
analysis, both methods showed a similar performance
for the vibration signal from the pipe corrosion. Hence,
in this paper, the cone-kernel distribution (CKD) is
selected to analyze the corrosion data.
The design of the CKD originated from the idea that a
kernel should satisfy the time support and also enhance
the frequency resolution by paying a penalty to the
neighbors of the true signal frequencies by the use of a
so-called lateral inhibition [2]. A form of the general
class of the TFD [3] can be presented such as
Cx(t, f; O)fI f(t - u, )x(u + 2)x * (u - ")e- 2ftdudT,
(1)
where the cone kernel + in the t-r domain in Eq.(1) is
represented as
n( , bra
O.W.
In Eq.(2), the cone boundary parameter, a, adjusts the
slopes of the cone and has a value of 2 < a < oc. It is
usually set to 2 according to the finite support property
[4]. The function g(Q) in Eq.(2) is usually represented by
the Gaussian function.
For an implementation on a digital computer, the
algorithm requires a discrete form of Eq.(1) with Eq.(2).
The discrete form of the CKD is represented by
T
C, (n, f; CKD) = k=-T
Eg(k) E
p=- kl
lkl
x(n + p + k)x * (n + p k)e-j2,lk

In Eq.(3), the frequency variable f is not discretized

but it can be done appropriately by the data number of
the Fourier transform at the time of an implementation.
And a scaling factor 2, resulting from the conversion
procedure into the discrete form, is discarded for a
simplicity. The summaT innEoundary value T mq.(3)
represents the length of a so-called window-like
function g(k) and in this paper it is called a cone length.
-

(3)

for a signal
t;~ ~ .
(c SvrCoosion. State

DA-

Fig.3 The TFD results by CKD.

ba_ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~. . . . .
3000~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.............

As can be seen in Fig.3, the frequency components

spread over time axis and any
S

transient behavior can hardly be seen in all the corrosion

iiip6im ii....
.....

By the cone length, T, the resolutions of the time and conditions. Instead, the characteristic frequency patterns
frequency domains can be traded off for the CKD. are arranged along the time axis. From the results in
The time-frequency results by the CKD are depicted Fig.3, even though each TFD for the corresponding
in Fig.3 for the acquired corrosion data. Fig.3(a) three corrosion states reveals a little bit different
represents a typical TFD result for the signal from the information, it is very difficult to interpret in a unique
normal condition of the pipe. Fig.3(b) and Fig3(c) show and systematic way.
the TFDs for the medium and severe corrosion
conditions, respectively. In performing the CKD, the 4. TIME-FREQUENCY RIDGE PATTERN
cone length T is given by 60 samples.
The TFD results from the CKD could not .provide
clear information of the corrosion status but one method
for relating the TFD results to a certain corresponding
corrosion state was found.
The peak or ridge patterns from the CKD
representations can show the corresponding behavior
according to the corrosion status when the time axis is
extended to a larger horizon.
The peak pattern is obtained by cutting out the lower
logarithmic values of the TFD result than a threshold
value, and thereby the logarithmic values larger than a
I.., given threshold remains and the other lower logarithmic
values are set to zero.
DaSt fup1] Fig.4 represents, for each three FAC status, the
(a) Normal State behavior of the peak patterns along the data block with
the data-index horizon of, in this case, 4096 samples.
The threshold value in obtaining the results in Fig.4 is
given to 1.5. In Fig.4, only some ridge pattern blocks
(i.e., 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 7th blocks) are displayed among the
total of sixteen data blocks and the remaining TFD
blocks show similar ridge patterns to Fig.4.
From this analysis, the ridge pattern of the CKD can
be indicative of a corrosion progress in the pipe and it is
being researched to see if a quantifiable index can be
drawn from these patterns.
8:c. ce
b
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(b) Medium Corrosion State

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~~~~ 4000 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~4000

2000 2000
| ZOt~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~C In cm ZO 1M C3
I

0>;00

Dat SAM0ol Daa Sample Da Sa Iiple Dt Simple6

10000 10000

2000 2000

00
0 ~~~
~
~C~~~~~
~~~ V
V~C3 V_ V V V
VM V
VM

tA;San o
o Rt an opl Daa S p Datai San Ople
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(a) Normal State of Pipe(l, 3, 6, 7 Blocks) (c) Severe State of FAG (1, 3, 6, 7 Blocks)
10000 Fig .4. Ridge patterns of TFD for FAG status.
0000 C
~~~~~~~~REFERENCES
OOG
CO G~ G 0; 40 q Q 03,

[1] C. K. Lee, Design of a time-frequency distribution

4000 Sa,P]for monitoring the abnormal conditions of
machinery in the nuclear power plant. Ph.D.
2000 Dissertation, Dep. of Electronics Engineering,
Graduate School, Chungnam National Univ., 2006.
0
~~~~~~~~~[2]
Y.Zhao, L. E.Atlas, and R.J. Marksl1, "The
(a) NormalState of Pipe(1, 3, 6, BlocksUse of Cone-Shaped Kernels for Generalized
W

WOt Sannple Dab Safiokpl Time- Frequency Representations of

IB-DOO Nonstationary Signals", IEEE Trans. on
8000
Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing,
Vol.3 8, No.7, pp.1084 1091, 1990.
[3] L. Cohen, Time-Frequency Analysis, Prentice-Hall,
USA, 1995.
[4] T. A. C. M. Claasen and W. F. G. Meckleubrauker,
2000 ~~~~~~~~~~~"The
Wigner Distribution- A Tool for Time-
Frequency Signal Analysis; Part III-Relations with
o Other T me-Frequency Signal Transfrms", Ph.iips
g J ofResearch,Vol.35, No.6, pp.372 389, 1980.
DRt SAillPe WOu SMin pie
(b) Medium State of FAC (1, 3, 6, 7 Blocks)

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