Int. J. Pres. Ves. & Piping 10 (1982) 399~.

06

EVALUATION OF INDUCTION HEATING STRESS

IMPROVEMENT (IHSI) TREATMENT APPLIED TO
NUCLEAR PRIMARY PIPING*

Y. ANDO & G . YAGAWA

Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of Tokyo,

Tokyo, Japan

Y. HAYASE

Nuclear Power R. & D. Institute, The Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc.,
Tokyo, Japan
(Received: 14 July, 1981)

ABSTRACT

A new technique, I H S I (induction heating stress improvement), has been developed to

reduce the tensile welding residual stress in the surface of steel piping f o r nuclear
power plants, so reducing the susceptibility to stress corrosion. It is shown in this
paper that the technique is effective and safe even if it is applied to piping which
contains a small initial crack which is impossible to detect by ultrasonic inspection.

INTRODUCTION

lntergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC) in the austenitic stainless steel

piping used in the primary system of a nuclear power plant such as a boiling water
reactor is considered to occur when material sensitisation, stress and corrosion
environment simultaneously exceed certain critical values. ~ With regard to the
welding residual stress which is one of the most important causes of the IGSCC, a
new technique to improve the state of stress, called induction heating stress
improvement (IHSI), has been developed and has had successful application to the
pipework of several boiling water power reactors in Japan.
In this technique the welding residual tensile stress in the inner surface of the pipe
is reduced by the inelastic thermal stress when a pipe is heated from its outside

* This work was conducted in co-operation with the following members: S.Araki, Mechanical
Engineering Research Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd, S. Nakayama, Nuclear System Engineering Section,
Toshiba Corporation, T. Umemoto, Nuclear Power Engineering Division, IHI Co., Ltd, and
T. Watanabe, Group 13, Century Research Center Corporation.
399
Int. J. Pres. Ves. & Piping 0308-0161/82/0010-0399/$02.75 (5 Applied Science Publishers Ltd, 1982
Printed in Great Britain
400 Y. ANDO, G. YAGAWA, Y. HAYASE

surface using an induction coil and from its cooled inside surface by means of
simultaneous application of spray water or running water.
The present paper describes work done with the objective of assessing the
effectiveness of the technique by full-scale demonstration tests as well as by non-
linear finite element analyses.
Assuming the existence of small initial flaws in the inner surface of the piping,
finite element calculations using the EPAS 2 and ANSYS 3 programs have been
performed for the unsteady, as well as the non-linear behaviours of austenitic
stainless steel pipes during the course of induction heating. The calculations were
made parametrically, changing the pipe diameter, the thickness, the crack size, the
orientation of the crack, the heating condition and the initial welding residual stress.
The results of the finite element analyses show that the initial welding residual stress
of the tensile direction is effectively altered after the I HSI treatment to compressive
stress near the inner surface which is the position considered to be the most
susceptible to IGSCC in most cases. It is also shown that the crack opening
displacements during and after the IHSI treatment are small compared with the
critical value.
In order to confirm that the pipes with smaller initial cracks are not made unsafe
during the IHSI treatment, a series of tests were conducted. One of these was a series
of tests using 12-in diameter pipes with an artificially fatigued crack in the inner
surface. Another relevant series is that using 4in diameter pipes with cracks
produced by electric discharge near the girth weld portion of the inner surface, these
pipes being dipped in an MgCI 2 environment to verify that IGSCC is avoided by the
IHSI treatment. The results of these two series of tests reveal that the IHSI
treatment is very effective in improving the welding residual stress around the initial
small crack in the inner surface of the pipe.

CONCEPT OF" I H S I

When a linear temperature gradient is given across the thickness of a pipe, the
thermal stress, c¢, which occurs in the pipe wall can be written as follows: 4
EotA T
2(1 - v)
where: E is Young's modulus; c¢ is the linear thermal expansion coefficient, v is
Poisson's ratio and AT is the temperature difference between the inner and outer
surfaces.
If this value of thermal stress is below the yield stress of the material (e.g. p o i n t @
in Fig. 1), the stress is relieved when the temperature difference is removed, and no
residual stress occurs behind. However, if the same value exceeds the yield stress (e.g.
 INDUCTION HEATING STRESSIMPROVEMENTOF NUCLEAR PIPING 401

/
al-
E ¢,/!1

<~

THERMAL
STRAIN
V}

(3

hi
t~

Fig. I. Stress-straindiagram.

point C ) i n Fig. 1), the subsequent removal of the temperature difference causes a
change of state from p o i n t C ) t o p o i n t @ Thus, as a result, a compressive residual
stress occurs. The objective of IHSI is to introduce a large temperature difference
between the inner and outer surfaces of a pipe in order to obtain a sufficiently high
thermal stress exceeding the yield stress and consequently resulting in compressive
residual stress in the inner surface of the pipe. Such a large temperature difference
can be introduced by heating the pipe from the outside with an induction coil whilst
water is simultaneously introduced into the pipe to cool its inner wall.
Figure 2 is a schematic representation of the heating and cooling of the pipe.
Figures 3(a) and (b) illustrate the stress distribution, deformation and temperature
distribution during heating and after treatment, respectively. Applying the above
technique to a weld joint of a pipe, it has already been shown that the IHSI treatment

RE LDMENT
// N[)L'CTION COl L
\ /
"" ~'/ I P I PE

W - - - l
:/,<f
f ,,i/ __COOLING
,/' I/ -- I WATER
I ,

Fig. 2. Schematicdiagram of heating and cooling of welded pipe.

402 Y. ANDO, G. YAGAWA, Y. HAYASE

OUTER SURFACE -O'y MEAN H IGH

(a) °U"N /
HEATING

INNER SURFACE +O'y

/ /L~-~l .J~/
O'y: YIELD STRESS

EXPANDED /
OUTER SURFACE TENSION C O N D I T I v N /-'-~

(b)
TREATMENT
INNER SURFACE COMPRESSION AT= 0
STRESS DISTRIBUTION DEFORMATION TEMPERATURE
DISTRIBUTION
Fig. 3. Concept of IHSI.

can give a relatively high compressive residual stress near the inside surface of the
pipe throughout the weld heat affected zone. 5

NUMERICAL ANALYSES

Assuming the existence of a small initial crack in the inner surface of the pipe, finite
element calculations using the EPAS z and ANSYS 3 programs are performed in
order to obtain the transient temperature distribution as well as the inelastic
behaviour of the pipe during IHSI treatment.
Although this series of calculations consists of seven different cases involving
various pipe sizes and crack shapes, only one example is described in this paper.
The calculation was carried out for a cylindrical shell with a circumferential crack
in its inner surface. The outer diameter and the thickness of the pipe were 318-5 mm
and 19 mm, respectively. The height of the crack was 2-4 mm. The length of the pipe
was taken to be sufficiently long that the effects of pipe length could be disregarded.
In this procedure the proper initial welding residual stress is first considered to be
applied in the pipe without a crack. Secondly, the crack is extended, step by step, to
the specified height (2.4 mm in this case). Thirdly, thermal elastic plastic analysis of
the pipe with a crack is carried out with the transient temperature distribution of the
induction heating as shown in Fig. 4. Finally, an operating internal pressure of
100 kg/mm 2 is applied to the pipe following the IHSI treatment,
Figure 5 shows the estimated crack opening displacements versus crack depth at
the time of maximum temperature difference (i.e. 180 s) and after the treatment.
Figure 6 shows the so-estimated distributions of the stresses on the prolongation of
 INDUCTION HEATING STRESS IMPROVEMENT OF NUCLEAR PIPING 403

300 - Z

200- \\ 5

I00- X ~ 0.01

I
0 2,~0 480 d 1.0 2..0

TIME SEC CRACK DEPTH ,MM

Fig. 4. Calculated temperature histories, Fig. 5. Configuration of crack opening dis-

-- Outer surface, - - - - middle surface, placement•--- At maximum temperature
- - - - - inner surface. difference 1 80 residual.

INNER SURFACE
_ ~ CRACK
DEEPESTPOINT

OF CRACKAFTE
R TREATMENT

2\ ....... AFTER APPLYING

\ ~ \ \ OPERATING LOAD

~ \ \ OUTER SURFACE
I I I I 1 ] I I I]~ ~ I I I
- 50 0 50
RESIDUAL STRESS (kg/mrn2)
Fig. 6. Residual stress distributions perpendicular to the crack surface.

the crack in the direction perpendicular to the cracked plane after the IHSI
treatment, as well as the application of the operating internal pressure.

EXPERIMENTS

The so-called propagation test was made with a pre-cracked pipe to confirm that no
cracks initiate from the pre-crack tip during the IHSI, although the relatively high
404 Y. ANDO, G. YAGAWA, Y. HAYASE

SLIT C U T
0
FATIGUE PRE-CRACK
BY FATIGUE TEST
MACHINE
g
TEMPER COLOUR
BY HEAT TREATMENT
g
IHSI TREATMENT
~, SURFACE OF
DUCTILE FRACTURE
SUBSEQUENT FATIGUE I
BY FATIGUE TEST / ~
MACHINE ~ / .~
( 7 / ~ FAT'GUE cRACK
FRACTURE BY %/ ~ " ' ~ ! H ~ I
TENSION L.V\ \SL,T -
'~ ~ATIGUE PRE-CRACK
VISUAL TEST AND
MICRO-AND MACRO-
FRACTOGRAPHIES

Fig. 7. Propagation test procedure.

Fig. 8. Micro- and macro-fractographs of propagation test specimen after IHSI treatment. Left:
× 1000. Right: × 50. (a) Stretched zone; (b) subsequent fatigue crack; (c) fatigue pre-crack.
 INDUCTION HEATING STRESS IMPROVEMENT OF NUCLEAR PIPING 405

GIRTH WELD ON TWO PIPES

PRE-CRACK BY ELECTRIC DISCHARGE

ON INSIDE SURFACE

IHSI - TREATMENT

IMMERSION IN MgCll2

VISUAL TEST

Fig. 9, MgCI 2 immersion test procedure.

tension stress occurs at the crack tip. Figure 7 shows the test procedure. Figure 8
shows micro-fractographs of the failed surface and of the pre-crack tip after IHSI
treatment. As can be seen from the Figure, no crack propagations are observed
between the pre-crack and the subsequent fatigue crack, although the micro-
fractographs show that a stretched zone of 2 ~ 3/~ length can be seen at the pre-crack
tip.
Another series of tests was then made to confirm that the residual stress is
improved by IHSI treatment. The test procedure is shown in Fig. 9. Figure 10 shows

~ACK BY ELECTRIC
RGE

(a)
PRE-CRACK BY ELECTRIC
DISCHARGE

SCC OBSERVED AFTER IMMERSION

~N M cg_C~z

('b)
PRE-CRACK BY E ~ C T R I C
DISCHARGE

NO SCC OBSERVED AFTER

~:~ ....... ~1 .... IMMERSION IN MgCZ~

(c)
Fig. 10. Results of stress improvement test using immersion in MgCl 2 of pre-cracked pipes with and
without I HSI treatment. (a) Pre-crack; (b) without I HSI treatment (dye penetration test after immersion
in MgCl2); (c) with IHSI treatment (dye penetration test after immersion in MgC12).
406 Y. ANDO, G. YAGAWA, Y. HAYASE

the results of the stress improvement test of the pre-cracked pipes with and without
IHSI improvement. As shown in the Figure, no stress corrosion cracks occur after
the immersion of the test pieces with the tensile residual stress in MgC12 if the IHSI
treatment is made, and vice versa.
To evaluate the safety of the pre-cracked pipe during the IHSI treatment, the
theoretical C T O D (crack tip opening displacement) of the pipe with the pre-crack
during the I HSI is compared with the critical C T O D of the same material. It is found
from the comparison that the material C T O D is thirty times larger than the C T O D
of the structure.

CONCLUSIONS

Induction heating stress improvement, (I HSI), a new technique for the improvement
of the tensile welding residual stress in the inner surface of nuclear pipes, has been
demonstrated to be effective and safe even if carried out on pipes that contain a small
initial crack. It may be concluded that the IHSI technique can be safely applied to
the primary pipings of nuclear plants in both the construction and operation phases.

REFERENCES

1. Fox, M. J. An overview ofintergranular stress corrosion cracking in BWRs, Proceedings: Seminar on

Countermeasures for Pipe Cracking in BWRs, Vol. 1, EPRI WS-79-174, May, 1980.
2. YAGAWA,G., ANDO, Y., WATANABE,T. and 1SHIWATA, T. EPAS--Finite element program for
analysis of nonlinear behavior of nuclear piping, Trans. 5th Int. Conf. on Structural Mechanics in
Reactor Technology, Vol. M, Paper M6/4, 1979.
3. A N S Y S User's Manual, Swanson Analysis Systems Inc., 1975.
4. TIMOSHENKO,S. and GOODIER, J. N. Theory of elasticity. (2nd edn.), McGraw-Hill, 1951.
5. UMEMOTO,T. and TANAKA, S. Residual stress improvement by means of induction heating, IHI
Engineering Ret'iew, 11 (1978), pp. 111-20.