FTG Finds New Frontier In Asia
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Kori 1 Split Pin and Baffle Bolt Inspections
This fall FTI accomplished an inspection of split pins and baffle bolts at Korea Electric Power Company’s Kori 1 nuclear plant, a Westinghouse-design PWR plant. For the job FTI teamed with Visionic (a Framatome subsidiary, and number one in France in the UT inspection of split pins and in the visual inspection market) and Framatome SA.

The Kori site is located along the East Sea (Sea of Japan) one-hour north of Pusan. The Kori site contains four of Korea’s 16 operating nuclear plants. Framatome has constructed two plants in Korea.

According to Blair Fairbrother, FTI’s Manager of NDE Services, the job at Kori involved a joint working arrangement with Visionic. “We used a combination of Visionic’s delivery mechanism and our Ultrasonic system to acquire the split pin inspection data,” Fairbrother said.

The split pins in the upper internals are used to line up the guide tubes; early pin designs have a history of cracking and KEPCO has an ongoing inspection plan to monitor the status of these pins. The FTI/Visionic team inspected three regions of the split pins that are susceptible to cracking, requiring three separate inspection passes with different transducer configurations. One pass was a first-of-a-kind inspection of the threaded and shank region. This inspection was scheduled at Kori 1 after KEPCO discovered problems in this region at another of its plants. A split pin failure could cause the pin to become a loose part.

Using Visionic’s REBUS robot and FTI ‘s UT system, the joint French/American crew was successful in inspecting the split pins within a three-day schedule window. The Kori baffle bolts were inspected using Framatome tooling and crews from Chalon, France. This inspection of all 728 baffle bolts and 176 edge bolts required five days. Although the baffle bolt inspection was staffed by Framatome SA using their own equipment, FTI’s Fairbrother served as site manager for all work, a true team effort.

“The mixture of Korean, French and American crews provided unique challenges, but also a broad array of expertise and experience,” said Fairbrother. “Ultimately, we were able to work together to complete the job on schedule and to the customer’s satisfaction. These are the same objectives we have working in the United States.”