A study on the shell wall thinning causes identified through experiment, numerical analysis and ultrasonic test of high-pressure feedwater heater

Feedwater heaters of many nuclear power plants have recently experienced severe wall thinning damage, which accelerates as the operation progresses. Several nuclear power plants in Korea have undergone this damage around the impingement baffle – installed downstream of the high-pressure turbine extraction steam line – inside numbers 5A and 5B feedwater heaters. At that point, the extracted steam from the high-pressure turbine consists in the form of two-phase fluid at high temperature, high pressure and high velocity. Since it flows in reverse direction after impinging the impingement baffle, the shell wall of number 5 high-pressure feedwater heater may be affected by flow-accelerated corrosion. This paper describes the comparisons between the numerical analysis results using the FLUENT code and the downscaled experimental data in an effort to determine root causes of the shell wall thinning of the high-pressure feedwater heaters. The numerical analysis and experimental data were also confirmed by the actual wall thickness measured by ultrasonic tests. From the comparison of the results for the local velocity profiles and the wall thinning measurements, the local velocity component only in the y-direction flowing vertically to the shell wall, and not in the x- and z-directions, was analogous to the wall thinning data.