Hitachi, Ltd.

Babcock-hitachi Kabushiki Kaisha

Mita Industrial Co., Ltd.

Hitachi Nuclear Engineering Co., Ltd.

Hitachi Kiso Co., Ltd.

Masahiro Otaka

Kunio Enomoto

Kazuo Takaku

Makoto Hayashi

Tasuku Shimizu

Kunio Hasegawa

Ren Morinaka

Koichi Kurosawa

Eisaku Hayashi

Shinji Sakata

Toshihiko Yoshimura

Yuichi Ishikawa

Sadato Shimizu

Hideyo Saito

Kazunori Sato

Kazuo Amano

Toshikazu Nishino

Motoya Ito

Fuminobu Takahashi

Satoshi Kanno

Eriko Takeda

Shigeo Hattori

Yasumasa Tamai

Noboru Chiba

Takashi Saito

Katsuhiko Hirano

Fujio Yoshikubo

Keiichi Uraki

Yoshinori Karatsu

Hiroshi Tsujimura

Hideyasu Furukawa

Kanichi Fujii

Stephen Evanson

Yuko Koguchi

Kasunori Sato

A fluid jet nozzle has a water chamber accommodating therein pressurized fluid, an orifice communicating with the water chamber and contracting the fluid from the water chamber, a throat communicating with the orifice and through which the fluid from the orifice passes, a multiplication chamber communicating with the throat and receiving the fluid from the throat for multiplying cavitation, and a diffusion chamber receiving the fluid from the multiplication chamber for diffusing the fluid.

Fluid jet nozzle and stress improving treatment method using the nozzle

A measurement system for measuring material deterioration in accordance with a magnetic field of the material in the presence of radiation. The measurement system includes a detection circuit which detects a magnetic field of the material and generates a signal indicative thereof which signal includes noise due to the radiation, a signal processing circuit including semiconductor devices to process the signal generated from the detection circuit and a noise reducing circuit for at least reducing noise in the generated signal which is due to the radiation. The signal processing circuit is installed at a place where a dose equivalent of radiation is equal to or smaller than that of a place where the detection circuit is installed.

Measurement system with noise reduction circuit

An apparatus preventive maintenance having a driving mechanism capable of driving a jet nozzle 24 to cause it to travel upward-and-downward, to rotate and to swing is settled on the top of a housing in the bottom portion of a reactor pressure vessel and on a hole for a fuel support piece, water pumped by a high pressure pump is spouted from a jet nozzle, and cavitation bubbles generated during the spouting are supplied to the positions to be treated for preventive maintenance, such as housings in the bottom portion of the reactor pressure vessel. Therewith, the residual tensile stress in the position to be treated is improved in a releasing direction by the energy generated by the collapsing of the cavitation bubbles.

Method and apparatus for performing preventive maintenance on the bottom

Low temperature water in a low temperature water tank 12 installed outside a reactor pressure vessel 9 is pumped by a high pressure pump 15 and supplied through a conductor 17 under pressure. The supplied water is ejected, as a stream of cold water jet 8, from a nozzle 14 connected to the conductor 17 and introduced into the reactor pressure vessel 9 by a driving mechanism. The stream of cold water jet 8 ejected from the nozzle 14 is directed to impinge against a predetermined position of a core shroud 13 in reactor water 11 filled in the reactor pressure vessel 9 and being at temperature higher than the low temperature water. Then, while continuing to eject the cold water jet 8 from the nozzle 14, the nozzle 14 is moved away from the predetermined position, or the ejection of the cold water jet 8 from the nozzle 14 is stopped, allowing the predetermined position to be heated again with the temperature of the reactor water 11. A thermal shock is thereby applied to the predetermined position for improvement in residual stress of the core shroud 13.

Residual stress improving method for members in reactor pressure vessel

A nondestructive inspecting apparatus is arranged to have an exciting magnet for applying an ac magnetic field to a sample and a SQUID for converting change of a magnetic characteristic of the sample occurring when the ac magnetic field is applied to the sample into an electric signal. The exciting magnet is a cancelled coil assembly composed of plural coils having respective polarities.

Apparatus with cancel coil assembly for cancelling a field parallel to

A fluxmeter includes an application unit for applying a magnetic field, a superconducting quantum interference element and a flux transmitting circuit. The flux transmitting circuit includes a pickup coil formed of a superconducting print coil and a core for the pickup coil. The core is formed of a soft magnetic material. The core serves to suppress the leakage of magnetic flux to magnetically couple the pickup coil and the superconducting quantum interference element efficiently to improve the sensitivity and resolution of the fluxmeter. The pickup coil may be manufactured by photolithography, sputtering, laser beam deposition, MBE deposition, MOCVD or spray pyrolysis.

Fluxmeter including squid and pickup coil with flux guiding core and

A non-destructive inspection apparatus includes a magnetic field applying device and a magnetic sensor. The magnetic field applying device is adapted to apply DC and AC magnetic fields to an object to be inspected. Degradation/damage of the object is detected by measuring a magnetic characteristic of the object in a state in which the DC and AC magnetic fields are applied. Also, a non-destructive inspection apparatus includes as a magnetic sensor a plurality of pickup coils and a SQUID(s) connected to the pickup coils and decides the form of a defect of an object to be inspected by producing a difference between outputs of the pickup coils or SQUIDs.

Apparatus for inspecting degradation/damage of a material using an AC

A method of maintaining the housing of a reactor pressure vessel having: a reactor pressure vessel into which cooling water is introduced; a cylindrical housing which penetrates an end bracket of the reactor pressure vessel; and a circumferential weld for securing the intermediate portion of the housing to the reactor pressure vessel by welding, the method of maintaining a housing of a reactor pressure vessel comprising the steps of: remaining the cooling water in the reactor pressure vessel; preventing leakage of the cooling water in the reactor pressure vessel through the housing by sealing the housing; making the inside portion of the housing lower than the seal to be a hollow space of a gas atmosphere; heating a heat affected zone due to welding by using a heating device inserted into the hollow space from a lower portion so as to compressive-yield the inner surface of the housing in the heat affected portion upper than the circumferential weld and tensile-yield the outer surface; and cooling heated portion inside of the housing, which has been yielded, so as to tensile-yield the inner surface of the housing by using a cooling device inserted into the housing from a lower portion, whereby compressive stress is allowed to remain in the tensile-yielded portion.

Method of maintaining housing of reactor pressure vessel and heat

A water jet peening method in which a pressurized water jet flow containing cavities is jetted through a nozzle having a velocity increasing orifice portion and a horn-like jetting hole formed continuously with the velocity increasing orifice portion to impinge against a surface of a metallic material immersed in water and to cause the cavities to collapse at the surface of the metallic member, and a tensile plastic deformation is caused in a surface layer of the metallic material by a local high pressure generated by the impingement and the collapse so that a residual tensile stress in the surface of the metallic member is reduced. In this method, the nozzle is vibrated so that vibration-induced cavities are formed in the vicinity of a nozzle wall surface, and the vibration-induced cavities are caused to impinge against the surface of the metallic member by the pressurized water jet flow containing cavities. It is thereby possible to promote the generation of cavities even in a case where pure water existing in a nuclear reactor and scant of nuclei from which cavities will be generated is used in peening of an internal structual member of the reactor.

Method of and apparatus for water-jet peening

On the basis of a finding that a magnetic hysteresis of a metal material, among magnetization characteristics changing with secular degradation of the metal material, shows a clear correspondence with the degree of degradation of the metal material, a change in such a magnetization characteristic is measured to estimate the degree of secular degradation of the metal material. In a typical embodiment, a superconducting quantum interference device is used to detect the magnetization characteristic of a measuring object. According to the present invention, the degree of embrittlement of a metal material used in an environment of high temperatures can be quickly detected in a non-destructive fashion so that the danger of brittle fracture of the metal material can be reliably prevented.

Apparatus for magnetically detecting degradation of metal material using

On the basis of a finding that a magnetic hysteresis of a metal material, among magnetization characteristics changing with secular degradation of the metal material, shows a clear correspondence with the degree of degradation of the metal material, a change in such a magnetization characteristic is measured to estimate the degree of secular degradation of the metal material, In a typical embodiment, a superconducting quantum interference device is used to detect the magnetization characteristic of a measuring object. According to the present invention, the degree of embrittlement of a metal material used in an environment of high temperatures can be quickly detected in a non-destructive fashion so that the danger of brittle fracture of the metal material can be reliably prevented.

Method and apparatus utilizing a magnetic field for detecting

Measurement of a physical property such as coercive force of a member to be inspected is performed at a plurality of locations in one region of the member. Similar measurement is performed in a plurality of different regions of the member and a maximum or minimum value (extreme value) is determined for each of the regions. On the basis of the extreme values thus determined, a recurrence period is determined in accordance with an extreme value statistic theory with the aid of a computer, whereon an estimated maximum value of the physical property of the member as a whole is determined from the recurrence period. On the basis of the estimated maximum value, the degree of deterioration of the member is predicted by the computer by consulting the data indicating the previously determined relation between the physical property and the degree of deterioration.

Method and apparatus for predicting deterioration of a member

The invention scans potential measurement terminals on the surface of a structural member to measure a potential distribution on the surface, detects the direction of a crack from the potential distribution and determining a detailed potential distribution in the direction of the crack thus detected. This potential distribution is compared with master curves of the potential distributions of cracks of various shapes, that have been obtained by analysis in advance, in order to detect the shape of the crack. The present invention can detect accurately a crack shape.

Method and apparatus for detecting cracks

A laser tube including an anode and a hollow cathode and adapted to obtain laser oscillation by utilizing a negative glow generated in a space within the hollow cathode. The laser tube has an elongate cylindrical member in which the anode and the hollow cathode are disposed opposite to each other, and the hollow cathode has formed therein a plurality of holes for communication between its internal space and the space outside thereof. The laser tube may further include a conducting grid provided in proximity to the anode and a conducting grid provided in a cathode dark space.

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Hitachi, Japan

Masahiro Otaka