The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 19, 2017
Filed:
Jul. 20, 2016
Westinghouse Electric Company Llc, Cranberry Township, PA (US);
William K. Cullen, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Westinghouse Electric Company LLC, Cranberry Township, PA (US);
Abstract
A method predicts an amount of wear that is expected to occur on the tubes of a steam generator as a result of vibration against another structure within the steam generator. The method includes determining a volumetric amount of material that has been worn from a location on a tube over a duration of time and employing that volume as a function of time to determine the volume of material of the tube wall that is predicted to be worn from the tube or another tube at a future time. The volumetric-based analysis enables more accurately prediction of the wear depth at a future time. This enables the plugging of only those tubes that are determined from a volumetric analysis to be in risk of breach at the future time, thus slowing the rate at which tubes of a steam generator will be plugged.