Advanced Linear Phased-Array Techniques for the Power Industry
Advanced nondestructive examination, including linear phased-array (LPA) ultrasonic techniques, is being used increasingly to achieve greater reliability and reduced forced outages at both nuclear and fossil units. This course covers fundamentals, applications, and hands-on demonstrations of emerging LPA techniques, including applications for generator rotors, turbine disks, header ligaments, girth welds, tube welds, and Class 1 welds.
Duration: 2½-day course
Instructors: Larry Nottingham, Allen Porter
Contact: info@structint.com
About the Instructors
Larry Nottingham holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, and has over 35 years of experience in design, maintenance, and nondestructive evaluation of turbines, generators, and other power plant equipment. He also has extensive experience in development and delivery of advanced nondestructive evaluation systems and procedures for numerous power plant applications, with emphasis on turbine and generator components and high-energy piping.
Allen Porter has an MS in Material Science from Southern Methodist University, and holds ASNT Level III Certification in ultrasonic and eddy-current testing. He has over 20 years of experience in the application, development, and qualification of nondestructive examination techniques and systems for the power generation and aerospace industries. Porter's expertise includes application of advanced NDE solutions, notably ultrasonic phased-array and eddy-current array technologies, and his experience spans procedure development, certification, and training in automated and phased-array ultrasonic inspection, as well as eddy-current inspection.
Advanced NDE Techniques for the Power Industry
Advanced nondestructive examination techniques, including ultrasonic time-of-flight diffraction techniques and SI's annular phased-array techniques, can help both nuclear and fossil units attain higher reliability and reduced forced outages. Course includes ultrasonic inspection for construction welds, dissimilar metal weld inspection in boiler tubes and piping, and crack sizing in thin-wall components.
Duration: 3-day course
Instructors: Larry Nottingham, Allen Porter
Contact: info@structint.com
About the Instructors
Larry Nottingham holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, and has over 35 years of experience in design, maintenance, and nondestructive evaluation of turbines, generators, and other power plant equipment. He also has extensive experience in development and delivery of advanced nondestructive evaluation systems and procedures for numerous power plant applications, with emphasis on turbine and generator components and high-energy piping.
Allen Porter has an MS in Material Science from Southern Methodist University, and holds ASNT Level III Certification in ultrasonic and eddy-current testing. He has over 20 years of experience in the application, development, and qualification of nondestructive examination techniques and systems for the power generation and aerospace industries. Porter's expertise includes application of advanced NDE solutions, notably ultrasonic phased-array and eddy-current array technologies, and his experience spans procedure development, certification, and training in automated and phased-array ultrasonic inspection, as well as eddy-current inspection.
ASME Code Section III & Section XI Design & Analysis
ASME Code Section III and Section XI training can be conducted separately or as one course. Course(s) focus on Section III and XI criteria for designing and evaluating nuclear plant components. Section III material includes ASME Code overview, vessel and piping design, materials, fabrication, examination, and testing; Section XI includes inspection requirements, flaw evaluation, operating plant criteria, repair, and replacement.
Duration: 2 to 3-day course
Instructor: Art Deardorff
Contact: info@structint.com
About the Instructor
Art Deardorff, PE has a MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Arizona, and a BSME from Oregon State University. He has over 35 years of experience in design, analysis, testing, and failure assessment of structures, systems, and components. Deardorff's achievements include development of innovative approaches for assessing remaining life of nuclear and fossil power plant components, and participation in several industry programs to address thermal fatigue and leak-before-break for reactor coolant systems. He has taught ASME Code seminars worldwide.
Corrosion & Corrosion Control in LWRs
Course focuses on fundamentals, causes, and control of corrosion in light water reactors (LWRs), in such locations as BWR piping and internals, PWR steam generators, and PWR control-rod drive mechanisms. LWR corrosion forms covered include galvanic, de-alloying, crevice corrosion, pitting, IGA, corrosion fatigue, IGSCC, IASCC, and PWSCC. Course includes 350-page reference manual.
Duration: 2½-day course
Instructor: Barry Gordon
Contact: info@structint.com
About the Instructor
Barry Gordon, PE has a MS in Metallurgy and Material Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and is also a Corrosion Specialist (NACE). Gordon has over 35 years of experience in materials corrosion behavior in nuclear power plant environments, and in fact developed and qualified hydrogen water chemistry (HWC) and co-patented zinc injection for stress corrosion cracking mitigation in BWRs. He is also an adjunct professor at the Colorado School of Mines.
Corrosion & Microbiologically Influenced Corrosion Control
Course focuses on fundamentals, identification, monitoring, and mitigation of cooling-water system corrosion, microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC), and deposits. Practical starting point for more-specialized courses on corrosion. Course includes reference manual.
Duration: 2-day course
Instructor: George Licina
Contact: info@structint.com
About the Instructor
George Licina has a BS in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Illinois. He has over 30 years of experience in evaluating environmental degradation of materials in power plant and other industrial environments, including all forms of corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in aqueous environments, irradiation embrittlement, and compatibility with liquid sodium. Licina is a recognized expert in microbiologically influenced corrosion.
Financial Risk Optimization for Maintenance/Inspection Planning
Course offers a new approach to financial risk optimization (FRO) for run/repair/replace decisions, using financial/decision analysis methods employed by corporate financial planners. Course includes determination of risk-critical components, introduction to FRO, probability of failure v.s. time, and developing a financial business plan for maintenance.
Duration: 2-day course
Instructor: David Mauney
Contact: info@structint.com
Generator Retaining Ring Inspection & Evaluation
Getting the most out of generator rotor retaining rings: course covers metallurgy, design, nondestructive inspection techniques, life assessment, and fracture mechanics analysis of these retaining rings. RRingLife™ computer program by EPRI® is highlighted, including finite element stress analysis, probability of moisture exposure, and material properties database.
Duration: 2-day course
Instructors: Larry Nottingham, Darryl Rosario
Contact: info@structint.com
About the Instructors
Larry Nottingham holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, and has over 35 years of experience in design, maintenance, and nondestructive evaluation of turbines, generators, and other power plant equipment. He also has extensive experience in development and delivery of advanced nondestructive evaluation systems and procedures for numerous power plant applications, with emphasis on turbine and generator components and high-energy piping.
Darryl Rosario, PE holds a MS in Mechanical Engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has over 25 years of experience in stress and fracture mechanics analyses of power plant components, with particular expertise in deterministic and probabilistic fracture mechanics methods, including high-temperature creep fatigue crack growth. Rosario developed EPRI® LPRimLife™ code to evaluate rim attachment cracking in LP rotors, in addition to several other life assessment/evaluation codes.
Introduction to Plant Vibration Solutions
Course presents an approach that uses analysis and testing to solve structural field vibration problems, with emphasis on piping vibration issues. Included are resolution strategies, root-cause determination, basic vibration theory, vibration test fundamentals, signal processing, data analysis techniques, vibration causes and data interpretation, and case studies.
Duration: 2½-day course
Instructors: Karen Fujikawa, Gyorgy Szasz
Contact: info@structint.com
About the Instructors
Karen Fujikawa, PE has a MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. She is an expert in piping stress analysis, seismic analysis, dynamic analysis, and piping system design, with over 20 years of experience in design and analysis of nuclear power plant piping systems and components. Fujikawa also has experience in structural analysis, including static, thermal, dynamic, and non-linear analyses, as well as ASME Code analyses.
Gyorgy Szasz has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Auburn University, and close to 10 years of experience in vibration testing of piping and equipment, including experimental methods. Szasz is particularly skilled in MATLAB® and LabVIEW programming, experimental and field-testing methodologies, sensor specification, instrumentation, and digital signal processing techniques.
Metal Fatigue & Fracture Mechanics in the Nuclear Industry
Course focuses on fatigue fundamentals, failure mechanisms, compliance, fatigue management, and fatigue/cycle monitoring, as well as fracture mechanics (FM) fundamentals and use of FM to determine piping/component fitness for service. Course includes linear-elastic FM, elastic-plastic FM, and limit-load analyses and their nuclear applications, and also introduces attendees to pc-CRACK™ FM computer program.
Duration: 2-day course
Instructor: Hal Gustin
Contact: info@structint.com
About the Instructor
Hal Gustin, PE holds both a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has over 30 years of experience in the nuclear energy industry. Gustin's expertise is in stress, fatigue, and fracture mechanics analysis, including ASME Section III and XI criteria, and he is a member of ASME Section XI Working Group on Flaw Evaluation.
Probabilistic Fracture Mechanics
A practical seminar on probabilistic fracture mechanics used for such highly complex assessments as material fracture toughness and weld residual stress. Course covers fundamentals of both fracture mechanics and multi-variable probabilistic analysis, and includes discussions of case studies. Probabilistic codes Viper™, RRingLife™, and pc-CRACK™ will be reviewed, in addition to the general statistical-analysis code, @RISK.
Duration: 2-day course
Instructors: Peter Riccardella, David Harris, Dilip Dedhia
Contact: info@structint.com
About the Instructors
Peter Riccardella has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and over 30 years of experience in design and analysis of large structural components. He is an authority on application of fracture mechanics to pressure vessel and piping problems, notably feedwater system thermal fatigue cracking, stress corrosion cracking in power plant piping, and pressure vessel embrittlement and pressurized thermal shock. Riccardella pioneered the development of flaw evaluation procedures and acceptance standards for ASME's Nuclear In-Service Inspection Code.
David Harris has a PhD in Applied Mechanics from Stanford University, a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington, and 40 years of experience in experimental and analytical fracture mechanics. Harris has developed probabilistic and deterministic life prediction software, including the NRC's PRAISE probabilistic fracture mechanics-based software for nuclear reactor piping reliability, NASA's NASCRAC fracture mechanics software, and EPRI® TULIP™ continuum creep damage mechanics-based software for superheater/reheater tube reliability.
Dilip Dedhia has a PhD in Materials Science from the Oregon Graduate Center and over 30 years of experience in deterministic and probabilistic fracture mechanics analyses. Dedhia's particular expertise is in fracture mechanics methods, including high-temperature creep fatigue crack growth. He was co-developer of EPRI® BLESS™ code for headers and pipes as well as co-developer of EPRI's TULIP™ for high-temperature tubing. Dedhia also developed SI's pc-CRACK™ 4.0 for general-purpose fracture mechanics analysis.
Steam Turbine-Generator Rotor Analysis
Accurate analysis of steam turbine-generator rotor NDE data can help improve rotor disposition, startup procedure control, and scheduling of rotor reinspection intervals. Course covers rotor remaining-life analysis, including stress analysis, fracture mechanics, interpretation of NDE data, and available computational tools.
Duration: 2-day course
Instructor: Scott Rau
Contact: info@structint.com
About the Instructor
Scott Rau, PE has a MS in Structural Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has extensive experience in stress analysis, including finite element analysis and modeling of structures and components with linear or non-linear behavior; dynamic system response and time history analysis; and transient thermal elastic-plastic analysis. Rau has performed remaining life evaluations of over 50 high-energy piping systems, and of similar numbers of steam turbine and generator rotors.