Apparatus and methods are provided to detect radio link failure in a NR access system. In one novel aspect, the radio link failure is detected upon detection of one or more radio link failure conditions on the serving beam. In one embodiment, the physical layer problem is considered as detected when one or more predefined events occur for a number of consecutive times on the serving beam. In another embodiment, the UE further considers potential recoveries to avoid frequent triggering of the radio link failure condition. In one embodiment, the UE performs the initial alignment procedure to recover the connection. In one embodiment, UE performs the initial alignment procedure without performing radio link recovery on the serving beam. In other embodiments, the UE performs the initial alignment procedure after performing radio link recovery on the serving beam and/or selects one or more beams for initial beam alignment.