• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.896-904
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• 2017

Several Generation IV nuclear reactor concepts have goals for optimizing investment recovery through phased introduction of multiple units on a common site with shared facilities and/or reconfigurable energy conversion systems. Additionally, small modular reactors are suitable for remote deployment to support highly localized microgrids in isolated, underdeveloped regions. The long-term economic viability of these advanced reactor plants depends on significant reductions in plant operations and maintenance costs. To accomplish these goals, intelligent control and diagnostic capabilities are needed to provide nearly autonomous operations with anticipatory maintenance. A nearly autonomous control system should enable automatic operation of a nuclear power plant while adapting to equipment faults and other upsets. It needs to have many intelligent capabilities, such as diagnosis, simulation, analysis, planning, reconfigurability, self-validation, and decision. These capabilities have been the subject of research for many years, but an autonomous control system for nuclear power generation remains as-yet an unrealized goal. This article describes a functional framework for intelligent, autonomous control that can facilitate the integration of control, diagnostic, and decision-making capabilities to satisfy the operational and performance goals of power plants based on multimodular advanced reactors.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.1015-1021
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• 2016

Structures, systems, and components (SSCs) important to safety of nuclear facilities shall be designed, fabricated, erected, and tested to quality standards commensurate with the importance of the safety functions. Although SSC classification guidelines for nuclear power plants have been well established and applied, those for research reactors have been only recently established by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Korea has operated a pool-type research reactor (the High Flux Advanced Neutron Application Reactor) and has recently exported another pool-type reactor (Jordan Research and Training Reactor), which is being built in Jordan. Korea also has a plan to build one more pool-type reactor, the Kijang Research Reactor, in Kijang, Busan. The safety classification of SSCs for pool-type research reactors is proposed in this paper based on the IAEA methodology. The proposal recommends that the SSCs of pool-type research reactors be categorized and classified on basis of their safety functions and safety significance. Because the SSCs in pool-type research reactors are not the pressure-retaining components, codes and standards for design of the SSCs following the safety classification can be selected in a graded approach.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.153-153
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• 1998

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.259-270
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• 2010

New generation nuclear reactors are designed using advanced safety analysis methods. A thorough understanding of different interacting physical phenomena is necessary to avoid underestimation and overestimation of consequences of off-normal transients in the reactor safety analysis results. This feature requires a multiphysics reactor simulation model. In this context, a coupled dynamics model based on a multiphysics formulation is developed indigenously for the transient analysis of large pressurized VVER reactors. Major simplifications are employed in the model by making several assumptions based on the physics of individual phenomenon. Space and time grids are optimized to minimize the computational bulk. The capability of the model is demonstrated by solving a series of international (AER) benchmark problems for VVER reactors. The developed model was used to analyze a number of reactivity transients that are likely to occur in VVER reactors.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.877-887
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• 2022

A new reactor concept is described that directly couples a supercritical CO₂ (sCO₂) power cycle with a CO₂-cooled, heavy water moderated pressure tube core. This configuration attains the simplification and economic potential of past direct-cycle sCO₂ concepts, while also providing safety and power density benefits by using the moderator as a heat sink for decay heat removal. A 200 MWe design is described that heavily leverages existing commercial nuclear technologies, including reactor and moderator systems from Canadian CANDU reactors and fuels and materials from UK Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGRs). Descriptions are provided of the power cycle, nuclear island systems, reactor core, and safety systems, and the results of safety analyses are shown illustrating the ability of the design to withstand large-break loss of coolant accidents. The resulting design attains high efficiency while employing considerably fewer systems than current light water reactors and advanced reactor technologies, illustrating its economic promise. Prospects for the design are discussed, including the ability to demonstrate its technologies in a small (~20 MWe) initial system, and avenues for further improvement of the design using advanced technologies.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.501-512
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• 2014

HANARO is a multipurpose research reactor located at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI). Since the commencement of its operation in 1995, various neutron irradiation facilities, such as rabbit irradiation facilities, fuel test loop (FTL) facilities, capsule irradiation facilities, and neutron transmutation doping (NTD) facilities, have been developed and actively utilized for various nuclear material irradiation tests requested by users from research institutes, universities, and industries. Most irradiation tests have been related to national R&D relevant to present nuclear power reactors such as the ageing management and safety evaluation of the components. Based on the accumulated experience as well as the sophisticated requirements of users, HANARO has recently supported national R&D projects relevant to new nuclear systems including the System-integrated Modular Advanced Reactor (SMART), research reactors, and future nuclear systems. This paper documents the current state and utilization of irradiation facilities in HANARO, and summarizes ongoing research efforts to deploy advanced irradiation technology.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.149.1-149.1
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• 2003

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.8
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• pp.753-762
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• 2006

In this paper, works related to enhancement of the CHF are reviewed in terms of fundamental mechanisms and practical applications. Studies on CHF enhancement in forced convection are divided into two categories, CHF enhancement of internal flow in tubes and enhancement of CHF in the nuclear fuel bundle. Methods of enhancing the CHF of internal flows in tubes include enhancement of the swirl flow using twisted tapes, a helical coil, and a grooved surface; promotion of flow mixing using a hypervapotron; altering the characteristics of the heated surface using porous coatings and nano-fluids; and changing the surface tension of the fluid using additives such as surfactants. In the fuel bundle, mixing vanes or wire wrapped rods can be employed to enhance the CHF by changing the flow distributions. These methods can be applied to practical heat exchange systems such as nuclear reactors, fossil boilers, fusion reactors, etc.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.877-885
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• 2018

Various controllers such as proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers have been designed and optimized for load-following issues in nuclear reactors. To achieve high performance, gain tuning is of great importance in PID controllers. In this work, gains of a PID controller are optimized for power-level control of a typical pressurized water reactor using particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The point kinetic is used as a reactor power model. In PSO, the objective (cost) function defined by decision variables including overshoot, settling time, and stabilization time (stability condition) must be minimized (optimized). Stability condition is guaranteed by Lyapunov synthesis. The simulation results demonstrated good stability and high performance of the closed-loop PSO-PID controller to response power demand.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.311-322
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• 2013

High-Cr martensitic steel HT-9 is one of the candidate materials for advanced nuclear energy systems. Thanks to its excellent thermal conductivity and irradiation resistance, ferritic/martensitic steels such as HT-9 are considered for in-core applications of advanced nuclear reactors. The harsh neutron irradiation environments at the reactor core region pose a unique challenge for structural and cladding materials. Microstructural and microchemical changes resulting from displacement damage are anticipated for structural materials after prolonged neutron exposure. Consequently, various irradiation effects on the service performance of in-core materials need to be understood. In this work, the fundamentals of radiation damage and irradiation effects of the HT-9 martensitic steel are reviewed. The objective of this paper is to provide a background introduction of displacement damage, microstructural evolution, and subsequent effects on mechanical properties of the HT-9 martensitic steel under neutron irradiations. Mechanical test results of the irradiated HT-9 steel obtained from previous fast reactor and fusion programs are summarized along with the information of irradiated microstructure. This review can serve as a starting point for additional investigations on the in-core applications of ferritic/martensitic steels in advanced nuclear reactors.