• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.531-541
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• 2023

The Wolsong Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) operates an on-site spent fuel dry storage facility using concrete silo and vertical module systems. This facility must be safely maintained until the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is transferred to an external interim or final disposal facility, aligning with national policies on spent nuclear fuel management. The concrete silo system, operational since 1992, requires an aging management review for its long-term operation and potential license renewal. This involves comparing aging management programs of different dry storage systems against the U.S. NRC's guidelines for license renewal of spent nuclear fuel dry storage facilities and the U.S. DOE's program for long-term storage. Based on this comparison, a specific aging management program for the silo system was developed. Furthermore, the facility's current practices-periodic checks of surface dose rate, contamination, weld integrity, leakage, surface and groundwater, cumulative dose, and concrete structure-were evaluated for their suitability in managing the silo system's aging. Based on this review, several improvements were proposed.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.377-389
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• 2021

Reinforced concrete vertical silos are universal structures that store large amounts of granular materials. Due to the asymmetric structure, heavy load, uneven storage material distribution, and the difference between the storage volume and the storage material bulk density, the corresponding earthquake is very complicated. Some scholars have proposed the calculation method of horizontal forces on reinforced concrete vertical silos under the action of earthquakes. Without considering the effect of torsional effect, this article aims to reveal the expansion factor of the silo group considering the torsional effect through experiments. Through two-way seismic simulation shaking table tests on reinforced concrete column-supported group silo structures, the basic dynamic characteristics of the structure under earthquake are obtained. Taking into account the torsional response, the structure has three types of storage: empty, half and full. A comprehensive analysis of the internal force conditions under the material conditions shows that: the different positions of the group bin model are different, the side bin displacement produces a displacement difference, and a torsional effect occurs; as the mass of the material increases, the structure's natural vibration frequency decreases and the damping ratio Increase; it shows that the storage material plays a role in reducing energy consumption of the model structure, and the contribution value is related to the stiffness difference in different directions of the model itself, providing data reference for other researchers; analyzing and calculating the model stiffness and calculating the internal force of the earthquake. As the horizontal side shift increases in the later period, the torsional effect of the group silo increases, and the shear force at the bottom of the column increases. It is recommended to consider the effect of the torsional effect, and the increase factor of the torsional effect is about 1.15. It can provide a reference for the structural safety design of column-supported silos.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.79-85
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• 2016

A concrete silo plays an important role in subsurface low- and intermediate-level waste facilities (LILW) by limiting the release of radionuclides from the silo geosphere. However, due to several physical and chemical processes the performance of the concrete structure decreases over time and consequently the concrete loses its effectiveness as a barrier against groundwater inflow and the release of radionuclides. Although a number of processes are responsible for degradation of the silo concrete, it is determined that the main cause is corrosion of the reinforcing steel. Therefore, the time it takes for the silo concrete to fail is calculated based on two factors: the initiation time of corrosion, defined as the time it takes for chloride ions to penetrate through the concrete cover, and the propagation time of corrosion. This paper aims to estimate the time taken for concrete to fail in a LILW disposal facility. Based on the United States Department of Energy (DOE) approach, which indicates that concrete fails completely once 50% of the volume of the reinforcing steel corrodes, the corrosion propagation time is calculated to be 640 years, which is the time it takes for corrosion to penetrate 0.640 cm into the reinforcing steel. In addition to the corrosion propagation time, a diffusion equation is used to calculate the initiation time of corrosion, yielding a time of 1284 years, which post-dates the closure time of the LILW disposal facility if we also consider the 640 years of corrosion propagation. The electrochemical conditions of the passive rebar surface were modified using an acceleration method. This is a useful approach because it can reduce the test time significantly by accelerating the transport of chlorides. Using instrumental analysis, the physicochemical properties of corrosion products were determined, thereby confirming that corrosion occurred, although we did not observe significant cracks in, or expansion of, the concrete. These results are consistent with those of Smartet al., 2006 who reported that corrosion products are easily compressed, meaning that cracks cannot be discerned by eye. Therefore, it is worth noting that rebar corrosion does not strongly influence the hydraulic conductivity of the concrete.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.183-190
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• 2022

The construction of an underground silo structure was the first stage of erecting the Gyeongju low-and-intermediate-level radioactive waste disposal facility. The facility, completed in 2014, has a scale of 100 000 drums and is currently in operation. The underground silo structure, 25 and 50 m in diameter and height, respectively, consists of cylindrical (for storing waste packages) and dome parts. The dome is divided into lower (connected to the operation tunnel) and upper parts. The wall of the underground silo structure is an approximately 1-m-thick reinforced concrete liner. In this study, finite element analysis was performed for each phase of the construction sequence and operation of the underground silo structure. Two-dimensional axial symmetric finite element analysis was implemented using the SMAP-3D program. Three-dimensional finite element analysis was also performed to examine the reliability of the two-dimensional axial symmetric finite element model. The structural behavior of the underground silo structure was predicted, and its structural safety was examined.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.389-398
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• 2016

Previous domestic studies on silos have been carried out in many ways in various fields. On the other hand, research on the design and construction of the silo itself have not be conducted actively and an economical approach is rare. The present study provides basic information to determine the scale of the most economical silo, while satisfying the necessary conditions required by construction companies or design firms. The analysis was carried out with various parameters for reinforced concrete structures, including four kinds of storage material (flour, granulated quicklime, sand, and iron ore), five capacity sizes (10,000, 30,000, 50,000, 70,000, 90,000 ton), eight variants of H/D (0.5~4), and three types of concrete compressive strengths (30, 35, 40 MPa). The findings established a general rule in that a silo designed between 1 and 3 H/D with a greater concrete strength (40MPa and over) depending on the type of storage material would be the most cost-effective (more than 50% of quantity and labor savings).

• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.12-18
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• 2009

Recently, several cases of destruction of old cylindrical silos by explosive demolition method have been reported. This study deals with the subject concerning the pre-weakening of a cylindrical concrete silo for the application of overturning explosive demolition method. In the past, the pre-weakening operation of structure in explosive demolition has been done by use of some empirical methods. These empirical approaches, however, have possibilities of unexpected accidents. In order to provide a guideline for the pre-weakening of cylindrical silos and similar structures, this paper shows the result of a case study, in which the instability of a silo due to pre-weakening is investigated by a numerical structural analysis before actually conducting pre-weakening and demolition operations.

• Magazine of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.45-49
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• 2015

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.197-204
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• 2021

In this study, the well-known non-destructive acoustic emission (AE) and electrical resistivity methods were employed to predict quantitative damage in the silo structure of the Wolsong Low and Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Center (WLDC), Gyeongju, South Korea. Brazilian tensile test was conducted with a fully saturated specimen with a composition identical to that of the WLDC silo concrete. Bi-axial strain gauges, AE sensors, and electrodes were attached to the surface of the specimen to monitor changes. Both the AE hit and electrical resistance values helped in the anticipation of imminent specimen failure, which was further confirmed using a strain gauge. The quantitative damage (or damage variable) was defined according to the AE hits and electrical resistance and analyzed with stress ratio variations. Approximately 75% of the damage occurred when the stress ratio exceeded 0.5. Quantitative damage from AE hits and electrical resistance showed a good correlation (R = 0.988, RMSE = 0.044). This implies that AE and electrical resistivity can be complementarily used for damage assessment of the structure. In future, damage to dry and heated specimens will be examined using AE hits and electrical resistance, and the results will be compared with those from this study.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.465-479
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• 2023

To ensure the safety of disposal facilities for radioactive waste, it is essential to quantitatively evaluate the performance of the waste disposal facilities by using safety assessment models. This paper addresses the development of the safety assessment model for the underground silo of Wolseong Low-and Immediate-Level Waste (LILW) disposal facility in Korea. As the simulated result, the nuclides diffused from the waste were kept inside the silo without the leakage of those while the integrity of the concrete is maintained. After the degradation of concrete, radionuclides migrate in the same direction as the groundwater flow by mainly advection mechanism. The release of radionuclides has a positive linear relationship with a half-life in the range of medium half-life. Additionally, the solidified waste form delays and reduces the migration of radionuclides through the interaction between the nuclides and the solidified medium. Herein, the phenomenon of this delay was implemented with the mass transfer coefficient of the flux node at numerical modeling. The solidification effects, which are delaying and reducing the leakage of nuclides, were maintained the integrity of the nuclides. This effect was decreased by increasing the half-life and the mass transfer coefficient of radionuclides.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1994.04a
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• pp.260-265
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• 1994

High strength concrete(65MPa) was used for construction of the bulk cement storage silo by using sliding form. This paper presents mix design, production, quality control and experience with field application of high strength concrete under cold weather conditions. It is shown to be possible to produce high strength concrete of compressive strength of 50~60 MPa by using high-range water reducer to lower w/c ratio with appropriate quality control.