• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.301-308
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• 2018

Anthropogenic radioactive noble gases formed by nuclear fission are significant indicators used to monitor the nuclear activity of neighboring countries. In particular, radioactive xenon, owing to its abundant generation and short half-life, can be used to detect nuclear testing, and radioactive krypton has been used as a tracer to monitor the reprocessing of nuclear fuels. Released radioactive noble gases are in the atmosphere at infinitesimal amounts due to their dilution in the air and their short half-life decay. Therefore, to obtain reliable and significant data when performing measurement of noble gases in the atmosphere, the minimum detectable activity (MDA) for noble gases should be defined as low as possible. In this study, the MDA values for radioactive xenon and krypton were theoretically obtained based on the BfS-IAR system by collecting both noble gases simultaneously. In addition, various MDA methods, confidence level and analysis conditions were suggested to reduce and optimize MDA with an assessment of the factors affecting MDA. The current investigation indicated that maximizing the pretreatment efficiency and performance maintenance of the counter were the most important aspects for Xe. In the case of Kr, since sample activities are much higher than those of Xe, it is possible to change the target MDA or to simplification of the analysis system.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.179-194
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• 2020

A Bayesian approach was introduced to improve the belief of prior distributions of input parameters for the probabilistic safety assessment of radioactive waste repository. A GoldSim-based module was developed using the Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm and implemented through GSTSPA (GoldSim Total System Performance Assessment), a GoldSim template for generic/site-specific safety assessment of the radioactive repository system. In this study, sequential Bayesian updating of prior distributions was comprehensively explained and used as a basis to conduct a reliable safety assessment of the repository. The prior distribution to three sequential posterior distributions for several selected parameters associated with nuclide transport in the fractured rock medium was updated with assumed likelihood functions. The process was demonstrated through a probabilistic safety assessment of the conceptual repository for illustrative purposes. Through this study, it was shown that insufficient observed data could enhance the belief of prior distributions for input parameter values commonly available, which are usually uncertain. This is particularly applicable for nuclide behavior in and around the repository system, which typically exhibited a long time span and wide modeling domain.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.133-141
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• 2020

A geological repository comprises a natural barrier and an engineered barrier system. Its design components consist of canisters, buffers, backfill, and near-field rock. Among the engineered barrier system components, bentonite buffers minimize the groundwater flow from near-field rock and prevent the release of nuclide. Investigation of the hydraulic conductivity of the buffer to groundwater flow is an important factor in the performance evaluation of the stability and integrity of the engineered barrier of the repository. In this study, saturated hydraulic conductivity tests were performed using Gyeongju bentonite at various dry densities and temperatures, and a hydraulic conductivity prediction model was developed through multiple regression analysis using the 120 result sets of hydraulic conductivity. The test results showed that the hydraulic conductivity tends to decrease as the dry density increases. In addition, the hydraulic conductivity increased with increasing temperature. The multiple regression analysis results showed that the coefficient of determination (R²) of the hydraulic conductivity prediction equation was as high as 0.93. The hydraulic conductivity prediction equation presented in this study could be used for the design of engineered barrier systems.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.183-192
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• 2005

Natural ventilation in radioactive waste repositories is considered to be less efficient than mechanically forced ventilation for the repository working environment and hygiene & safety of the public at large, for example, controlling the exposure of airborne radioactive particulate matter. It is, however, considered to play an important role and may be fairly efficient for maintaining environmental conditions of the repository over the duration of its lifetime, for example, moisture content and radon (Rn) gas elimination in repository. This paper describes the feasibility of using natural ventilation which can be generated in the repository itself, depending on the conditions of the natural environment during the periods of repository construction and operation. Evidences from natural cave analogues, actual measurements of natural ventilation pressures in mountain traffic tunnels with vertical shafts, and calculations of airflow rates with given natural ventilation pressures indicate possible benefits from passive ventilation for the prospective Korean radioactive waste repository. Natural ventilation may provide engineers with a cost-efficient method for heat and moisture transfer, and radon (Rn) gas elimination in a radioactive waste repository. The overall thermal performance of the repository may be improved. The dry-out period may be extended, and the seepage flux likely would be decreased.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.161-170
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• 2006

PFC(Perfluorocarbon) decontamination process is one of best methods to remove hot particulate adhered on the inner surface of hot cell and surface of equipment in hot cell. It was necessary to develop a filtration equipment to reuse the PFC waste solution generated on PFC decontamination due to the high cost of PFC solution and for minimization of the volume of second waste solution. The filtration equipment was developed to remove hot particulate in PFC waste solution. It was made suitable size and weight in consideration of hot cell gate and crane. And it has wheels for easy movement. Flux of the filtration equipment decreased with particulate concentration increase. It consists of pre-filter($1.4{\mu}m$) and final-filter($0.2{\mu}m$) for protection of the flux decrease along filtration time. It treatment capacity of waste solution is 0.2 L/min.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.187-195
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• 2006

The regulation for the low and intermediate level radioactive waste to be transferred to the disposal facility, recently revised, require that radioactive waste generators should set up waste certification program to verify the radioactive waste conform to the waste acceptance criteria(WAC) before disposal. The radioactive waste disposal facility, scheduled to be constructed in Korea, will institute WAC for the wastes to be transferred to the facility. This WAC is expected to compose of the requirements for the radiological characterization, physical and chemical characterization, physical/chemical restriction, prohibited item, packaging, identification, labeling, and documentation. For the compliance with this regulation, The radioactive waste generators should verify that the waste meet WAC through performance of the waste certification program and are responsible for handing in all the certification documents to the disposal facility. This waste certification program plan was set up as a preliminary program for the certification of radioactive waste generated in Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) and should be further revised until preparation of WAC by disposal agent.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.3602-3610
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• 2013

The risk of failure in the development of modern weapon systems has been increasing as the demand on the capability and the resulting complexity of the weapons on the war fields are increasing drastically. The analysis of failure has indicated that the main causes can be the following: one is attributed to the unsatisfaction of the system operation concept; and the other is the use of premature technology. As such, DAPA in Korea is urging that the weapons systems development should meet the required operational capability (ROC) as a critical performance requirement. On the other hand, an approach to risk management is to use the technology readiness level (TRL) assessed for each individual technology alone. However, the method of TRL cannot assess the effect of integration between technologies and cannot be performed at system level, which is crucial to systems development. In order to improve the shortfalls, a concept of system readiness level (SRL) has been studied by introducing the technologies integration and also some forms of analysis of advanced degree of difficulty studied separately, but no model considering both of two reported yet. In this paper, under the framework of meeting the ROC, an improved SRL assessment model is presented, which is also considering the advanced degree of difficulty simultaneously. The application of the improved assessment method is discussed in connection with the life cycle of the weapon systems development in conformance with the ROC of DAPA.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.9 no.2 s.32
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• pp.13-25
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• 2007

Viscosity, adhesion and cohesion of asphalt binder are very important characteristics in asphalt pavement. However, these characteristics can cause some problems such as inaccurate amount of asphalt mixture, reduction of asphalt content and loss of workability during asphalt pavement construction. Asphalt release agent has been used to solve these problems. Diesel oil and vegetable oil are generally used as an asphalt release agent in Korea. However, these agents have been criticized from environmental and binder integrity reasons. Therefore, this study evaluated the characteristics of asphalt release agents including diesel oil, vegetable oil and two emulsion type oils. From the study, it was found that the diesel oil resolved the binder within ten minutes and vegetable oil stripped the binder from mixture within one hour after contacting with asphalt mixture. And also, from the test for estimating the application cycle of asphalt release agent, it appears that diesel oil and vegetable oil should be applied to construction equipments every time in their uses. However, diesel oil and vegetable oil showed a good performance as a lubricant for detaching the asphalt mixtures from the truck bed.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.9-26
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• 2005

In the pursuit of ever higher levels of performance, recent computer systems have made use of deep pipeline, dynamic scheduling and multi-issue superscalar processor technologies. In this situations, branch prediction schemes are an essential part of modem microarchitectures because the penalty for a branch misprediction increases as pipelines deepen and the number of instructions issued per cycle increases. In this paper, we propose a novel branch prediction scheme, direction-gshare(d-gshare), to improve the prediction accuracy. At first, we model a neural network with the components that possibly affect the branch prediction accuracy, and analyze the variation of their weights based on the neural network information. Then, we newly add the component that has a high weight value to an original gshare scheme. We simulate our branch prediction scheme using Simple Scalar, a powerful event-driven simulator, and analyze the simulation results. Our results show that, compared to bimodal, two-level adaptive and gshare predictor, direction-gshare predictor(d-gshare. 3) outperforms, without additional hardware costs, by up to 4.1% and 1.5% in average for the default mont of embedded direction, and 11.8% in maximum and 3.7% in average for the optimal one.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.19-25
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• 2011

The size reduction of the semiconductor chip and the improvement of the electrical performance have been enabled through the introduction of the Cu/Low-K process in modern electronic industries. However, Cu/Low-K has a disadvantage of the physical properties that is weaker than materials used for existing semiconductor manufacture process. It causes many problems in chip manufacturing and package processes. Especially, the delamination between the Cu layer and the low-K dielectric layer is a main defect after the temperature cycles. Since the Cu/Low-K layer is located on the top of the pad of the flip chip, the stress on the flip chip affects the Cu/Low-K layer directly. Therefore, it is needed to improve the underfill process or materials. Especially, it becomes very important to select the underfill to decrease the stress at the flip-chip and to protect the solder bump. We have solved the delamination problem in a 90 nm Cu/Low-K flip-chip package after the temperature cycle by selecting an appropriate underfill.