• Title/Summary/Keyword: Decommissioning of nuclear facilities

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Comprehensive Assessment on Risk Factors using Fuzzy Inference in Decommissioning Process (퍼지추론을 이용한 해체공정 중 리스크 요인의 통합 평가)

  • Lim, Hyeon Kyo;Kim, Hyunjung
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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    • v.29 no.4
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    • pp.184-190
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    • 2014
  • Decommissioning process of nuclear facilities consist of a sequence of problem solving activities, because there may exist not only working environments contaminated by radiological exposure but also industrial hazards such as fire, explosions, toxic materials, and electrical and physical hazards. Therefore, not a few countries in the world have been trying to develop appropriate counter techniques in order to guarantee safety and efficiency of the process. In spite of that, there still exists neither domestic nor international standard. Unfortunately, however, there are few workers who experienced decommissioning operations a lot in the past. As a solution, it is quite necessary to utilize experts' opinions for risk assessment in decommissioning process. As for an individual hazard factor, risk assessment techniques are getting known to industrial workers with advance of safety technology, but the way how to integrate those results is not yet. This paper aimed to find out an appropriate technique to integrate individual risk assessment results from the viewpoint of experts. Thus, on one hand the whole risk assessment activity for decommissioning operations was modeled as a sequence of individual risk assessment steps which can be classified into two activities, decontamination and dismantling, and on the other, a risk assessment structure was introduced. The whole model was inferred with Fuzzy theory and techniques, and a numerical example was appended for comprehension.

A Study of Cesium Removal Using Prussian Blue-Alginate Beads (프러시안 블루-알지네이트 비드를 이용한 세슘 제거 연구)

  • So-on Park;Su-jung Min;Bum-kyoung Seo;Chang-hyun Roh;Sang-bum Hong
    • Journal of Radiation Industry
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    • v.18 no.1
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    • pp.89-93
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    • 2024
  • Accidents at nuclear facilities and nuclear power plants led to leaks of large amounts of radioactive substances. Of the various radioactive nuclides released, 137Cs are radioactive substances generated during the fission of uranium. Therefore, due to the high fission yield (6.09%), strong gamma rays, and a relatively long half-life (30 years), a rapid and efficient removal method and a study of adsorbents are needed. Accordingly, an adsorbent was prepared using Prussian blue (PB), a material that selectively adsorbs radioactive cesium. As a result of evaluating the adsorption performance with the prepared adsorbent, it was confirmed that 82% of the removal efficiency was obtained, and most of the cesium was rapidly adsorbed within 10 to 15 minutes. The purpose of this study was to adsorb cesium using the Prussian blue alginate bead and to compare the change in detection efficiency according to the amount of adsorbent added for quantitative evaluation. However, in this case, it is difficult to determine the detection efficiency using a standard source with the same conditions as the measurement sample, so the efficiency change of the HPGe detector according to the different heights of Prussian blue was calculated through MCNP simulation using certified standard materials (1 L, Marinelli beaker) for radioactivity measurement. It is expected to derive a relational equation that can calculate detection efficiency through an efficiency curve according to the volume of Prussian blue, quantitatively evaluate the activity at the same time as the adsorption of radioactive nuclides in actual contaminated water and use it in the field of nuclear facility operation and dismantling in the future.

Analytical method for determination of 41Ca in radioactive concrete

  • Lee, Yong-Jin;Lim, Jong-Myoung;Lee, Jin-Hong;Hong, Sang-Bum;Kim, Hyuncheol
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.53 no.4
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    • pp.1210-1217
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    • 2021
  • The analysis of 41Ca in concrete generated from the nuclear facilities decommissioning is critical for ensuring the safe management of radioactive waste. An analytical method for the determination of 41Ca in concrete is described. 41Ca is a neutron-activated long radionuclide, and hence, for accurate analysis, it is necessary to completely extract Ca from the concrete sample where it exists as the predominant element. The decomposition methods employed were the acid leaching, microwave digestion, and alkali fusion. A comparison of the results indicated that the alkali fusion is the most suitable way for the separation of Ca from the concrete sample. Several processes of hydroxide and carbonate precipitation were employed to separate 41Ca from interferences. The method relies on the differences in the solubility of the generated products. The behavior of Ca and the interfering elements such as Fe, Ni, Co, Eu, Ba, and Sr is examined at each separation step. The purified 41Ca was measured by a liquid scintillation counter, and the quench curve and counting efficiency were determined by using a certified reference material of known 41Ca activity. The recoveries in this study ranged from 56 to 68%, and the minimum detectable activity was 50 mBq g-1 with 0.5 g of concrete sample.

High-power fiber laser cutting parameter optimization for nuclear Decommissioning

  • Lopez, Ana Beatriz;Assuncao, Eurico;Quintino, Luisa;Blackburn, Jonathan;Khan, Ali
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.49 no.4
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    • pp.865-872
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    • 2017
  • For more than 10 years, the laser process has been studied for dismantling work; however, relatively few research works have addressed the effect of high-power fiber laser cutting for thick sections. Since in the nuclear sector, a significant quantity of thick material is required to be cut, this study aims to improve the reliability of laser cutting for such work and indicates guidelines to optimize the cutting procedure, in particular, nozzle combinations (standoff distance and focus position), to minimize waste material. The results obtained show the performance levels that can be reached with 10 kW fiber lasers, using which it is possible to obtain narrower kerfs than those found in published results obtained with other lasers. Nonetheless, fiber lasers appear to show the same effects as those of $CO_2$ and ND:YAG lasers. Thus, the main factor that affects the kerf width is the focal position, which means that minimum laser spot diameters are advised for smaller kerf widths.

Implementation of an Architecture for the Dismantling Digital Mock-up System (해체 디지털목업시스템 아키텍쳐 구현)

  • Park Hee-Seoung;Kim Sung-Kyun;Lee Kune-Woo;Oh Won-Jin
    • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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    • v.3 no.3
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    • pp.237-247
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    • 2005
  • It is necessary to forecast the various dismantling activities prior to dismantling nuclear facilities by using various software instead of a physical mock-up system because the dismantling in a contaminated with radioactivity cause the results of an unexpected situation. The component that needs to develop a dismantling mock-up system was examined. There are many component systems such as a decommissioning database system,3D dosimetric mapping that represents a distribution of a radionuclide contamination, a component of modeling for nuclear facility and devices include the decontamination and decommissioning. The research of software architecture about these components was carried out because these component systems that have been independently doesn't describe not only to visual an activities of Decontamination and Decommissioning(D&D) but also to evaluate it. The result was established an architecture that consist of an visualization module which could be visualized an D&D activities and a simulation module which can be evaluated a dismantling schedule and decommissioning cost.

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