• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.491-505
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• 2018

As an alternative to deep geological disposal technology, which is considered as a reference concept, the domestic applicability of deep borehole disposal technology for high level radioactive waste, including spent fuel, has been preliminarily evaluated. Usually, the environment of deep borehole disposal, at a depth of 3 to 5 km, has more stable geological and geo-hydrological conditions. For this purpose, the characteristics of rock distribution in the domestic area were analyzed and drilling and investigation technologies for deep boreholes with large diameter were evaluated. Based on the results of these analyses, design criteria and requirements for the deep borehole disposal system were reviewed, and preliminary reference concept for a deep borehole disposal system, including disposal container and sealing system meeting the criteria and requirements, was developed. Subsequently, various performance assessments, including thermal stability analysis of the system and simulation of the disposal process, were performed in a 3D graphic disposal environment. With these analysis results, the preliminary evaluation of the domestic applicability of the deep borehole disposal system was performed from various points of view. In summary, due to disposal depth and simplicity, the deep borehole disposal system should bring many safety and economic benefits. However, to reduce uncertainty and to obtain the assent of the regulatory authority, an in-situ demonstration of this technology should be carried out. The current results can be used as input to establish a national high-level radioactive waste management policy. In addition, they may be provided as basic information necessary for stakeholders interested in deep borehole disposal technology.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.323-328
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• 2016

Objectives: A clean India is the responsibility of all Indians. One of the objectives of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Initiative) is to bring about behavioural changes regarding healthy sanitation practices. While large-scale programs in India have increased latrine coverage, they have to some extent failed to bring behavioural changes ensuring optimal latrine use, including the safe disposal of child faeces, which is a significant source of exposure to faecal pathogens. Hence, this study was done to explore child faeces disposal practices in rural West Bengal and to elicit the determinants of unhygienic faeces disposal. Methods: Data collection was done using an interview method among the mothers of 502 under-5 children, following a pre-designed, semi-structured schedule during house-to-house visits in a set of villages in the Hooghly district of West Bengal. Results: The prevalence of unsafe disposal of child faeces was 72.4%, and maternal education, per capita income, and water source were found to be significantly associated with unsafe child faeces disposal. Conclusions: This study draws attention to the unsafe disposal of child faeces in this area of India and raises questions about the efficiency of sanitation campaigns in rural India that focus on expanding coverage rather than emphasizing behavioural changes, which are crucial to ensure the safe disposal of child faeces. Thus, it is urgently necessary to strengthen efforts focusing on behavioural changes regarding the safe disposal of child faeces in order to minimise adverse health outcomes.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.63-80
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• 1997

This study attempts to establish the criteria of site selection for establishing solid waste disposal facility, to determine optimal solid waste disposal sites with the criteria, and to examine the suitability of the selected sites. The Multi-Criteria Evaluation(MCE) module in Idrisi is used to determine optimal sites for solid waste disposal. The MCE combines the information from several criteria in interval and/or ratio scale to form a single index of evaluation without leveling down the data scale into ordinal scale. The summary of this study is as follows: First, the considerable criteria are selected through reviewing the literature and the availability of data: namely, percent of slope, fault lines, bedrock characteristics, major residential areas, reservoirs of water supply, rivers, inundated area, roads, and tourist resorts. Second, the criteria maps of nine factors have been developed. Each factor map is standardized and multiplies by its weight, and then the results are summed. After all of the factors have been incorporated, the resulting suitability map is multiplied by each of the constraint in turn to "zero out" unsuitable area. The unsuitable areas are discovered in urban district and its adjacencies, and mountain region as well as river, roads, resort area and their adjacency districts. Third, the potential sites for establishing waste disposal facilities are twenty five districts in Youngyang-gun. Five districts are located in Subi-myun Sinam-ri, nine districts in Chunggi-myun Haehwa-ri and Moojin-ri, and eleven districts in Sukbo-myun Posan-ri. The first highest score of suitability for waste disposal sites is shown at number eleven district in Chunggi-myun Moojin-ri and the second highest one is discovered at number twenty one district in Sukbo-myun Posan-ri that is followed by number nine district in Chunggi-myun Haehwa-ri, number seventeen and twenty three in Sukbo-myun Posan-ri, and number two in Subi-myun Sinam-ri. The first lowest score is found in number six district in Chunggi-myun Haehwa-ri, and the second lowest one is number five district in Subi-myun Sinam-ri. Finally, the Geographic Information System (GIS) helps to select optimal sites with more objectively and to minimize conflict in the determination of waste disposal sites. It is important to present several potential sites with objective criteria for establishing waste disposal facilities and to discover characteristics of each potential site as a result of that final sites of waste disposal are determined through considering thought of residents. This study has a limitation of criteria as a result of the restriction of availability of data such as underground water, soil texture and mineralogy, and thought of residents. To improve selection of optimal sites for a waste disposal facility, more wide rage of spatial and non-spatial data base should be constructed.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.157-178
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• 2013

This study gives a conceptual and basic direction to develop a URL (underground research laboratory) program for establishing the performance and safety of a deep geological disposal system in Korea. The concept of deep geological disposal is one of the preferred methodologies for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). Advanced countries with radioactive waste disposal have developed their own disposal concepts reasonable to their social and environmental conditions and applied to their commercial projects. Deep geological disposal system is a multi-barrier system generally consisting of an engineered barrier and natural barrier. A disposal facility and its host environment can be relied on a necessary containment and isolation over timescales envisaged as several to tens of thousands of years. A disposal system is not allowed in the commercial stage of the disposal program without a validation and demonstration of the performance and safety of the system. All issues confirming performance and safety of a disposal system include investigation, analysis, assessment, design, construction, operation and closure from planning to closure of the deep geological repository. Advanced countries perform RD&D (research, development & demonstration) programs to validate the performance and safety of a disposal system using a URL facility located at the preferred rock area within their own territories. The results and processes from the URL program contribute to construct technical criteria and guidelines for site selection as well as suitability and safety assessment of the final disposal site. Furthermore, the URL program also plays a decisive role in promoting scientific understanding of the deep geological disposal system for stakeholders, such as the public, regulator, and experts.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.201-209
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• 2015

Currently, 23 nuclear power plants are in operation at Kori, Uljin, Younggwang and Wolsong site and a reference deep geological disposal system has been developed for the spent fuels generated by them. The reference spent fuel for this disposal system has 4.5wt% of initial enrichment, 55 GWd/MtU of burn-up, and 40 years of cooling time. In this paper, to improve disposal efficiency and economic feasibility, the characteristics of spent fuels from nuclear power plants, such as type and burn-up, were reviewed. A disposal canister concept for shorter length and relatively lower burn-up spent fuels than the reference spent fuels was developed. Based on this canister concept, thermal analyses were carried out and a deep geological disposal concept was proposed. Measures of disposal efficiency such as unit disposal area and disposal density were compared between this disposal system and the reference disposal system. Also, economic feasibility, such as the volume reduction of copper, cast iron, and bentonite, was analyzed and the results of these analyses showed that the disposal system proposed in this paper has an efficiency of at least 20%. These results could be used for establishing spent fuel management policy and designing practical disposal systems for spent fuels.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.65-72
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• 2008

The purpose of the HLW deep geological disposal is to isolate and to delay the radioactive material release to human beings and the environment for a long time so that the toxicity does not affect to the environment. The main requirements for the HLW repository design is to keep the buffer temperature below $100\;^{\circ}C$ in order to maintain its integrity. So the cooling time of spent fuels discharged from the nuclear power plant is the key consideration factors for efficiency and economic feasibility of the repository. The disposal tunnel/disposal hole spacing, the disposal area and thermal capacity required for the deep geological repository layout which satisfies the temperature requirement of the disposal system is analyzed to set the optimized spent fuels cooling time. To do this, based on the reference disposal concept, thermal stability analyses of the disposal system have been performed and the derived results have been compared by setting the spent fuels cooling time and the disposal tunnel/disposal hole spacing in various ways. From these results, desirable spent fuels cooling time in view of disposal area is derived. The results shows that the time reaching the maximum temperature within the design limit of the temperature in the disposal site is likely shortened as the cooling time of spent fuels becomes short. Also it seems that the temperature-rising and-dropping patterns in the disposal site are of smoothly varying form as the cooling time of spent fuels becomes long. In addition, it is revealed that a desirable cooling time of spent fuels is approximately 40-50 years when spent fuels are supposedly disposed in the deep geological disposal site with its structural scale under consideration in this study.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2015

In the safety assessment of the geological disposal system of the radioactive wastes, the abnormal scenarios, in which the system is impacted by the abnormal events, need to be considered in addition to the reference scenario. In this study, characterization and prediction of well intrusion as one of the abnormal events which will impact the disposal system were conducted probabilistically and statistically for the safety assessment. The domestic well development data were analyzed, and the prediction methodologies of the well intrusion were suggested with a computation example. From the results, the annual well development rate per unit area in Korea was about 0.8 well/yr/km² in the conservative point of view. Considering the area of the overall disposal system which is about 1.5 km², the annual well development rate within the disposal system could be 1.2 well/yr. That is, it could be expected that more than one well would be installed within the disposal system every year after the institutional management period. From the statistical analysis, the probabilistic distribution of the well depth followed the log-normal distribution with 3.0363 m of mean value and 1.1467 m of standard deviation. This study will be followed by the study about the impacts of the well intrusion on the geological disposal system, and the both studies will contribute to the increased reliability of safety assessment.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.231-247
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• 2024

In the field of high-level radioactive waste disposal targeting deep rock environments, hydraulic characteristic information serves as the most important key factor in selecting relevant disposal sites, detailed design of disposal facilities, derivation of optimal construction plans, and safety evaluation during operation. Since various rock types are mixed and distributed in a small area in Korea, it is important to conduct preliminary work to analyze the hydrogeological characteristics of rock aquifers for various rock types and compile the resulting data into a database. In this paper, we obtained hydraulic conductivity data, which is the most representative field hydraulic characteristic of a high-depth volcanic bedrock aquifer, and also analyzed and evaluated the field data. To acquire field data, we used a high-performance hydraulic testing system developed in-house and applied standardized test methods and investigation procedures. In the process of hydraulic characteristic data analysis, hydraulic conductivity values were obtained for each depth, and the pattern of groundwater flow through permeable rock joints located in the test section was also evaluated. It is expected that the series of data acquisition methods, procedures, and analysis results proposed in this report can be used to build a database of hydraulic characteristics data for high-depth rock aquifers in Korea. In addition, it is expected that it will play a role in improving technical know-how to be applied to research on hydraulic characteristic according to various bedrock types in the future.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.105-115
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• 2024

In this study, we employed a small-scale experiment to demonstrate the introduction of a thin copper heat dissipation plate into a bentonite buffer layer of an engineered barrier system. This experiment designed for spent nuclear fuel disposal can effectively reduce the maximum temperature of the bentonite buffer layer, and ultimately, make it possible to reduce the area of the disposal site. For the experiment, a small-scale engineered barrier system with a copper heat dissipation plate was designed and manufactured. the thickness of the cylindrical buffer was about 2 cm, which was about 1/20 of KAERI Repository System (KRS). At a power supply of 250 W, the maximum buffer temperature reduced to a mere 1.8℃ when the thin copper plate was introduced. However, the maximum surface temperature reduced to a remarkable 9.1℃, when a U-collar copper plate was introduced, which had a good contact with the other barrier layers. Consequently, we conclude that the introduction of the thin copper plate into the engineered barrier system for spent nuclear fuel disposal can effectively reduce the maximum buffer temperature in high-level radioactive waste disposal repositories.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.366-369
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• 2001

This study was performed to investigate the degree of pollution of sediments of stream and reservoir in rural area. A series of site investigations were carried out for Kyongki-do area and chemical analysis were performed for sediment samples. It was found that some samples were heavily polluted with phenol and TPH and gave off a malodor. Soil Pollution Scores(SPSs) was determined for sediment samples. Some samples were classified to Soil Pollution Class(SPC) 2 and 3. For recycling and disposal of dredged sediments from stream and reservoirs, these polluted sediments should be carefully considered. A further study on the criterion of recycling/disposal of sediments and development of new Soil Pollution Index compatible for stream sediments is necessary in future.