• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.455-472
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• 2018

It is important to study how to manage dry storage casks of spent nuclear fuels (SNF), because wet storage spaces for SNF will shortly be at full capacity in the Republic of Korea. The US has operated a dry storage cask system for several decades, and has carried out significant studies into how to successfully manage dry storage cask for SNF. This type of expertise and experience is currently lacking in the Republic of Korea. The degradation of dry casks is an important issue that must be considered. In particular, chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) is known to lead to the release of radioisotopes from canisters. The U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Electric Power Research Institute have undertaken research into the CISCC mechanism. In addition, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) has extensively researched CISCC and how to manage it in dry storage canisters. In this review paper, the probabilistic model proposed by the SNL is analyzed and, based on this model, US-based CISCC research is reviewed in detail. This paper will inform the management of dry cask storage of SNF from light water reactors in austenite stainless steel canisters in the Republic of Korea.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.84-92
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• 2023

As temporary storage facilities for spent nuclear fuels in domestic nuclear power plants are expected to be saturated, external intermediate storage facilities would be required in the future. Spent nuclear fuels are stored in metal canisters and then placed in a dry environment within concrete or metal casing for operation. In the United States, the dry storage method for spent nuclear fuels has been operated for an extended period. Based on the corrosion experiences of dry storage canisters in chloride environments, numerous studies have been conducted to reduce corrosion in welds. With the construction of intermediate storage facilities in Korea for spent nuclear fuels expected near coastal areas adjacent to nuclear power plants, there is a need for research on the corrosion occurrence of welds and mitigation methods for canisters in chloride environments. In this paper, we measured and compared the residual stresses in the Heat-Affected Zones (HAZ) after electron beam welding (EBW) and gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) processes for candidate materials such as 304L, 316L, and duplex stainless steel(DSS). We investigated the possibility of microstructure control through the application of surface modification processes using friction stir processing (FSP). Corrosion tests on each welded specimen revealed a higher corrosion rate in EBW welds compared to GTAW. Furthermore, it was confirmed that corrosion resistance improved due to phase refinement and redistribution of precipitates when FSP was applied.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.657-665
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• 2021

Nondestructive evaluation methods play an important role in ensuring component integrity and safety in many industries. Operator fatigue can play a critical role in the reliability of such methods. This is important for inspecting high value assets or assets with a high consequence of failure, such as aerospace and nuclear components. Recent advances in convolution neural networks can support and automate these inspection efforts. This paper proposes using residual neural networks (ResNets) for real-time detection of corrosion, including iron oxide discoloration, pitting and stress corrosion cracking, in dry storage stainless steel canisters housing used nuclear fuel. The proposed approach crops nuclear canister images into smaller tiles, trains a ResNet on these tiles, and classifies images as corroded or intact using the per-image count of tiles predicted as corroded by the ResNet. The results demonstrate that such a deep learning approach allows to detect the locus of corrosion via smaller tiles, and at the same time to infer with high accuracy whether an image comes from a corroded canister. Thereby, the proposed approach holds promise to automate and speed up nuclear fuel canister inspections, to minimize inspection costs, and to partially replace human-conducted onsite inspections, thus reducing radiation doses to personnel.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.890-898
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• 2018

Nondestructive inspection (NDI) is an integral part of structural integrity analyses of dry storage casks that house spent nuclear fuel. One significant concern for the structural integrity is stress corrosion cracking in the heat-affected zone of welds in the stainless steel canister that confines the spent fuel. In situ NDI methodology for detection of stress corrosion cracking is investigated, where the inspection uses a delivery robot because of the presence of the harsh environment and geometric constrains inside the cask protecting the canister. Shear horizontal (SH) guided waves that are sensitive to cracks oriented either perpendicular or parallel to the wave vector are used to locate welds and to detect cracks. SH waves are excited and received by electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs) using noncontact ultrasonic transduction and pulse-echo mode. A laboratory-scale canister mock-up is fabricated and inspected using the proposed methodology to evaluate the ability of EMATs to excite and receive SH waves and to locate welds. The EMAT's capability to detect notches from various distances is evaluated on a plate containing 25%-through-thickness surface-breaking notches. Based on the results of the distances at which notch reflections are detectable, NDI coverage for spent nuclear fuel storage canisters is determined.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.503-516
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• 2023

A transfer cask serves as the container for transporting and handling canisters loaded with spent nuclear fuels from light water reactors. This study focuses on a cylindrical transfer cask, standing at 5,300 mm with an external diameter of 2,170 mm, featuring impact limiters on the top and bottom sides. The base of the cask body has an openable/closable lid for loading canisters with storage modules. The transfer cask houses a canister containing spent nuclear fuels from lightweight reactors, serving as the confinement boundary while the cask itself lacks the confinement structure. The objective of this study was to conduct a structural analysis evaluation of the transfer cask, currently under development in Korea, ensuring its safety. This evaluation encompasses analyses of loads under normal, off-normal, and accident conditions, adhering to NUREG-2215. Structural integrity was assessed by comparing combined results for each load against stress limits. The results confirm that the transfer cask meets stress limits across normal, off-normal, and accident conditions, establishing its structural safety.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.403-409
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• 2017

For dry storage of the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) stored in the storage pool of a nuclear power plant, essentially all moisture must be removed to prevent corrosion of the assembly and canister internals and/or degradation of fuel cladding integrity after SNF canister loading operation. R&D work is now in progress on a forced gas drying system that can be used to remove residual water in canisters. In this work, preliminary design is performed to manufacture the forced gas drying system. This process includes a case study of dry methods for canister moisture removal, relative codes and standards, confirmation of adequate dryness, needs analysis at plant sites, and characteristics of SNF stored in pools. Through this preliminary design work, we obtained a conceptual flow diagram and preliminary P&ID of the forced gas drying system. The results of this study can be used to determine details of the design to manufacture the forced gas drying system.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.487-496
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to develop the preliminary source fingerprints of volatile organic compounds (VOC). The source categories studied were vehicles, gasoline vapor, gasoline storage tank, coating, dry cleaning and road covering. The source samples were collected using 6L electro-polished stainless steel canisters for about 20 seconds. From this study, the main component emitted from VOC sources in Korea was toluene. The toluene proportion for road covering, vehicles, coating and gasoline vapor were 35, 18, 16 and 5%, respec- tively. The C$_2$-C$\sub$5/ alkane and alkene compounds were mainly emitted from vehicles, gasoline vapor and gasoline storage tank. The main compounds of coating were m/p-xylene(34%), toluene(16%), 1,2,4-TMB(10%) and o-xylene(9%), which are aromatic hydrocarbons. In the case of dry cleaning, nonane(41%), 1,2,4-TMB (22%) and 1,3,5-TMB(13%) were mainly emitted.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.119-128
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• 2008

Thermal assessment of a new CANDU spent fuel disposal system, which improves the retrievability of the spent fuel and enhances the densification factor compared with the Korean Reference disposal System, is carried out in this study. The canisters for CANDU spent fuels are stored for long term and cooled by natural convection in the proposed disposal system for the retrievability. The steady state thermal analyses for proposed CANDU disposal system are carried out with the ANSYS 10.0 CFX code. The thermal analyses are performed through two steps. At the first step, the sensitivity of the disposal tunnel spacing is analysed. The differences of maximum temperatures by several tunnel spacings are calculated at three points in the disposal tunnel. The result shows that the differences of the temperature at the three points are almost negligible because 99% of the decay heat is removed by natural convection. At the second procedure, 60m tunnel spacing with a ventilation system instead of natural convection is considered. The result is applied to the calculation of the canister surface temperature in disposal tunnel as boundary conditions. Consequently, the average and the maximum surface temperature of disposal canisters are $79.9^{\circ}C$ and $119^{\circ}C$, respectively. The inner maximum temperature of a basket in the disposal canister is calculated as $140.9^{\circ}C$. The maximum temperature of the basket meets the thermal requirement for the CANDU spent fuel cladding.