• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.355-361
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• 2014

Steam explosions can be caused by fuel-coolant interactions resulting from failure of the external vessel cooling system in a new nuclear power plant. This can threaten the integrity of structures, including the nuclear reactor and the containment building. In the present study, an improved technique for analyzing the steam explosion phenomenon was proposed on the basis of previous research and was verified by simulations involving alumina experiments. Also, the improved analysis technique was applied to determine the pressure history of the reactor cavity in accordance with postulated failure locations. The results of the analysis revealed that the effects of vessel side failure are more serious than those of vessel bottom failure, with approximately 70% higher maximum pressure.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.1887-1897
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• 2001

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) launched an intermediate scale steam explosion experiment named "Test for Real Corium Interaction with water (TROI)" using reactor material to investigate whether the molten reactor material would lead to energetic steam explosion when interacted wish cold water at low pressure. The melt-water interaction experiment is performed in a pressure vessel with the multi-dimensional fuel and water pool geometry. The novel concept of cold crucible technology, where powder of the reactor material in a water-cooled cafe is heated by high frequency induction, is firstly implemented for the generation of molten fuel. In this paper, the lest facility and cold crucible technology are introduced and the results or the first series of tests were discussed. The 5 kg of molten ZrO$_2$jet was poured into the 67cm deep water pool at 30 ∼ 95 $\^{C}$. Either spontaneous steam explosions or quenching was observed. The morphology of debris and pressure wave profiles clearly indicate the differences between the two cases.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.21 no.2 s.74
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• pp.29-34
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• 2006

It is revealed that these are correlated with the height of chamber deciding the turbulence extent. In the first experiment, It was examined about the effects of different multiple obstacles such as circular, triangular and square things with the rig that the dimension of original experimental rig was $700{\times}700{\times}200mm{\wedge}3$. Then the heights of chamber were increased from 200 to 1000mm. The dimensions of each obstacle were $70{\times}700{\times}{\wedge}2$ and rectangular vent area were $210{\times}700{\times}{\wedge}2$. In the second one, we performed to see the effects of locations of different multiple obstacles in 200, 500 and 800mm height from the bottom. The results are : The multiple triangular obstacles caused the highest overpressure while the lowest one was the multiple circle bars. Then, the triangular bars caused the highest flame acceleration while the circular obstacles was lowest too. The results showed that the critical height was 800mm due to the formation of turbulence. And the lesser $Av/V^{2/3}$ were small, the more pressure and pressure acceleration rate were increased.

• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2020

Gas explosion accidents are steadily being issued due to increased gas consumption in Korea and foreign countries. To analyze the effects of these gas explosions, a TNT equivalent method is used. In this study, the TNT equivalent was calculated in the event of an explosion due to the volume content in the air of CO, CH₄ and C₂H₄, the typical flammable gases emitted by coal. Also, the peak overpressure and impulse variation with the distance from explosion point were compared and analyzed by gas using the calculated equivalent value of TNT. The upper limit of the TNT equivalent for the three mixed gases is up to five times larger than the other gases mixture. In addition, the peak overpressure and impulse, which are factors of the TNT characteristic curve, are also increasing as the number of gases increases.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.100-105
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• 2014

To design a submerged floating railway that is safe against underwater explosions, railway behavior must be investigated and clarified. In this paper, shock waves and impulse pressures generated by a charge away from the submerged floating railway are expressed using experimental formulas. The submerged floating railway tethered by mooring lines is modeled as a simply supported beam with elastic springs. Finite element analysis for the beam model subjected to impulse loading is conducted so that the response of the submerged floating railway can be investigated. For design purposes, a simplified analysis method combined with dynamic load factor is proposed for the same model. Maximum deformation and internal forces are calculated and compared with the time dependent analysis results. It is shown that the simplified analysis results show good agreement.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.11-25
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• 2015

The accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011, caused by an earthquake and a subsequent tsunami, resulted in a failure of the power systems that are needed to cool the reactors at the plant. The accident progression in the absence of heat removal systems caused Units 1-3 to undergo fuel melting. Containment pressurization and hydrogen explosions ultimately resulted in the escape of radioactivity from reactor containments into the atmosphere and ocean. Problems in containment venting operation, leakage from primary containment boundary to the reactor building, improper functioning of standby gas treatment system (SGTS), unmitigated hydrogen accumulation in the reactor building were identified as some of the reasons those added-up in the severity of the accident. The Fukushima accident not only initiated worldwide demand for installation of adequate control and mitigation measures to minimize the potential source term to the environment but also advocated assessment of the existing mitigation systems performance behavior under a wide range of postulated accident scenarios. The uncertainty in estimating the released fraction of the radionuclides due to the Fukushima accident also underlined the need for comprehensive understanding of fission product behavior as a function of the thermal hydraulic conditions and the type of gaseous, aqueous, and solid materials available for interaction, e.g., gas components, decontamination paint, aerosols, and water pools. In the light of the Fukushima accident, additional experimental needs identified for hydrogen and fission product issues need to be investigated in an integrated and optimized way. Additionally, as more and more passive safety systems, such as passive autocatalytic recombiners and filtered containment venting systems are being retrofitted in current reactors and also planned for future reactors, identified hydrogen and fission product issues will need to be coupled with the operation of passive safety systems in phenomena oriented and coupled effects experiments. In the present paper, potential hydrogen and fission product issues raised by the Fukushima accident are discussed. The discussion focuses on hydrogen and fission product behavior inside nuclear power plant containments under severe accident conditions. The relevant experimental investigations conducted in the technical scale containment THAI (thermal hydraulics, hydrogen, aerosols, and iodine) test facility (9.2 m high, 3.2 m in diameter, and $60m^3$ volume) are discussed in the light of the Fukushima accident.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.33-46
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• 2015

During the past 10 years, the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has performed a study to control hydrogen gas in the containment of the nuclear power plants. Before the Fukushima accident, analytical activities for gas distribution analysis in experiments and plants were primarily conducted using a multidimensional code: the GASFLOW. After the Fukushima accident, the COM3D code, which can simulate a multidimensional hydrogen explosion, was introduced in 2013 to complete the multidimensional hydrogen analysis system. The code validation efforts of the multidimensional codes of the GASFLOW and the COM3D have continued to increase confidence in the use of codes using several international experimental data. The OpenFOAM has been preliminarily evaluated for APR1400 containment, based on experience from coded validation and the analysis of hydrogen distribution and explosion using the multidimensional codes, the GASFLOW and the COM3D. Hydrogen safety in nuclear power has become a much more important issue after the Fukushima event in which hydrogen explosions occurred. The KAERI is preparing a large-scale test that can be used to validate the performance of domestic passive autocatalytic recombiners (PARs) and can provide data for the validation of the severe accident code being developed in Korea.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.1-6
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• 2019

The recent development of biofuel production technology facilitates the widespread use of bioethanol and biodiesel by mixing them with fossil fuels. However, the use of these new blended fuels in combustion could result in severe safety problems, such as fire and explosion. In this study, numerical simulation was performed on the well-stirred reactor (WSR) to simulate the autoignition temperature (AIT) in homogeneous combustion and clarify the effect of ethanol addition on the AIT, the most important property for assessing the potential for fire and explosion. Response surface methodology (RSM) was introduced as a design of experiment (DOE), enabling the AIT to be predicted and optimized systematically with respect to three independent variables: ethanol mole fraction, equivalence ratio, and pressure. The results show that the autoignition temperature primarily depends on the ethanol mole fraction and pressure, while the effects of the equivalence ratio are independent of the AIT. RSM accurately predicted the experimental AIT, indicating that this method can be used to effectively predict the key properties involved in fires and explosions.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.474-483
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• 2016

Accidental events such as collisions, groundings, and hydrocarbon explosions in marine structures can cause catastrophic damage. Thus, it is extremely important to predict the extent of such damage, which determines the total amount of oil spills and the residual hull girder strength. Punching fracture tests were conducted by Choung (2009b), where various sizes of indenters and circular unstiffened steel plates with different thicknesses were used to quasi-statically realize damage extents. A three-dimensional fracture strain surface was developed based on a reference (Choung et al., 2015b), where the average stress triaxiality and average normalized Lode angle were used as the parameters governing the fracture of ductile steels. In this study, new numerical analyses were performed using very fine axisymmetric elements in combination with an Abaqus user-subroutine to implement the three-dimensional fracture strain surface. Conventional numerical analyses were also conducted for the tests to identify the best fit fracture strain values by changing the fracture strains. Based on the phenomenon of the average normalized Lode angle starting out positive and then becoming slightly negative, it was inferred that the shear stress primarily dominates in determining the fractures locations, with a partial contribution from the compressive stress. It should be stated that the three-dimensional fracture surface effectively predicted at least the shear stress-dominant fracture behavior of a mild steel.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.208-210
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• 2015

After the huge explosive accident in port of Tianjin, it is being strengthened on the dangerous goods regulations. This also has been make an extra impact which must meet international standards and even different parts became possible import customs regulations exporting from Korea. Since 2004, internationally in compliance with the enforced the transport of dangerous goods regulations (IMDG Code), but becomes substantial damage to the domestic industry that exports of dangerous goods is a lot of difficulties in the logistics of efficiency due to possible follows only the clearance to the needs of the Chinese Government. In Korea and secure hazardous materials management needs have emerged, but piecemeal ad hoc policy is connected economically costly and unnecessary regulations weighted long-term safe at the same time enables continuation of the development of the only domestic chemical industry to find effective hazardous materials management plan it is.