• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제30권3호
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• pp.273-286
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• 1998

As there has arisen a concern that failure of the high burnup fuel under the reactivity-insertion accident(RIA) may occur at the energy lower than the expected, fuel behavior under the rod ejection accident in a typical Westinghouse-designed 950 MWe PWR was analyzed by using the three dimensional nodal transient neutronics code, PANBOX2 and the transient fuel rod performance analysis code, FRAP-T6. Fuel failure criteria versus the burnup was conservatively derived taking into account available test data and the possible fuel failure mechanisms. The high burnup and longer cycle length fuel loading scheme of a peak rod turnup of 68 MWD/kgU was selected for the analysis. Except three dimensional core neutronics calculation, the analysis used the same core conditions and assumptions as the conventional zero dimensional analysis. Results of three dimensional analysis showed that the peak fuel enthalpy during the rod ejection accident is less than one third of that calculated by the conventional zero dimensional analysis methodology and the fraction of fuel failure in the core is less than 4 %. Therefore, it can be said that the current design limit of less than 10 percent fuel failure and maintaining the core coolable geometry would be adequately satisfied under the rod ejection accident, even though the conservative fuel failure criteria derived from the test data are applied.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권5호
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• pp.1602-1611
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• 2021

A varying degree of eccentricity always exists in the initial configuration of a nuclear fuel rod. Its impact on traditional LWR fuel is limited as the radial gap closes relatively early during irradiation. However, the effect of misalignment is expected to be more relevant in rods with highly conductive fuels, large initial gaps and low conductivity filling gases. In this paper, we study similar characteristics in the experimental setup of two fuel disc irradiation campaigns carried out in the OECD Halden Boiling Water Reactor. Using the multi-dimensional fuel performance code OFFBEAT, we combine 2-D axisymmetric and 3-D simulations to investigate the effect of eccentricity on the fuel temperature distribution. At the same time, we illustrate how the advent of modern tools with multi-dimensional capabilities might further improve the design and interpretation of in-pile separate-effect tests and we outline the potential of such an analysis for upcoming experiments.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권7호
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• pp.2475-2490
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• 2022

The Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) is a new concept of fuel, which can not only withstand the consequences of the accident for a longer time, but also maintain or improve the performance under operating conditions. ISAA is a self-developed severe accident analysis code, which uses modular structures to simulate the development processes of severe accidents in nuclear plants. The basic version of ISAA is developed based on UO₂-Zr fuel. To study the potential safety gain of ATF cladding, an improved version of ISAA, referred to as ISAA-ATF, is introduced to analyze the station blackout accident of PWR using ATF cladding. The results show that ATF cladding enable the core to maintain a longer time compared to zirconium alloy cladding, thereby enhancing the accident mitigation capability. Meanwhile, the generation of hydrogen is significantly reduced and delayed, which proves that ATF can improve the safety characteristics of the nuclear reactor.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제19권3호
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• pp.180-185
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• 1987

월성로형 핵연료봉의 정상상태 노내거동 분석용 전산코드인 KAFEPA를 개발하였다. KAFEPA 전산코드는 같은 목적하에서 AECL에 의해 개발되었던 ELESIM 전산코드에 대응하지만, KAPEPA 전산코드는 ELESIM에 비해 보다 이론적이고 정확하게 예측하는 계산모형들, 즉, 핵분열기체방출 모형, 노내고밀화모형 및 중성자속 감소 계산모형들을 내포하고 있다. KAFEPA 전산코드는 핵분열생성물 기체 방출에 대한 22개 노내 실험자료에 그 예측치를 비교함으로써 검증되었다. KAFEPA 전산코드에 의한 예측치는 상기 실험자료와 잘 일치하였다.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 2004년도 추계학술발표회 발표논문집
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• pp.515-516
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• 2004

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제43권2호
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• pp.187-194
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• 2011

Korea Nuclear Fuel is developing the X-GEN fuel which shows high performance and robust reliability for the worldwide supply. However, the simplified code systems such as CESEC-III which were developed in 1970s are still used in the current Non-LOCA safety analysis of OPR1000 and APR1400 plants. Therefore, it is essential to secure an advanced safety analysis methodology to make the best use of the merits of X-GEN fuel. To accomplish this purpose, the $\b{i}$ntegrated $\b{s}$afety $\b{a}$nalysis $\b{m}$ethodology (iSAM), is developed by selecting the best-estimate thermal-hydraulic code RETRAN. iSAM possesses remarkable advantages, such as generality, integrity, and designer-friendly features. That is, iSAM can be applied to both OPR1000 and APR1400 plants and uses only one computer code, RETRAN, in the whole scope of the non-LOCA safety analyses. Also the iSAM adopts the unique and automatic initialization and run tool, $\b{a}$utomatic $\b{s}$teady-$\b{s}$tate $\b{i}$nitialization and $\b{s}$afety analysis too l (ASSIST), to enable unhandy designers to use the new design code RETRAN without difficulty. In this paper, a brief overview of the iSAM is given, and the results of applying the iSAM to typical non-LOCA transients being checked during the reload design are reported. The typical non-LOCA transients selected are the single control element assembly withdrawal (SCEAW) accident, the asymmetric steam generator transients (ASGT), the locked rotor (LR) accident, and bank CEA withdrawal (BCEAW) event. Comparison to current licensing results shows a close resemblance; thus, it reveals that the iSAM can be applied to the non-LOCA safety analysis of OPR1000 and APR1400 plants.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권1호
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• pp.167-179
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• 2024

This study explores the feasibility of employing (U, Th)-based accident tolerant fuels (ATFs), specifically (_0.8UO₂, _0.2ThO₂), (_0.8UN, _0.2ThN), and (_0.8UC, _0.2ThC). The investigation assesses the overall performance of these proposed fuel materials in comparison to the conventional UO₂, focusing on deep neutronic and thermal-hydraulic (Th) analyses. Neutronic analysis utilized the MCNPX code, while COMSOL Multiphysics was employed for thermal-hydraulic analysis. The primary objective of this research is to overcome the limitations associated with traditional UO₂ fuel by exploring alternative fuel materials that offer advantages in terms of abundance and potential improvements in performance and safety. Given the limited abundance of UO₂, long-term sustainable nuclear energy production faces challenges. From a neutronic standpoint, the U-Th based fuels demonstrated remarkable fuel cycle lengths, except (_0.8UN, _0.2ThN), which exhibited the minimum fuel cycle length and, consequently, the lowest fuel burn-up. Regarding thermal-hydraulic performance, (_0.8UN, _0.2ThN) exhibited outstanding performance with significant margins against fuel melting compared to the other materials. Overall, when considering the integrated performance, the most favourable results were obtained with the use of the (_0.8UC, _0.2ThC) fuel configurations. This study contributes valuable insights into the potential benefits of (U, Th)-based ATFs as a promising avenue for enhanced nuclear fuel performance.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제48권2호
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• pp.330-338
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• 2016

The U-Zr or U-TRU-Zr cylindrical metallic fuel slug used in fast reactors is known to swell significantly and to grow during irradiation. In neutronics simulations of metallic-fueled fast reactors, it is assumed that the slug has swollen and contacted cladding, and the bonding sodium has been removed from the fuel region. In this research, a realistic burnup-dependent fuel-swelling simulation was performed using Monte Carlo code McCARD for a single-batch compact sodium-cooled breed-and-burn reactor by considering the fuel-swelling behavior reported from the irradiation test results in EBR-II. The impacts of the realistic burnup-dependent fuel swelling are identified in terms of the reactor neutronics performance, such as core lifetime, conversion ratio, axial power distribution, and local burnup distributions. It was found that axial fuel growth significantly deteriorated the neutron economy of a breed-and-burn reactor and consequently impaired its neutronics performance. The bonding sodium also impaired neutron economy, because it stayed longer in the blanket region until the fuel slug reached 2% burnup.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권10호
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• pp.3133-3150
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• 2021

This work deals with the validation of a high-fidelity multiphysics system coupling the Serpent 2 Monte Carlo neutron transport code with SUBCHANFLOW, a subchannel thermalhydraulics code, and TRANSURANUS, a fuel-performance analysis code. The results for a full-core pin-by-pin burnup calculation for the ninth operating cycle of the Temelín II VVER-1000 plant, which starts from a fresh core, are presented and assessed using experimental data. A good agreement is found comparing the critical boron concentration and a set of pin-level neutron flux profiles against measurements. In addition, the calculated axial and radial power distributions match closely the values reported by the core monitoring system. To demonstrate the modeling capabilities of the three-code coupling, pin-level neutronic, thermalhydraulic and thermomechanic results are shown as well. These studies are encompassed in the final phase of the EU Horizon 2020 McSAFE project, during which the Serpent-SUBCHANFLOW-TRANSURANUS system was developed.

• 한국자동차공학회논문집
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• 제18권4호
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• pp.40-47
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• 2010

This study deals with the investigation about the effect of the pilot and split injection strategies on the spray-atomization characteristics of biodiesel fuel derived from a soybean oil. Experimental results were compared with the calculation results obtained from the numerical analysis. Fuel properties of biodiesel according to the variation of the fuel temperature were inserted to the fuel library in the KIVA code. The amount of fuel injection is divided into equal mass for each split and main injection. In this work, the pilot injection strategy can be achieved by the amount of fuel injection shortly before the start of the main injection. A spray tip penetration, radial distance and spray area were measured for the analysis of macroscopic spray characteristics. In addition, the local and overall droplet size distribution were calculated by using KIVA-3V code to study the effect of split and pilot injection on the atomization performance under high ambient pressure. From these studies, the experimental results showed the multiple injection induced the decrease of the spray tip penetration due to the reduction and division of the spray momentum compared to single injection. In the atomization performance, the droplet size increased in the case of the multiple injection a little. Moreover, the SMD slightly increased as the fuel droplets goes through the axial direction. The spray behavior of numerical results were well predicted the experimental multiple spray characteristics of biodiesel fuel.