• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.296-301
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• 2012

Purpose: Combustion and fuel qualities of the animal-fats biodiesel as a heating fuel for agricultural hot air heater were studied. Methods: Biodiesel (BD) was made from animal-fats by reacting with methanol and potassium hydroxide in the laboratory. The biodiesel made in the laboratory was tested for fuel and combustion qualities. Results: The kinematic viscosity and the calorific values of the biodiesels were measured. Kerosene based biodiesel, BD20 (K) showed 18 cSt at $-20^{\circ}C$. It seemed that BD100 was not suitable for a heating fuel under some temperature. As BD content increased, the calorific value decreased up to 40,000 J/g for BD100, while the calorific value of light oil was 45,567 J/g showing difference of 5,567 J/g, about 12% difference. Several different fuels including BD20 (biodiesel 20% + light oil 80%), BD50 (biodiesel 50% + light oil 50%), BD100 (biodiesel 100%), and light oil were tested for fuel combustion qualities for agricultural hot air heater, and their combustion performances were compared and analyzed. Flame dimensions of biodiesels and light oils were almost the same shape at the same combustion condition. Generally, the $CO_2$ amounts of BDs were greater than light oil. However, in this study the differences were minor, so there was no significant difference existed between the BDs combustion and light oil. Conclusions: It seemed that quality was good for heating oil for agricultural hot air heater because of showing no barriers for continuous combustion and proper exhaust gas temperature and $CO_2$ amount discharged. But, for fuel fluidity for higher BD content fuel could be a detrimental problem in situations where the outdoor temperature is lowered. As BD content increased, calorific value decreased up to 40,000 J/g for BD100. Calorific value difference between BD20 and light oil was about 1,360 J/g.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.73-78
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• 2004

The liquid phase LPG injection (LPLi) system (the third generation technology) has been considered as one of the next generation fuel supply systems for LPG vehicles, since it has a very strong potential to accomplish the higher power, higher efficiency, and lower emission characteristics than the mixer type(the second generation technology) fuel supply system. To investigate the durability property of core part of injector in liquid phase LPG injection system, leakage test, SEM test of injectors and analysis of unvaporized fuel components with various LPG fuel qualities were tested. The experimental results showed that no serious problem in durability test using favorable LPG fuel quality, while high leakage amount due to the large scratches in the needle and nozzle of the injector were found using LPG fuel with highly containing olefin components, especially butadiene species.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.125-127
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• 2006

A spacer grid assembly, which is an interconnected array of slotted grid straps and is welded at the intersections to form an egg crate structure, is one of the main structural components of the nuclear fuel assembly for pressurized water reactors(PWRs). The spacer grid assembly is structurally required to have enough buckling strength under various kinds of lateral loads acting on the nuclear fuel assembly so as to keep the nuclear fuel assembly straight. To meet this requirement, it is necessary to weld the welding parts carefully and precisely. In this study, weld qualities such as, weld bead size, penetration, spatter, etc. manufactured by various welders were compared and analyzed. Comparison results show that the weld qualities could be improved by selecting the optimal welding condition and also improving the welding technique.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.181-190
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• 2011

The air pollutants from vehicle exhaust gas are affected by many factors including fuel qualities, engine and vehicle technologies, driving patterns. In particular, fuel qualities and after-treatment devices could directly affect the emission level of pollutants. The pollutant reduction characteristics that caused by enforced fuel quality standard were analyzed. Three types of test fuel were selected in accordance with Korean automotive fuel standard in 2006, 2009, 2012 and used for vehicle emission test in chassis dynamometer. European COPERT correction equation of fuel impact was considered as reference information to quantify the vehicle emission test results. The contribution rates of exhaust emission by COPERT correction equation showed that aromatic compounds and oxygen contents in gasoline fuel was most important. In case of diesel fuel, cetane index and polycyclic aromatic compounds accounted for the greater part. The exhaust emission effects by COPERT correction equation revealed that CO and VOC was increased 0.86%, 1.57% respectively in after 2009 gasoline when compared to before 2009 gasoline fuel. In case of light-duty diesel vehicle CO, VOC and PM were decreased in range of 3~7%. The result from this study could be provided for developing future fuel standards and be used to fundamental information for Korean clean air act.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.124-129
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• 2008

In this study, fuel qualities including kinematic viscosity and pour point in the various temperature, calorific value and combustion characteristics of two biodiesels based on the soybean and waste oil blended with light oil were investigated and discussed in order to figure out to confirm fuel compatibility taking the place of light oil in the hot air heater or boiler. As biodiesel content ratio increased calorific value of biodiesel decreased, and the difference was 13% between 100%-biodiesel and light oil. In general, pour points of the biodiesels were higher than light oil, and as biodiesel content ratio increased pour point increased. About 15 cSt was the pour point of biodiesels and light oil, which occurred at 3 to $4^{\circ}C$ in the biodiesels and $-25^{\circ}C$ in the light oil. Flame dimensions of biodiesels and light oil were almost same at the same combustion condition in the burner of the hot air heater. CO concentrations in the exhaustion gas were far lower than those of the light oil. Though pour point of biodiesel is a little inferior to light oil, still biodiesel can be an alternative fuel substituting for light oil in combustion system without much modifying the current oil combustion mechanism.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.203-205
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• 2007

A spacer grid assembly, which is an interconnected array of slotted grid straps and is welded at the intersections to form an egg crate structure, is one of the main structural components of the nuclear fuel assembly for pressurized water reactors(PWRs). The spacer grid assembly is structurally required to have enough buckling strength under various kinds of lateral loads acting on the nuclear fuel assembly so as to keep the nuclear fuel assembly straight. And also, the spacer grid assembly is hydraulically required to have less hydraulic resistance of coolant. To meet this requirement, it is necessary to weld the welding parts carefully and precisely. In this study, weld qualities such as, weld bead size and spatter manufactured by various welders were compared and analyzed. And performance parameters such as impact strength of spacer grid and hydraulic resistance of coolant were also compared and analyzed. Comparison results show that the weld qualities could be improved by selecting the optimal welding condition and also improving the welding technique.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.481-488
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• 2000

This study was initiated in order to find alternative fuel substituting for light oil the most common fuel for heating greenhouse. The tire oil used in this research was produced by pyrolysis process, one of the final products besides steel string and carbon black in which waste tires as a form of chopped pieces broken by shredding machine are heated up to 200~30$0^{\circ}C$ with maximum restraining of oxygen supply. In order to justify light oil equivalent qualities in tire oil combustion characteristics were defined in the way of comparing kinetic viscosities in the wide range of temperature flame sizes and exhaust gas components in the various combustion conditions. We found that kinetic viscosity of tire oil was lower than light oil by 1 to 2 cSt in the temperature range showing better flowing mobility in the fuel line of the burner and no significant difference in flame size between the two oils in the all combustion treatments. However much more NO and SO$_2$ were detected from the exhaust gases of tire oil than light oil combustions. In fact tire oil contains more nitrogen and total sulfur, by 25 times and 40 times respectively than light oil according to the composition analysis. Tolerable limit for SO$_2$discharge amount defined by the national air pollution standards is under 540ppm so tire oil combustion satisfies the requirement though. It is desirable if sulfur and nitrogen filtering process shall be added in the tire oil production line. Except the exhaust gas components all greenhouse heating qualities of tire oil including hot air temperature are very identical to those of light oil.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.109-111
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• 2005

Nuclear fuel assemblies for pressurized water reactors(PWR) are loaded in the reactor core throughout the residence time of three to five years. A spacer grid assembly, which is an interconnected array of slotted grid straps and is welded at the intersections to form an egg crate structure, is one of the main structural components of the nuclear fuel assembly. The spacer grid assembly is structurally required to have enough buckling strength under various kinds of lateral loads acting on the nuclear fuel assembly so as to keep the nuclear fuel assembly straight. To meet this requirement, it is necessary to weld the welding parts carefully and precisely. In this study, laser welding qualities of the spacer grid assembly welded by several welding companies, such as weld strength, weld penetration depth, and weld bead size, are examined and compared.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.10
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• pp.3943-3948
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• 2022

Single-photon emission computed tomography is one of the reliable pin-by-pin verification techniques for spent-fuel assemblies. One of the challenges with this technique is to increase the total fuel assembly verification speed while maintaining high verification accuracy. The aim of the present study, therefore, was to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm-based tomographic image analysis technique for partial-defect verification of fuel assemblies. With the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation technique, a tomographic image dataset consisting of 511 fuel-rod patterns of a 3 × 3 fuel assembly was generated, and with these images, the VGG16, GoogLeNet, and ResNet models were trained. According to an evaluation of these models for different training dataset sizes, the ResNet model showed 100% pattern estimation accuracy. And, based on the different tomographic image qualities, all of the models showed almost 100% pattern estimation accuracy, even for low-quality images with unrecognizable fuel patterns. This study verified that an AI model can be effectively employed for accurate and fast partial-defect verification of fuel assemblies.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.9-20
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• 2008

Since plutonium accounts for 40-50% of the power produced by uranium fuels, spent fuel contains only residual plutonium. Management of this plutonium is one of the aspects influencing the choice of a fuel cycle back-end option: reprocessing, direct disposal or wait-and-see. Different grades and qualities of plutonium exist depending from their specific generation conditions; all are valuable fissile material. Safeguard authorities watch the inventories of civil plutonium, but access to those data is restricted. Independent evaluations have led to an estimated current inventory of 220t plutonium in total (spent fuel, separated civil plutonium and military plutonium). If used as MOX fuel, it would be sufficient to feed all the PWRs and BWRs worldwide during 7 years or to deploy a FBR park corresponding to 150% of today' s installed nuclear capacity worldwide, which could then be exploited for centuries with the current stockpile of depleted and spent uranium. The energy potential of plutonium deteriorates with storage time of spent fuel and of separated plutonium, due to the decay of $^{241}Pu$, the best fissile isotope, into americium, a neutron absorber. The loss of fissile value of plutonium is more pronounced for usage in LWRs than in FBR. However, keeping the current plutonium inventory for an expected future deployment of FBRs is counterproductive. Recycling plutonium reduce the required volume for final disposal in an underground repository and the cost of final disposal. However, the benefits of utilizing an energy resource and of reducing final disposal liabilities are not the only aspects that determine the choice of a back-end policy.