• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.34-39
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• 2024

Energy harvesting technology that converts the wasted energy resources into electrical energy is emerging as a semipermanent power source for self-powered electronics and wireless low-power sensor systems. Among the various energy conversion techniques, flexible piezoelectric energy harvesters (f-PEHs), using materials with piezoelectric effects, have attracted significant interest because they can harvest a small mechanical energy into electrical signals without constraints of time and space in various environments. In this study, we used a flexible piezoelectric composite film fabricated by dispersing BaHf_xTi_(1-x)O₃ (x = 0, 0.01, 0.05, 0.1) piezoelectric powders inside a polymeric matrix to facilitate f-PEHs. The fabricated f-PEH with optimal Hf contents (x = 0.05) generated a maximum output voltage of 0.95 V and current signal of 130 nA with stable electrical/mechanical disabilities under periodically bending deformations. In addition, we demonstrated a cantilever-type f-PEH and investigated its potential as a sensor by characterizing the output performance under mechanical vibrations at various frequencies. This study provides the breakthrough for realizing self-powered energy harvesting and sensing systems by adopting the lead-free piezoelectric composites under vibrational environments.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.803-811
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• 2024

Nuclear accidents such as Fukushima Daiichi have highlighted the potential of passive safety systems to replace or complement active safety systems as part of the overall prevention and/or mitigation strategies. In addition, passive systems are key features of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), for which they are becoming almost unavoidable and are part of the basic design of many reactors available in today's nuclear market. Nevertheless, their potential to significantly increase the safety of nuclear power plants still needs to be strengthened, in particular the ability of computer codes to determine their performance and reliability in industrial applications and support the safety demonstration. The PASTELS project (September 2020-February 2024), funded by the European Commission "Euratom H2020" programme, is devoted to the study of passive systems relying on natural circulation. The project focuses on two types, namely the SAfety COndenser (SACO) for the evacuation of the core residual power and the Containment Wall Condenser (CWC) for the reduction of heat and pressure in the containment vessel in case of accident. A specific design for each of these systems is being investigated in the project. Firstly, a straight vertical pool type of SACO has been implemented on the Framatome's PKL loop at Erlangen. It represents a tube bundle type heat exchanger that transfers heat from the secondary circuit to the water pool in which it is immersed by condensing the vapour generated in the steam generator. Secondly, the project relies on the CWC installed on the PASI test loop at LUT University in Finland. This facility reproduces the thermal-hydraulic behaviour of a Passive Containment Cooling System (PCCS) mainly composed of a CWC, a heat exchanger in the containment vessel connected to a water tank at atmospheric pressure outside the vessel which represents the ultimate heat sink. Several activities are carried out within the framework of the project. Different tests are conducted on these integral test facilities to produce new and relevant experimental data allowing to better characterize the physical behaviours and the performances of these systems for various thermo-hydraulic conditions. These test programmes are simulated by different codes acting at different scales, mainly system and CFD codes. New "system/CFD" coupling approaches are also considered to evaluate their potential to benefit both from the accuracy of CFD in regions where local 3D effects are dominant and system codes whose computational speed, robustness and general level of physical validation are particularly appreciated in industrial studies. In parallel, the project includes the study of single and two-phase natural circulation loops through a bibliographical study and the simulations of the PERSEO and HERO-2 experimental facilities. After a synthetic presentation of the project and its objectives, this article provides the reader with findings related to the physical analysis of the test results obtained on the PKL and PASI installations as well an overall evaluation of the capability of the different numerical tools to simulate passive systems.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.143-149
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• 2024

We analyze the effect of atmospheric fluctuation on laser beam propagation, using a single-phase screen model and a multi-phase screen model. When a laser beam (wavelength 1064 nm, radius 10 mm, collimated by 25.4 mm optics) propagates 3 km, atmospheric fluctuation with structure constant C_n² in the range of 10^-17 to 10^-14 is generated by the single- and multi-phase screen models. The results of short-term and long-term exposures are analyzed in terms of the beam profile, power in the bucket, and beam radius at the receiver plane. The power in the bucket and beam radius increase as the structure constant increases. When the structure constant is less than 2×10^-15, the results of the single- and multi-phase screen models are similar, within a difference of 1.5 %. However, when the structure constant is greater than 2×10^-15, the difference between the two models increases, and the multi-phase screen model is appropriate under this condition.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.59-77
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• 2015

In order to meet the new requirements for landfill materials, this study planned a study to apply mixed soil of mixing bottom ash and coastal dredged soil to the dredged ground. Coal ash generated from thermal power plant is divided into fly ash and bottom ash. In the case of fly ash, many studies have been conducted because small particles causes permeability coefficient to be small during recycling so no problem has been raised in the environmental area but the utilization of bottom ash has been limited because environmental problems have been raised during recycling due to its larger particle size and greater permeability coefficient. According to recently published studies, however, the results of the study that conducted the water analysis of leachate generated in the ground improvement section using bottom ash showed that heavy metal contamination levels were found to be within the reference value and no significant environmental problems were found so utilization of bottom ash is evaluated to increase significantly in the future. This bottom ash has the particle size of sand and only transportation costs need to be considered when providing materials because the majority has been disposed and it is judged as the most suitable material in dredging landfill in the economic aspect because most thermal power plants are located in the coast and transportation costs can be reduced by ship. Also, research on mixed soil that can maximize the effect of the construction period and construction cost savings than dredged soil is determined as needed because the demand for coastal dredging reclamation is increasing such as Saemangeum project etc. Therefore, we studied self-weight consolidation characteristics depending on sample processing and mixing method of mixed soil by carrying out interior self-weight consolidation experiments on mixed soil of mixing bottom ash and Kaolinite according to the new development needs of recent coastal reclaimed ground and these result findings are expected to be used as basic data when applying the large coastal dredged ground in the future.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.71-81
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• 2005

The purposes of this study was to collect, analyze, and describe the MF exposure levels from subways in Korea and to measure and evaluate the MF levels generated from electric appliances used at general homes. The target subway lines were Seoul Metropolitan Line 1 to Line 8, Bundang Line, Incheon Line, Daegu Line, Gwangju Line, and Busan Line 1 and Line 2. We measured at each station in those subway lines and, all the train types (pantograph-equipped, motor-equipped, and common), and platform types(facing and isolating) were investigated by the distance(80, 200, 400 cm) from the train on 19 targeted subway lines using 3 magnetic field measuring devices (EMDEXII, Enertech Co.) during the survey from January till October, 2004. On the other hand, the levels of the 60Hz magnetic fields generated from 14 items of home electric appliances such as electric blankets, hair dryers, electric razors, etc. were measured at 10 general homes using 5 EMDEXII meters with a sampling interval of 1.5 second by the distance(surface, 30, 50, 100, 300cm ) from the target electric appliances. The survey results in the whole subway lines examined in this study were as follows; Seoul Metropolitan Line 4 using AC(alternating current) power source showed the highest mean value of $2.85{\mu}T$, followed by Seoul Metropolitan Line 1 running between Seoul and Incheon using AC($2.78{\mu}T$), Seoul Metropolitan Line 1 between Seoul and Uijongbu using AC($2.73{\mu}T$), Bundang Line using AC($1.79{\mu}T$), Seoul Metropolitan Line 1 connected from Yongsan using AC($1.67{\mu}T$), Seoul Metropolitan Line 1 between Seoul and Suwon using AC($0.79{\mu}T$), and so on. In general, the intensity of the magnetic field in the subway systems in Korea was significantly higher when using AC($2.14{\pm}0.91{\mu}T$) than when using DC($0.29{\pm}0.44{\mu}T$) power source. Among the home electric appliances examined, microwave ovens showed the highest mean value of $7.69{\mu}T$, followed by hair dryers($6.47{\mu}T$), vacuum cleaners($5.27{\mu}T$), televisions ($2.26{\mu}T$), electric blankets($1.38{\mu}T$), personal computers ($0.81{\mu}T$), and so on. Two items of electric appliances showed the excess value of $0.2{\mu}T$ at the distance of 30cm in the MF exposure level; electric razors $1.58{\pm}2.13{\mu}T$ and vacuum cleaners $0.48{\pm}0.44{\mu}T$. As a whole, this study showed a tendency that the shift of the MF levels according to the increase of distance from the electric appliances was lower than those of the results surveyed in UK and USA. As a result, this study is expected to suggest meaningful data for the future study in exposure assessment of magnetic fields and for the establishment of guidelines for subways and electric appliances in Korea. More detailed and large scaled exposure assessment studies should be performed continuously to get the various and useful information on health risk assessment of MFs in Korea.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.39-60
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• 2011

Since the introduction of web 2.0 technology, social network service has been recognized as the foundation of an important future information technology. The advent of web 2.0 has led to the change of content creators. In the existing web, content creators are service providers, whereas they have changed into service users in the recent web. Users share experiences with other users improving contents quality, thereby it has increased the importance of social network. As a result, diverse forms of social network service have been emerged from relations and experiences of users. Social network is a network to construct and express social relations among people who share interests and activities. Today's social network service has not merely confined itself to showing user interactions, but it has also developed into a level in which content generation and evaluation are interacting with each other. As the volume of contents generated from social network service and the number of connections between users have drastically increased, the social network extraction method becomes more complicated. Consequently the following problems for the social network extraction arise. First problem lies in insufficiency of representational power of object in the social network. Second problem is incapability of expressional power in the diverse connections among users. Third problem is the difficulty of creating dynamic change in the social network due to change in user interests. And lastly, lack of method capable of integrating and processing data efficiently in the heterogeneous distributed computing environment. The first and last problems can be solved by using FOAF, a tool for describing ontology-based user profiles for construction of social network. However, solving second and third problems require a novel technology to reflect dynamic change of user interests and relations. In this paper, we propose a novel method to overcome the above problems of existing social network extraction method by applying FOAF (a tool for describing user profiles) and RSS (a literary web work publishing mechanism) to OLAP system in order to dynamically innovate and manage FOAF. We employed data interoperability which is an important characteristic of FOAF in this paper. Next we used RSS to reflect such changes as time flow and user interests. RSS, a tool for literary web work, provides standard vocabulary for distribution at web sites and contents in the form of RDF/XML. In this paper, we collect personal information and relations of users by utilizing FOAF. We also collect user contents by utilizing RSS. Finally, collected data is inserted into the database by star schema. The system we proposed in this paper generates OLAP cube using data in the database. 'Dynamic FOAF Management Algorithm' processes generated OLAP cube. Dynamic FOAF Management Algorithm consists of two functions: one is find_id_interest() and the other is find_relation (). Find_id_interest() is used to extract user interests during the input period, and find-relation() extracts users matching user interests. Finally, the proposed system reconstructs FOAF by reflecting extracted relationships and interests of users. For the justification of the suggested idea, we showed the implemented result together with its analysis. We used C# language and MS-SQL database, and input FOAF and RSS as data collected from livejournal.com. The implemented result shows that foaf : interest of users has reached an average of 19 percent increase for four weeks. In proportion to the increased foaf : interest change, the number of foaf : knows of users has grown an average of 9 percent for four weeks. As we use FOAF and RSS as basic data which have a wide support in web 2.0 and social network service, we have a definite advantage in utilizing user data distributed in the diverse web sites and services regardless of language and types of computer. By using suggested method in this paper, we can provide better services coping with the rapid change of user interests with the automatic application of FOAF.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.18-35
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• 2019

The Korea District Heating Corporation operates a gas engine generator with a capacity of $4500m^3 /day$ of biogas generated from the sewage treatment plant of the Nanji Water Recycling Center and 1,500 kW. However, the actual operation experience of the biogas power plant is insufficient, and due to lack of accumulated technology and know-how, frequent breakdown and stoppage of the gas engine causes a lot of economic loss. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare technical fundamental measures for stable operation of the power plant In this study, a series of process problems of the gas engine plant using the biogas generated in the sewage treatment plant of the Nanji Water Recovery Center were identified and the optimization of the actual operation was made by minimizing the problems in each step. In order to purify the gas, which is the main cause of the failure stop, the conditions for establishing the quality standard of the adsorption capacity of the activated carbon were established through the analysis of the components and the adsorption test for the active carbon being used at present. In addition, the system was applied to actual operation by applying standards for replacement cycle of activated carbon to minimize impurities, strengthening measurement period of hydrogen sulfide, localization of activated carbon, and strengthening and improving the operation standards of the plant. As a result, the operating performance of gas engine # 1 was increased by 530% and the operation of the second engine was increased by 250%. In addition, improvement of vent line equipment has reduced work process and increased normal operation time and operation rate. In terms of economic efficiency, it also showed a sales increase of KRW 77,000 / year. By applying the strengthening and improvement measures of operating standards, it is possible to reduce the stoppage of the biogas plant, increase the utilization rate, It is judged to be an operational plan.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.285-297
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• 2021

Globally, nuclear-decommissioning facilities have been increased in number, and thereby hundreds of thousands of wastes, such as concrete, soil, and metal, have been generated. For this reason, there have been numerous efforts and researches on the development of technology for volume reduction and recycling of solid radioactive wastes, and this study reviewed and examined thoroughly such previous studies. The waste concrete powder is rehydrated by other processes such as grinding and sintering, and the processes rendered aluminate (C3A), C4AF, C3S, and ��-C2S, which are the significant compounds controlling the hydration reaction of concrete and the compressive strength of the solidified matrix. The review of the previous studies confirmed that waste concretes could be used as recycling cement, but there remain problems with the decreasing strength of solidified matrix due to mingling with aggregates. There have been further efforts to improve the performance of recycling concrete via mixing with reactive agents using industrial by-products, such as blast furnace slag and fly ash. As a result, the compressive strength of the solidified matrix was proved to be enhanced. On the contrary, there have been few kinds of researches on manufacturing recycled concretes using soil wastes. Illite and zeolite in soil waste show the high adsorption capacity on radioactive nuclides, and they can be recycled as solidification agents. If the soil wastes are recycled as much as possible, the volume of wastes generated from the decommissioning of nuclear power plants (NPPs) is not only significantly reduced, but collateral benefits also are received because radioactive wastes are safely disposed of by solidification agents made from such soil wastes. Thus, it is required to study the production of non-sintered cement using clay minerals in soil wastes. This paper reviewed related domestic and foreign researches to consider the sustainable recycling of concrete waste from NPPs as recycling cement and utilizing clay minerals in soil waste to produce unsintered cement.

• Clean Technology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.193-199
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• 2023

Biomass has been used to secure renewable energy certificates (REC) in domestic and overseas coal-fired power plants. In recent years, biofuel has been diversified from traditional wood pellets to non-woody biomass. Non-woody biomass has a higher content of alkaline metals such as K and Na than wood-based biomass, resulting in a lower melting point and an increase in slagging on boiler tubes, which reduces boiler efficiency. This study analyzed the effect of kaolin, an additive commonly used to increase melting points, on biomass co-firing to coal through thermochemical equilibrium calculations. In a previous experiment on biomass co-firing to coal conducted at 80 kW_th, it was interpreted that the use of kaolin actually increased the amount of fouling. In this study, analysis showed that when kaolin was added, aluminosilicate compounds were generated due to Al₂O₃, which is abundant in coal, and mullite was formed. Thus, it was confirmed that the amount of slag increased when more kaolin was used. Further analysis was conducted by increasing the biomass co-firing rate from 0% to 100% at 10% intervals, and the results showed non-linear liquid slag generation. As a result, it was found that the least amount of liquid slag was generated when the biomass co-firing rate was between 50 and 60%. The phase diagram analysis showed that high melting point compounds such as leucite and feldspar were most abundantly generated under these conditions.

• Korean Security Journal
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• no.14
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• pp.517-534
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• 2007

Since the beginning of human society, there have always been struggles and competitions for survival and prosperity, terrorism is not a recent phenomenon, however in modern times it has progressed to reflect the advances in civilization and power structures. At the time of the 9.11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. A., a new world order was in the process of being established after the breakdown of the Cold War era. The attacks drove both the Western and the Islamic worlds into heightened fear of terrorism and war, which threatened the quality of life of the whole mankind. Through two war campaigns against the Islamic world, it seems the U.S. has been pushing its own militaristic security road map of the Greater Middle East democratic initiative, justifying it as a means to retaliate and eradicate the terrorist threats towards themselves. However, with its five-year lopsided victories that cost the nation almost four thousand military casualties, and the war expenses that could match the Vietnam war, the U.S. does not yet seem to be totally emancipated from the fears of terrorism. Terrorism, in itself, is a means of resisting forced rules a form of alternative competition by the weak against the strong, and a way of expressing a dismissive response against dictatorial ideas or orders which allow for no normal changes. Intrinsically, the nature of terrorism is a reaction opposing power logics. Confronted with the absolute military power of the U.S., the Islamic strategies of terrorism have begun to rapidly evolve into a new stage. The new strategies take advantage of their civilization and circumstances, they train and inspire their front-line fighters on the Internet, and issue their orders through the clandestine network of the Al Qaeda operatives. These spontaneously generated strategies have been gained speed among the second, and third Islamic generations, many of whom are now spread throughout western societies. This represents a failure of the power-driven, one-sided overseas security initiatives by the U.S., and is creating a culture of fear and distrust in western societies. It is feared that the U.S. war campaigns have made the clash of religions far worse than before, and may ever lead to global ethnic separations and large-scale population movements. Eventually, it may result in the terrorist groups, enlarged and secretly supported by the huge sums of oil money, driving all mankind into a series of irreparable catastrophes.