• 한국정밀공학회지
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• 제33권4호
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• pp.279-286
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• 2016

To enhance the safety of nuclear reactors after the Fukushima accident, researchers are developing various types of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) to increase the coping time and reduce the generation of hydrogen by oxidation. Coated cladding, an ATF concept, can be a promising technology in view of its commercialization. We applied 3D printing technology to the fabrication of coated cladding as well as of coated pellets. Direct metal tooling (DMT) in 3D printing technologies can create a coated layer on the tubular cladding surface, which maintains stability during corrosion, creep, and wear in the reactor. A 3D laser coating apparatus was built, and parameter studies were carried out. To coat pellets with erbium using this apparatus, we undertook preliminary experiments involving metal pellets. The adhesion test showed that the coated layer can be maintained at near fracture strength.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제37권4호
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• pp.309-316
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• 2005

The contents of a new book currently in preparation are described. The dearth of books in the field of nuclear materials has left both students in nuclear materials classes and professionals in the same field without a resource for the broad fundamentals of this important sub-discipline of nuclear engineering. The new book is devoted entirely to materials problems in the core of light-water reactors, from the pressure vessel into the fuel. Key topics deal with the $UO_2$ fuel, Zircaloy cladding, stainless steel, and of course, water. The restriction to LWR materials does not mean a short monograph; the enormous quantity of experimental and theoretical work over the past 50 years on these materials presents a challenge of culling the most important features and explaining them in the simplest quantitative fashion. Moreover, LWRs will probably be the sole instrument of the return of nuclear energy in electric power production for the next decade or so. By that time, a new book will be needed.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1997년도 춘계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.473-478
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• 1997

A severe accident management strategy, in-vessel retention corium through external reactor vessel cooling(ERVC) is being studied worldwide as a means to prevent reactor vessel failure following a core melt accident. An evaluation of feasibility of this ERVC for a large Advanced Light Water Reactor (ALWR) is presented. To account for the coolability of corium and metal in the reactor vessel, a thermal analysis is performed using an existing method. Results show that the peak heat flux along the inner surface of the reactor vessel lower head has a relatively smaller margin than a small capacity reactor such as AP600 in regards with the critical heat flux attainable at the outer surface of the reactor vessel lower head.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제50권8호
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• pp.1339-1348
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• 2018

The aim of this paper is to determine neutronic performances of the light water reactor (LWR) spent fuel mixed with fertile thorium fuel in a FFHR. Time dependent three dimensional calculations for major technical data, such as blanket energy multiplication, tritium breeding ratio, cumulative fissile fuel enrichment and burnup have been performed by using Monte Carlo Neutron-Particle Transport code MCNP5 1.4, coupled with a novel interface code MCNPAS, which is developed by our research group. A self-sustaining tritium breeding ratio (TBR>1.05) has been kept throughout the calculations. The study has shown that the fissile fuel quality will be improved in the course of the transmutation of the LWR spent in the FFHR. The latter has gained the reusable fuel enrichment level conventional LWRs between one and two years. Furthermore, LWR spent fuel - thorium mixture provides higher burn-up values than in light water reactors.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권9호
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• pp.2130-2137
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• 2020

The standard method for calculating anti-neutrino emissions from a reactor involves knowing the fractional fission rates for the most important fissioning nuclides in the reactor. To calculate these rates requires detailed reactor physics calculations based upon the reactor design, fuel design, burnup dependent fuel composition, location of specific fuel assemblies in the core and detailed operational data from the reactor. This has only been published for a few reactors during specific time periods, whereas to be of practical use for anti-neutrino reactor monitoring it is necessary to be able to predict these on the publicly available information from any reactor, especially if using these data to subtract the anti-neutrino signal from other reactors to identify an undeclared reactor and monitor its operation. This paper proposes a method to estimate the fission fractions for a specific reactor based upon publicly available information and provides a database based upon a series of spent fuel inventory calculations using the FISPIN10 code and its associated data libraries.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제45권7호
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• pp.929-940
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• 2013

Environmental fatigue of the metallic components in light water reactors has been the subject of extensive research and regulatory interest in Korea and abroad. Especially, it was one of the key domestic issues for the license renewal of operating reactors and licensing of advanced reactors during the early 2000s. To deal with the environmental fatigue issue domestically, a systematic test program has been initiated and is still underway. The materials tested were SA508 Gr.1a low alloy steels, 316LN stainless steels, cast stainless steels, and an Alloy 690 and 52M weld. Through tests and subsequent analysis, the mechanisms of reduced low cycle fatigue life have been investigated for those alloys. In addition, the effects of temperature, dissolved oxygen level, and dissolved hydrogen level on low cycle fatigue behaviors have been investigated. In this paper, the test results and key analysis results are briefly summarized. Finally, an on-going test program for hot-bending of 347 stainless steel is introduced.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제47권1호
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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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• 제48권4호
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• pp.893-905
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• 2016

Numerous advanced reactor concepts have been proposed to replace light water reactors ever since their establishment as the dominant technology for nuclear energy production. While most designs seek to improve cost competitiveness and safety, the implausibility of doing so with affordable materials or existing nuclear fuel infrastructure reduces the possibility of near-term deployment, especially in developing countries. The organic nuclear concept, first explored in the 1950s, offers an attractive alternative to advanced reactor designs being considered. The advent of high temperature fluids, along with advances in hydrocracking and reforming technologies driven by the oil and gas industries, make the organic concept even more viable today. We present a simple, cost-effective, and safe small modular nuclear reactor for offshore underwater deployment. The core is moderated by graphite, zirconium hydride, and organic fluid while cooled by the organic fluid. The organic coolant enables operation near atmospheric pressure and use of plain carbon steel for the reactor tank and primary coolant piping system. The core is designed to mitigate the coolant degradation seen in early organic reactors. Overall, the design provides a power density of 40 kW/L, while reducing the reactor hull size by 40% compared with a pressurized water reactor while significantly reducing capital plant costs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권5호
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• pp.878-888
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• 2020

This paper presents the validation of UNIST in-house Monte Carlo code MCS used for the high-fidelity simulation of commercial pressurized water reactors (PWRs). Its focus is on the accurate, spatially detailed neutronic analyses of startup physics tests for the initial core of the Watts Bar Nuclear 1 reactor, which is a vital step in evaluating core phenomena in an operating nuclear power reactor. The MCS solutions for the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA) core physics benchmark progression problems 1 to 5 were verified with KENO-VI and Serpent 2 solutions for geometries ranging from a single-pin cell to a full core. MCS was also validated by comparing with results of reactor zero-power physics tests in a full-core simulation. MCS exhibits an excellent consistency against the measured data with a bias of ±3 pcm at the initial criticality whole-core problem. Furthermore, MCS solutions for rod worth are consistent with measured data, and reasonable agreement is obtained for the isothermal temperature coefficient and soluble boron worth. This favorable comparison with measured parameters exhibited by MCS continues to broaden its validation basis. These results provide confidence in MCS's capability in high-fidelity calculations for practical PWR cores.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제36권2호
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• pp.111-119
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• 2021

Multi-dimensional analysis of reactor safety-KINS standard (MARS-KS) is a thermal-hydraulic code to simulate multiple design basis accidents in reactors. The code has been essential to assess nuclear safety, but has mainly focused on light water reactors, which are in the majority in South Korea. Few previous studies considered pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) applications. To verify the code applicability for PHWRs, it is necessary to develop MARS-KS input decks under various transient conditions. This study proposes an input model to simulate small-break loss of coolant accidents for PHWRs. The input model includes major equipment and experimental conditions for test B9802. Calculation results for selected variables during steady-state closely follow test data within ±4%. We adopted the Henry-Fauske model to simulate break flow, with coefficients having similar trends to integrated break mass and trip time for the power supply. Transient calculation results for major thermal-hydraulic factors showed good agreement with experimental data, but further study is required to analyze heat transfer and void condensation inside steam generator u-tubes.