• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.402-409
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• 2019

When a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) occurs in a nuclear power plant, accident scenarios which can prevent core damage are defined based on break size. Current probabilistic safety assessment evaluates that core damage can be prevented under small-break LOCA (SBLOCA) and steam generator tube rupture (SGTR) with rapid cool down (RCD) strategy when all safety injection systems are unavailable. However, previous research has pointed out a limitation of RCD in terms of initiation time. Therefore, RCD success criteria estimation based on allowable coping time under a SBLOCA or SGTR when all safety injection systems are unavailable was performed based on time-line and thermal-hydraulic analyses. The time line analysis assumed a single emergency operating procedure flow, and the thermal hydraulic analysis utilized MARS-KS code with variables of break size, cooling rate, and operator allowable time. Results show while RCD is possible under SGTR, it is impossible under SBLOCA at the APR1400's current cooling rate limitation of 55 K/hr. A success criteria map for RCD under SBLOCA is suggested without cooling rate limitation.

• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.85-103
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• 2021

Environmental Control & Life Support System (ECLSS) technology is essential for humans to live safely in space other than on Earth and celestial bodies (ex, Moon, Mars etc.) in our solar system. Life support systems generally consist of Air Management System (AMS), Water Recovery System (WRS), and Waste Management System (WMS), and it can enable humans to breathe and live in enclosed dwellings in outer space. First, this paper described the development trends of life support systems that have been developed under the leadership of NASA. In addition, we introduced the current development status of life support system in operation on the International Space Station (ISS) and prospected the development trends in Korea.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.152-161
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• 2022

We analyzed mitigation strategies for steam generator tube rupture (SGTR) accidents using MARS code under both full-power and low-power and shutdown (LPSD) conditions. In general, there are two approaches to mitigating SGTR accidents: supplementing the reactor coolant inventory using safety injection systems and depressurizing the reactor coolant system (RCS) by cooling it down using the intact steam generator. These mitigation strategies were compared from the viewpoint of break flow from the ruptured steam generator tube, the core integrity, and the possibility of the main steam safety valves opening, which is associated with the potential release of radiation. The "cooldown strategy" is recommended for break flow control, whereas the "RCS make-up strategy" is better for RCS inventory control. Under full power, neither mitigation strategy made a significant difference except for on the break flow while, in LPSD modes, the RCS cooldown strategy resulted in lower break and discharge flows, and thus less radiation release. As a result, using the cooldown strategy for an SGTR under LPSD conditions is recommended. These results can be used as a fundamental guide for mitigation strategies for SGTR accidents according to the operational mode.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.10
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• pp.3962-3973
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• 2022

Several critical heat flux (CHF) correlations including the look-up table in the MARS code have been assessed for the prediction of CHF in a downward-flow narrow rectangular channel. For the assessment, we built an experiment database that covers pressures between 1.01 and 39.0 bar, gap sizes between 1.09 and 6.53 mm, mass fluxes up to 25,772 kg/m²s, and under one-sided and two-sided heating conditions. The results of the assessment showed that the Kaminaga correlation has the best overall prediction compared to others. However, because the correlation uses global variables, such as inlet and outlet subcooling and total heat transfer area, it is difficult to use in a system code. A new CHF correlation is then proposed by replacing the global variables in the Kaminaga correlation with local ones and adding correction factors to consider the effect of gap size, mass flux, and the number of heating walls. Additional correction factor is added to consider the effect of inlet subcooling. It is shown that the new one is better than the Kaminaga correlation and it is easy to implement to any system code.

• Korean journal of aerospace and environmental medicine
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.18-24
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• 2020

In 2019, the Aerospace Medical Association of Korea celebrated its 30th anniversary. On the other side of the world, it was also the 62nd anniversary of Russian launch Sputnik 1 of the world's first artificial satellite on October 4, 1957. In additionally, the world, especially the United States was shocked, when on November 3, 1957, Sputnik 2 blasted into Earth orbit with a dog named "Laika"; it was the role of veterinarian's activities for aerospace medical research and exploration. Veterinarians (Vets) are responsible for the health of all the animals for aerospace medicine whether on the ground or in space. Vets can enhance animal and public health and this knowledge of Vets and astronauts can extend their mission durations, go to nearby Earth Asteroids, Mars and other heavenly bodies to study their living and non-living characteristics. This review article is the brief history of the original growth of the veterinarian's activities for the aerospace medical research, in order to stimulate future strategies for improvements in the space life sciences and exploration.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.99-104
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• 2023

Trace elements (TEs) have significant effects on both dental health and human health. Toxic effects are caused by deficiency or excess of TEs. This study was performed to determine levels of toxic and trace elements in incisor and molar teeth sampled from male and female participants residing in the north and south regions of Sudan. The tooth enamel of 18 extracted human teeth was analyzed using particle-induced x-ray emission (µ-PIXE) to determine its elemental profile and distribution. GeoPIXEII software package was used for the analysis of µ-PIXE data. The main elements determined were Na, Mg, P, S, Cl, K, Ca, Mn, Fe, Zn, Co, and Sr which were homogeneously distributed in the areas of the tooth enamel mapped with micro-PIXE.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.9
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• pp.3164-3182
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• 2023

The CRUD on the fuel cladding under the pressurized water reactor (PWR) operating condition causes several issues. The CRUD can act as thermal resistance and increases the local cladding temperature which accelerate the corrosion process. The hideout of boron inside the CRUD results in axial offset anomaly and reduces the plant's shutdown margin. Recently, there are efforts to revise the acceptance criteria of emergency core cooling systems (ECCS), and additionally require the modeling of the thermal resistance effect of the CRUD during the performance analysis. There is an urgent need for the evaluation of the effect of the CRUD deposition on the cladding heat transfer under PWR operating conditions, but the experimental database is very limited. The experimental facility called DISNY was designed and constructed to analyze the CRUD-related multi-physical phenomena, and the performance analysis of the constructed DISNY facility was conducted. The thermal-hydraulic and water chemistry conditions to simulate the CRUD growth under PWR operating conditions were established. The design characteristics and feasibility of the DISNY facility were validated by the MARS-KS code analysis and separate performance tests. In the current study, detailed design features, design validation results, and future utilization plans of the proposed DISNY facility are presented.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1414-1430
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• 2022

Due to the Internet of Things popularity, many agricultural data are collected by sensors automatically. The abundance of agricultural data makes precise prediction of rice yield possible. Because the climate factors have an essential effect on the rice yield, we considered the climate factors in the prediction model. Accordingly, this paper proposes a machine learning model for rice yield prediction in Taiwan, including the genetic algorithm and support vector regression model. The dataset of this study includes the meteorological data from the Central Weather Bureau and rice yield of Taiwan from 2003 to 2019. The experimental results show the performance of the proposed model is nearly 30% better than MARS, RF, ANN, and SVR models. The most important climate factors affecting the rice yield are the total sunshine hours, the number of rainfall days, and the temperature.The proposed model also offers three advantages: (a) the proposed model can be used in different geographical regions with high prediction accuracies; (b) the proposed model has a high explanatory ability because it could select the important climate factors which affect rice yield; (c) the proposed model is more suitable for predicting rice yield because it provides higher reliability and stability for predicting. The proposed model can assist the government in making sustainable agricultural policies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.60.4-60.4
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• 2019

Small bodies in the solar system are pristine leftovers of planetesimals since the formation epoch (~4.6 Gyr ago). After the formation, icy planetesimals have been preserved in the distant cold place beyond 30 au (i.e., Trans-Neptunian region) until recently without any catastrophic processes but have just been injected into inner region (<~5 au from the Sun) to be observed as comets. On the contrary, asteroids are rocky primitive objects (although some of them contains icy volatiles) distributing in the mainbelt between Mars and Jupiter orbits. Because of frequent encounters in the mainbelt, asteroids have experienced a number of repeated impacts until the present day. Namely, it is important to investigate thermal alternation process of cometary volatiles and refractories in the solar radiation field, whereas collisional and subsequence phenomena of asteroidal bodies. Although recent spacecraft observations revealed the physical natures on the surfaces of comets and asteroids, their interiors still remain largely unexplored. It is likely that a sudden brightening of a comet is associated with rapid sublimation of internal CO and CO2 or phase transition of amorphous H2O. An episodic dust ejection from an asteroid is causally related to an impact among asteroids, sudden sublimation of remaining subsurficial volatiles, etc. Because these transient phenomena provide rare opportunities to investigate their interiors, immediate observations using any optical instruments are particular important. In my presentation, I will review some examples of such transient phenomena in the solar system and propose possible collaborative research using the Korean Small Telescope Network.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.61-81
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• 2023

This study presents an ensemble learning based Bayesian model updating approach for structural damage diagnosis. In the developed framework, the structure is initially decomposed into a set of substructures. The autoregressive moving average (ARMAX) model is established first for structural damage localization based structural motion equation. The wavelet packet decomposition is utilized to extract the damage-sensitive node energy in different frequency bands for constructing structural surrogate models. Four methods, including Kriging predictor (KRG), radial basis function neural network (RBFNN), support vector regression (SVR), and multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS), are selected as candidate structural surrogate models. These models are then resampled by bootstrapping and combined to obtain an ensemble model by probabilistic ensemble. Meanwhile, the maximum entropy principal is adopted to search for new design points for sample space updating, yielding a more robust ensemble model. Through the iterations, a framework of surrogate ensemble learning based model updating with high model construction efficiency and accuracy is proposed. The specificities of the method are discussed and investigated in a case study.