• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.360-365
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• 2020

A technique for the reduction of pulse pile-up effect in digital pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) of neutrons and gamma-rays with organic scintillation detectors is presented. The technique is based on an electronic reduction of the effective decay-time constant of scintillation pulses while retaining the PSD information of the pulses. The experimental results obtained with a NE213 liquid scintillation detector in a mixed radiation field of neutrons and gamma-rays are presented, demonstrating a figure of merit (FOM) of 1.20 ± 0.05 with an energy threshold of 350 keVee (electron equivalent energy) when the effective length of the pulses is reduced to 50 ns.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 1995.10b
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• pp.145-152
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• 1995

This paper presents a novel SOFLIC(self organizing fuzzy logic intelligent controller) for reactor rod control system in nuclear power plant. The output of fuzzy controller is gener ated by using two signal : the error between reference and average temperature, and the error between reference and neutron flux-converted temperatures. Flexibility of the controller is enhanced by using self-organizing feature and the controller respond to variation of system parameter with more precision. performances of the SOFLIC and PID are simulated with the model developed for a nuclear power plant. The SOFLIC is superior to PID : SOFLIC provides more rapid load following capability. more robustiness for variation in process dynamics and minimization of engineer's mistakes in controller design.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.1533-1540
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• 2023

Self-Powered Neutron Detectors(SPNDs) are used to calculate core power distributions, an essential factor in the safe operation of nuclear power plants. Some detectors may fail during normal operation, and signals from failed detectors are isolated from intact signals. The calculated detailed power distribution accuracy depends on the number of available detector signals. Failed detectors decrease the operating margin by enlarging the power distribution measurement error. Therefore, a thorough reconstruction of the failed detector signals is critical. This note suggests a compressive sensing based methodology that rationally reconstructs the readings of failed detectors. The methodology significantly improves reconstruction accuracy by sorting signals and removing high-frequency components from conventional compressive sensing methodology.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.557-565
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• 2020

In order for thermal degradationIn, excore nuclear flux monitoring system, as a monitoring and signal processing methodology of reactor power, monitors neutron pulses generated during nuclear fission as frequency status, and converts them into DC voltage, and then log values resultantly. The methods realy applied in the nuclear power plant are to construct combination of counters and flip-flops, or diodes and capacitors up to now. These methodes are reliable for relative high frequencies, while not credible for reasonable low frequencies or extreme low values. Therefore, we developed the circuit that converts frequencies into DC voltages, into and into log DC values in the wide range from low Hz to several hundred high kHz. We proved their validities through testing them using real data used in nuclear power plant and analyzed their results. And, these methods will be used to measure the neutron level of excore nuclear flux monitoring system in nuclear power plant.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.1587-1592
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• 2023

Time-encoded imagers (TEI) are important class of instruments to search for potential radioactive sources to prevent illicit transportation and trafficking of nuclear materials and other radioactive sources. The energy of the radiation cannot be known in advance due to the type and shielding of source is unknown in practice. However, the response function of the time-encoded imagers is related to the energy of neutrons or gamma-rays. An improved image reconstruction method based on MLEM was proposed to correct for the energy induced response difference. In this method, the count vector versus time was first smoothed. Then, the preset response function was adaptively corrected according to the measured counts. Finally, the smoothed count vector and corrected response were used in MLEM to reconstruct the source distribution. A one-dimensional dual-particle time-encode imager was developed and used to verify the improved method through imaging an Am-Be neutron source. The improvement of this method was demonstrated by the image reconstruction results. For gamma-ray and neutron images, the angular resolution improved by 17.2% and 7.0%; the contrast-to-noise ratio improved by 58.7% and 14.9%; the signal-to-noise ratio improved by 36.3% and 11.7%, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.1-7
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• 2000

In this paper, we study a cause of malfunction of switch to control drive motor in DFMS(Digital Flux Mapping System) which can measure incore neutron flux of the nuclear plant, and develope a method to solve this problem. DFMS has the type of generating contact signal by mechanical switch lever, which is operated whenever thimble detector inserted or withdrawed through thimble Guide Tube. However the characteristics of the lever tend to be changed by mechanical degrade or bad environment and the lever finally generates errotic contact signal. Therefore we installed electric coil ass'yin the outside of Guide Tube instead of mechanical switch assy's. In addition we applied resonance effect to control circuit and installed condenser in the input of power supply to protect noise and interference. After completion of this improvement, we tested this improved device repetitively under the various conditions. In conclusion, we identified the generation of the desired contact signal and the prevention of detector failure through plant surveillance test during normal plant operation.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.554-560
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• 2019

Excore Nuclear Flux Monitoring System in Nuclear Power Plant monitors continuous reactor power up to maximum 200%. The monitoring method, however, has to be different depending on the reactor power level. Because the logarithmic pulse signals must be counted and processed exactly due to large uncertainty if their levels are low, on the other hand, they must be processed through statistical methodolgies if theirs are high to get exact monitoring values, in point of thermal degradation view. Therefore, we developed thermal degradation input signal selection circuit to transfer low level reactor power monitoring circuit to high level reactor power circuit at rated value in this paper. We proved their validities through testing them using real data used in nuclear power plant and analyzed their results. And, These methods will be used to measure the neutron level of excore nuclear flux monitoring system in nuclear power plant.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.1270-1275
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• 1997

This paper concerns with the finite element analysis of reactor internals with structural faults. For investigating the influence of hold-down spring faults on dynamic characteristics of CSB (core support barrel), reactor internals of Ulchin-1 nuclear power plant are modeled using finite element method and simulated with artificial defects on the hold-down springs. To prove the validity of the finite element models, the calculated natural frequencies of CSB in normal state are compared with those from the measurement results, which shows good agreement. According to results of finite element analysis, CSB beam mode natural frequency decreases by 4.5% in the case of 10% partial relaxation of hold-down springs, and decreases by 18.4% in the case of 20%. The range of shell mode natural frequency change is within 5.3%.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.8-16
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• 1998

In this work a method to detect the vibrational peak and to decide the vibrational mode of detected peak for core internal vibration monitoring system which is particularly concerned on the core support barrel (CSB) and fuel assemblies is developed. Flow induced vibration and aging process in the reactor internals cause unsoundness of the internal structure. In order to monitor the vibrational status of core internal, signals from the ex-core neutron detectors are transformed into frequency domain. By analyzing transformed frequency domain signal, an analyst can acquire the information on the vibrational characteristics of the structures, i.e., vibration frequencies of each component, vibrational level, modes of vibration, and the causes of the abnormal vibration, if any. This study is focused on the development of the automated monitoring system. Several methods are surveyed to define the peaks in power spectrum and fuzzy theory is used to automatic detection of the vibrational peaks. Fuzzy algorithm is adopted to define the modes of vibration using the peak values from fuzzy peak recognition, phase spectrum, and coherence spectrum.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.1644-1651
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• 2022

This paper focuses on the power-level control of nuclear power plants (NPPs) in the presence of lumped disturbances. An adaptive second-order nonsingular terminal sliding mode control (ASONTSMC) scheme is proposed by resorting to the second-order nonsingular terminal sliding mode. The pre-existing mathematical model of the nuclear reactor system is firstly described based on point-reactor kinetics equations with six delayed neutron groups. Then, a second-order sliding mode control approach is proposed by integrating a proportional-derivative sliding mode (PDSM) manifold with a nonsingular terminal sliding mode (NTSM) manifold. An adaptive mechanism is designed to estimate the unknown upper bound of a lumped uncertain term that is composed of lumped disturbances and system states real-timely. The estimated values are then added to the controller, resulting in the control system capable of compensating the adverse effects of the lumped disturbances efficiently. Since the sign function is contained in the first time derivative of the real control law, the continuous input signal is obtained after integration so that the chattering effects of the conventional sliding mode control are suppressed. The robust stability of the overall control system is demonstrated through Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, the proposed control scheme is validated through simulations and comparisons with a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller, a super twisting sliding mode controller (STSMC), and a disturbance observer-based adaptive sliding mode controller (DO-ASMC).