• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.803-810
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• 2022

The small modular liquid-metal fast reactor (SMFR) is an important component of advanced nuclear systems. SMFRs exhibit relatively low breeding capability and constraint space for control rod installation. Consequently, control rods are deeply inserted at beginning and are withdrawn gradually to compensate for large burnup reactivity loss in a long lifetime. This paper is committed to investigating the impact of control rod compensation operation on core neutronics characteristics. This paper presents a whole core fine depletion model of long lifetime SMFR using OpenMC and the influence of depletion chains is verified. Three control rod position schemes to simulate the compensation process are compared. The results show that the fine simulation of the control rod compensation process impacts significantly the fuel burnup distribution and absorber consumption. A control rod equivalent position scheme proposed in this work is an optimal option in the trade-off between computation time and accuracy. The control position is crucial for accurate power distribution and void feedback coefficients in SMFRs. The results in this paper also show that the pin level power distribution is important due to the heterogeneous distribution in SMFRs. The fuel burnup distribution at the end of core life impacts the worth of control rods.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.493-505
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• 2023

Comprehensive condition monitoring of large industry systems such as nuclear power plants (NPPs) is essential for safety and maintenance. In this study, we developed novel system-scale diagnostic technology based on deep-learning and IR thermography that can efficiently and cost-effectively classify system conditions using compact Raspberry Pi and IR sensors. This diagnostic technology can identify the presence of an abnormality or accident in whole system, and when an accident occurs, the type of accident and the location of the abnormality can be identified in real-time. For technology development, the experiment for the thermal image measurement and performance validation of major components at each accident condition of NPPs was conducted using a thermal-hydraulic integral effect test facility with compact infrared sensor modules. These thermal images were used for training of deep-learning model, convolutional neural networks (CNN), which is effective for image processing. As a result, a proposed novel diagnostic was developed that can perform diagnosis of components, whole system and accident classification using thermal images. The optimal model was derived based on the modern CNN model and performed prompt and accurate condition monitoring of component and whole system diagnosis, and accident classification. This diagnostic technology is expected to be applied to comprehensive condition monitoring of nuclear power plants for safety.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.426-437
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• 1991

The $He^{++}$ beam transport system of the SNU 1.5-MV Tandem Van de Graaff accelerator is analysed by ion optical approach. The program OPTRANS is developed to determine the optimum operating conditions of each ion optical component and to simulate ion beam transport. First order matrix formalism is used and the space charge effect is neglected. Optimum operating conditions for the transport of 0.5~3.0 MeV $He^{++}$ beam are determined by the use of the program OPTRANS. Initial ion beam omittance is assumed to be 0.5$\times$80.0 mm.mrad from the structure of the extraction electrode and the experiment of ion beam extraction. ion beam transport characteristics of each ion optical component according to the variation of the operating conditions are investigated, and operating conditions to minimize the beam size at each slit, stripping foil, and target are calculated. Optimum operating conditions obtained from the experiment of ion beam transport show a discrepancy of less than 15% compared with the calculated ones. From the simulation and experiment of ion beam trans-port, the validity of the calculated optimum operating conditions and the usefulness of the program OPTRANS are verified.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society for Energy Engineering kosee Conference
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• 1998.05a
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• pp.235-242
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• 1998

Aiming at one of decisive alternatives for long term aspect of nuclear power concerns, an integral and closed nuclear system, AMBIDEXTER (Advanced Molten-salt Break-even Inherently-safe Dual-mission Experimental and TEst Reactor) concept is under development. The AMBIDEXTER complex essentially comprises two mutually independent loops of the radiation/material transport and the heat/energy conversion, centered at the integrated reactor assembly, which enables one to utilize maximum benefits of nuclear energy under minimum risks of nuclear radiation. And it provides precious radioisotopes and radiation sources from its waste stream. Also the reactor operates at very low level of fission products inventory throughout its lifetime. The nuclear and thermalhydraulic characteristics of the molten TH/$^{233}$ U fuel salt extend the capability of the self-sustaining AMBIDEXTER fuel cycle to enhance resource security and safeguard transparency. The reactor system is consisted of a single component module of the core, heat exchangers and recirculation pumps with neither pipe connections nor active valves in between, which will significantly improve inherent features of nuclear safety. States of the core technologies associated with designing and developing the AMBIDEXTER concept are mostly available in commercialized form and thus demonstration of integral aspects of the concept should be the prime area in future R＆D programs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.7
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• pp.817-824
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• 2012

The most important component of a nuclear power plant is its nuclear reactor. Studies on the integrity of reactors have become an important part regarding the safety of a nuclear power plant. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Regulatory Guide (NRC RG) 1.20 presents a Comprehensive Vibration Assessment Program (CVAP) to be used to verify the structural integrity of the Reactor Vessel Internals (RVI) for flow-induced vibration prior to commercial operation. However, there are few published studies related to the RVI CVAP. We classified the Advanced Power Reactor 1400 (APR1400) RVI CVAP as a non-prototype category-2 reactor as part of an independent validation of its design. The aim of this paper is to present the results of structural response analyses of the Upper Guide Structure (UGS) assembly of the APR1400 reactor. These results show that the UGS and the Inner Barrel Assembly (IBA) meet the specified integrity levels of the design acceptance criteria. The vibration and stress analysis results in this paper will be used as basic information to select measurement locations of the vibration and stress for the APR1400 RVI CVAP.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.141-160
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• 2021

Unit 1 of the Kori Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) and Unit 1 of the Wolsong NPP are being prepared for decommissioning; their decommissioning is expected to generate large amounts of intermediate-level, low-level, and very low level Waste. Mixed waste containing both radioactive and hazardous substances is expected to be produced. Nevertheless, laws and regulations, such as the Korean Nuclear Safety Act and Waste Management Act, do not define clear regulatory guidelines for mixed waste. However, the United States has strictly enforced regulations on mixed waste, focusing on the human health and environmental effects of its hazardous components. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy regulate the radioactive components of mixed waste under the Atomic Energy Act. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulates the hazardous waste component of mixed waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. In this study, the laws, regulations, and authorities pertaining to mixed waste in the United States are reviewed. Through comparison and analysis with waste management laws and regulations in Korea, a treatment direction for mixed waste is suggested. Such a treatment for mixed waste will increase the efficiency of managing mixed waste when decommissioning NPPs in the near future.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.266-268
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• 2003

Residual stresses, which can be produced during the manufacturing process, play an important role in an industrial field. Residual stresses of structures by welding process are exerting negative effect on the fatigue behavior and safety of structure. Results from the elasto-plastic finite element analysis of the welds for a nuclear component, the residual stress distribution after welding. In this study, a finite element technique is developed to simulate the relaxation of the residual stresses due to the mechanical loads of welds.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.1287-1288
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1997.05b
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• pp.274-279
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• 1997

Breakthrough curves for separation of cesium and strontium binary components from aqueous solutions in fixed bed by chabazite and 13X were experimentally obtained and simulated the breakthrough curves for binary component adsorption. It is shown that agreements between model predictions and experimental data are relatively good although some deviations are observed. From engineering point of view, the simple model used here can be applied to simulate adsorption breakthrough curves satisfactorily.

• International Journal of Safety
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.38-46
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• 2004

This paper introduces the software life-cycle V&V (verification and validation) tasks for the KNICS (Korea nuclear instrumentation and control system) project. The objectives of the V&V tasks are mainly to develop a programmable logic controller (PLC) for safety critical instrumentation and control (I&C) systems, and then to apply the PLC to developing the prototype of an engineered safety features-component control system (ESF-CCS) in nuclear power plants. As preparative works for the software V&V, various kinds of software plans and V&V task procedures have been developed according to the software life-cycle management. A number of software V&V tools have been adopted or developed to efficiently support the V&V tasks. The V&V techniques employed in this work include a checklist-based review and inspection, a requirement traceability analysis, formal verification, and life-cycle based software testing.