• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.56 no.10
• /
• pp.4227-4236
• /
• 2024

Nuclear energy is used more and more widely as a clean energy source, but nuclear energy facilities are risky, and when a nuclear leak occurs, it is necessary to detect equipment in a nuclear radiation environment. In the nuclear radiation environment, due to the impact of high-energy particles on the camera sensor, the collected image contains a lot of radiation noise, which greatly reduces the visual perception of the image. Aiming at the problem that radiation noise reduces image quality, a radiation image compound filtering algorithm combining median filtering and multi-frame average filtering is proposed based on radiation noise characteristics. Compared with several common filtering algorithms, the radiation noise image is filtered under the same radiation dose and achieve the highest Peak Signal Noise Rate (PSNR) and Structural Similarity (SSIM), and compared with the multi-frame average filtering method, the number of image frames required by the algorithm in this paper is greatly reduced. Experimental results show that the algorithm can effectively eliminate radiation noise and is more suitable for image filtering in radiation environment.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.39 no.6
• /
• pp.747-752
• /
• 2007

The Proton Engineering Frontier Project (PEFP) has designed and developed a proton linear accelerator facility operating at 100 MeV - 20 mA. The radiological effects of such a nuclear facility on the environment are important in terms of radiation safety. This study estimated the production rates of radionuclides in the soil around the accelerator facility using MCNPX. The groundwater migration of the radioisotopes was also calculated using the Concentration Model. Several spallation reactions have occurred due to leaked neutrons, leading to the release of various radionuclides into the soil. The total activity of the induced radionuclides is approximately $2.98{\times}10^{-4}Bq/cm^3$ at the point of saturation. $^{45}Ca$ had the highest production rate with a specific activity of $1.78{\times}10^{-4}Bq/cm^3$ over the course of one year. $^3H$ and $^{22}Na$ are usually considered the most important radioisotopes at nuclear facilities. However, only a small amount of tritium was produced around this facility, as the energy of most neutrons is below the threshold of the predominant reactions for producing tritium: $^{16}O(n,\;X)^3H$ and $^{28}Si(n,X)^3H$ (approximately 20 MeV). The dose level of drinking water from $^{22}Na$ was $1.48{\times}10^{-5}$ pCi/ml/yr, which was less than the annual intake limit in the regulations.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.6
• /
• pp.2158-2165
• /
• 2023

Marine radioactivity monitoring is critical for taking immediate action in case of unexpected nuclear accidents at nuclear facilities located near coastal areas. Especially when the level of contamination is not predictable, mobile monitoring systems will be useful for wide-area ocean radiation survey and for determination of the level of radioactivity. Here, we used a silicon photomultiplier and a high-efficiency GAGG crystal to fabricate a compact, battery-powered gamma spectroscopy that can be used in an ocean environment. The developed spectroscopy has compact dimensions of 6.5 × 6.5× 8 cm³ and weighs 560 g. We used LoRa, a low-power wireless protocol for communication. Successful data transmission was achieved within 1.4 m water depth. The developed gamma spectroscopy was able to detect radioactivity from a ¹³⁷Cs point source (3.7 kBq) at a distance of 20 cm in water. Moreover, we demonstrated an unmanned radioactivity monitoring system in a real sea by combining unmanned surface vehicle with the developed gamma spectroscopy. A hidden ¹³⁷Cs source (3.07 MBq) was detected by the unmanned system at a distance of 3 m. After successfully testing the developed mobile spectroscopy in an ocean environment, we believe that our proposed system will be an effective solution for mobile real-time marine radioactivity monitoring.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.44 no.7
• /
• pp.825-830
• /
• 2012

Radiation and its various industrial applications have been growing at approximately 10 percent per year for the past decade in Korea. As a result, the importance of the Education and Training (E&T) in radiation protection is of upmost importance. This paper is intended to investigate the present status of the E&T on radiation protection and safety in Korea and to draw up the improvements of the E&T courses required for building the national radiation safety infrastructure. For these purposes, the E&T data from the six major domestic organizations providing radiation protection training courses were investigated and analyzed. Each of the organizations is offering several kinds of E&T courses based on their own specific functions. These organizations have administrative facilities equipped with the latest technology for E&T in radiation protection. The E&T courses mainly cover the training courses for radiation workers, radiological emergency staff, license applicants, license holders, and regulatory staff. In 2010, a total of 58 E&T courses were carried out across six organizations. The conclusions make a number of observations highlighting challenges such as: establishing a formal feedback mechanism, introducing more practical training sessions, developing training courses tailored to the job categories and target audiences, and designing education and training courses in radiation protection that comply with current obligations as well as future requirements.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.139-144
• /
• 2024

Concrete structures must maintain their shielding abilities and structural integrity over extended operational periods. Despite the widespread use of dry storage systems for spent nuclear fuel, research on the properties of deteriorated concrete and their impact on structural performance remains limited. To address this significant research gap, static and dynamic material testing was conducted on concrete specimens carefully extracted from the outer wall of the High-flux Advanced Neutron Application ReactOr (HANARO), constructed approximately 30 years ago. Despite its age, the results reveal that the concrete maintains its structural integrity impressively well, with static compression tests indicating an average compressive strength exceeding the original design standards. Further dynamic property testing using advanced high-speed material test equipment supported these findings, showing the consistency of dynamic increase factors with those reported in previous studies. These results highlight the importance of monitoring and assessing concrete structures in nuclear facilities for long-term safety and reliability.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.53 no.3
• /
• pp.967-973
• /
• 2021

In 2011, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing simultaneous accidents in several reactors. This accident shows us that if there are several reactors on site, the seismic risk to multiple units is important to consider, in addition to that to single units in isolation. When a seismic event occurs, a seismic-failure correlation exists between the nuclear power plant's structures, systems, and components (SSCs) due to their seismic-response and seismic-capacity correlations. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the multi-unit seismic risk by considering the SSCs' seismic-failure-correlation effect. In this study, a methodology is proposed to obtain the seismic-response-correlation coefficient between SSCs to calculate the risk to multi-unit facilities. This coefficient is calculated from a probabilistic multi-unit seismic-response analysis. The seismic-response and seismic-failure-correlation coefficients of the emergency diesel generators installed within the units are successfully derived via the proposed method. In addition, the distribution of the seismic-response-correlation coefficient was observed as a function of the distance between SSCs of various dynamic characteristics. It is demonstrated that the proposed methodology can reasonably derive the seismic-response-correlation coefficient between SSCs, which is the input data for multi-unit seismic probabilistic safety assessment.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.54 no.12
• /
• pp.4422-4430
• /
• 2022

Studying the effects of gamma radiation on the instrumentation and control (I&C) system of a nuclear power plant is critical to the successful and reliable operation of the plant. In the accidental scenario, the adverse environment of ionizing radiation affects the performance of the I&C system and it leads to inaccurate and incomprehensible results. This paper reports the effects of gamma radiation on the AT89C51RD2, a commercial-off-the-shelf 8-bit high-performance flash microcontroller. The microcontroller, selected for the device under test for this study is used in the remote terminal unit for a nuclear power plant. The custom circuits were made to test the microcontroller under different gamma doses using a ⁶⁰Co gamma source in both ex-situ and in-situ modes. The device was exposed to a maximum dose of 1.5 kGy. Under this hostile environment, the performance of the microcontroller was studied in terms of device current and voltage changes. It was observed that the microcontroller device can operate up to a total absorbed dose of approximately 0.6 kGy without any failure or degradation in its performance.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.49 no.5
• /
• pp.896-904
• /
• 2017

Several Generation IV nuclear reactor concepts have goals for optimizing investment recovery through phased introduction of multiple units on a common site with shared facilities and/or reconfigurable energy conversion systems. Additionally, small modular reactors are suitable for remote deployment to support highly localized microgrids in isolated, underdeveloped regions. The long-term economic viability of these advanced reactor plants depends on significant reductions in plant operations and maintenance costs. To accomplish these goals, intelligent control and diagnostic capabilities are needed to provide nearly autonomous operations with anticipatory maintenance. A nearly autonomous control system should enable automatic operation of a nuclear power plant while adapting to equipment faults and other upsets. It needs to have many intelligent capabilities, such as diagnosis, simulation, analysis, planning, reconfigurability, self-validation, and decision. These capabilities have been the subject of research for many years, but an autonomous control system for nuclear power generation remains as-yet an unrealized goal. This article describes a functional framework for intelligent, autonomous control that can facilitate the integration of control, diagnostic, and decision-making capabilities to satisfy the operational and performance goals of power plants based on multimodular advanced reactors.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.56 no.1
• /
• pp.92-99
• /
• 2024

To minimize the cumulative radiation dose, various path-finding approaches for single agent have been proposed. However, for emergence situations such as nuclear power plant accident, these methods cannot be effectively utilized for evacuating a large number of workers because no multi-agent method is valid to conduct the mission. In this study, a novel algorithm for solving the multi-agent path-finding problem is proposed using the conflict-based search approach and the objective function redefined in terms of the cumulative radiation dose. The proposed method can find multi paths that all agents arrive at the destinations with reducing the overall radiation dose. To verify the proposed method, three problems were defined. In the single-agent problem, the objective function proposed in this study reduces the cumulative dose by 82% compared with that of the shortest distance algorithm in experiment environment of this study. It was also verified in the two multi-agent problems that multi paths with minimized the overall radiation dose, in which all agents can reach the destination without collision, can be found. The method proposed in this study will contribute to establishing evacuation plans for improving the safety of workers in radiation-related facilities.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
• /
• v.65 no.4
• /
• pp.235-241
• /
• 2016

Grid-connected, large-capacity energy storage systems (ESS) can be used for peak load supply, frequency regulation, and renewable energy output smoothing. In order to confirm the capability of battery ESS to provide such services, 4MW/ 8MWh battery ESS demonstration facility was built in the Jocheon substation on Jeju Island. The frequency regulation technology developed for the Jocheon demonstration facility then became the basis for the 28MW and 24MW frequency regulation ESS facilities installed in 2014 at the Seo-Anseong and Shin-Yongin substations, respectively. The operation control systems at these two facilities were continuously improved, and their successful commercialization led to the construction of additional ESS facilities all over Korea in 2015. In seven (7) locations nationwide (e.g., Shin-Gimje and Shin-Gyeryeong), a total of 184 MW of ESS had been commercialized in 2016. The trial run for the new ESS facilities had been completed between April and May in 2016. In this paper, results of the trial run from each of the ESS facilities are presented. The results obtained from the Seo-Anseong and Shin-Yongin substations during a transient event by a nuclear power plant trip are also presented in this paper. The results show that the frequency regulation battery ESS facilities were able to quickly respond to the transient event and trial run of ESS is necessary before it is commercialized.