• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.185-194
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• 2022

The decommission of nuclear legacy sites, which have been contaminated by previous activities such as uranium mining & milling as well as nuclear tests, has started to gain global attention. Within the Korean peninsula, Republic of Korea(ROK)has had experience in dismantling research reactors. For the Democratic People's Republic of Korea(DPRK), the possibility of nuclear activities being implemented and operations records being managed without consideration of the latest nuclear safety regulations are high. Hence, the chances of DPRK's sites remaining as nuclear legacy is also high. This study investigates approaches and considerations that needs to be taken in account in the event of a nuclear legacy site occurrence, reviewing its international cases for the solution of the legacy sites. The regulation, process of optimization, and stakeholder engagement for a nuclear legacy site should be considered in such an event. Developing legacy site response plans can be used to prevent future legacy site occurrences.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.387-419
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• 2021

The challenges facing companies and institutions surrounding civil nuclear decommissioning are diverse and many, none more so than those faced in the United Kingdom. The UK's Generation I nuclear power plants and early research facilities have left a 'Nuclear Legacy' which is in urgent need of management and clean-up. Sellafield is quite possibly the most ill-famed nuclear site in the UK. This complex and challenging site houses much of what is left from the early days of nuclear research in the UK, including early nuclear reactors (Windscale Piles, Calder Hall, and the Windscale Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor) and the UK's early nuclear weapons programme. Such a legacy now requires careful management and planning to safely deal with it. This task falls on the shoulders of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). Through a mix of prompt and delayed decommissioning strategies, key developments in R&D, and the implementation of site licenced companies to enact decommissioning activities, the NDA aims to safety, and in a timely manner, deal with the UK's nuclear legacy. Such approaches have the potential to influence and shape other such approaches to nuclear decommissioning activities globally, including in Korea.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.65-98
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• 2022

The nuclear legacy that remains in the United Kingdom (UK) is complex and diverse. Consisting of legacy ponds and silos, redundant reprocessing plants, research facilities, and non-standard or one-off reactor designs, the clean-up of this legacy is under the stewardship of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). Through a mix of prompt and delayed decommissioning strategies, the NDA has made great strides in dealing with the UK's nuclear legacy. Fuel debris and sludge removal from the legacy ponds and silos situated at Sellafield, as part of a prompt decommissioning strategy for the site, has enabled intolerable risks to be brought under control. Reactor defueling and waste retrievals across the Magnox fleet is enabling their transition to a period of care and maintenance; accelerated through the adopted 'Lead and Learn' approach. Bespoke decommissioning methods implemented by the NDA have also enabled the relevant site licence companies to tackle non-standard reactor designs and one-off wastes. Such approaches have potential to influence and shape nuclear decommissioning decision making activities globally, including in Korea.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartD
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• v.12D no.5 s.101
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• pp.797-806
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• 2005

The objective of the In-h(High Level Architecture) have recommended by DoD(Department of Defense) is to facilitate interoperability among simulations and to promote reuse of their components. There are many legacy simulation softwares developed before the HLA becomes simulation standard. The integration of legacy simulations into federations using the HLA is an important research topic in M&S(Modeling and Simulation) area. Legacy simulation softwares of the mission critical industry such as nuclear and aerospace are generally use Fortran language. However, the reuse of those is not easy because the HLA is not support Fortran language. This paper suggests a integration method which minimizes the modification of legacy simulation software and migrates the legacy simulation software to HLA federation. Each federate participating in federation have the separated executables that communicate via a shared memory created at run-time. Two types of shared memory blocks are used for publication and subscription. Declaration block for global variables used in legacy simulation software is separated for publication and subscription and then mapped as classes of objects and interactions for the HLA FOM design. To validate the suggested method, we approached the HLA integration of legacy nuclear simulation code being used in plant design and to observe the integration results, we used the FMT(Federation Management Tool). The diagnostic information which the FTM displays showed that our method can be successfully and effectively used for a HLA federation.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.339-352
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• 2021

Legacy waste from the decommissioned A-1 nuclear power plant in the Slovak Republic is scheduled for immobilisation within a tailored alkali borosilicate glass formulation, as part of ongoing site cleanup. The aqueous durability and characterisation of a simulant glass wasteform for Chrompik III legacy waste, was investigated, including dissolution experiments up to 112 days (90℃, ASTM Type 1 water). The wasteform was an amorphous, light green glassy product, with no observed phase separation or crystalline inclusions. Aqueous leach testing revealed a suitably durable product over the timescale investigated, comparing positively to other simulant nuclear waste glasses and vitreous products tested under similar conditions. Iron and titanium rich precipitates were observed to form at the surface of monolithic samples during leaching, with the formation of an alkali deficient alteration layer behind these at later ages. Overall this glass appears to perform well, and in line with expectations for this chemistry, although longer-term testing would be required to predict overall durability. This work will contribute to developing confidence in the disposability of vitrified Chrompik legacy wastes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.56.2-56
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• 2002

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.404-418
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• 2016

This paper presents a documentation and development method to facilitate the certification of scientific computing software used in the safety analysis of nuclear facilities. To study the problems faced during quality assurance and certification activities, a case study was performed on legacy software used for thermal analysis of a fuelpin in a nuclear reactor. Although no errors were uncovered in the code, 27 issues of incompleteness and inconsistency were found with the documentation. This work proposes that software documentation follow a rational process, which includes a software requirements specification following a template that is reusable, maintainable, and understandable. To develop the design and implementation, this paper suggests literate programming as an alternative to traditional structured programming. Literate programming allows for documenting of numerical algorithms and code together in what is termed the literate programmer's manual. This manual is developed with explicit traceability to the software requirements specification. The traceability between the theory, numerical algorithms, and implementation facilitates achieving completeness and consistency, as well as simplifies the process of verification and the associated certification.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.1010-1018
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• 2017

The European Treatment and Disposal of Irradiated Graphite and other Carbonaceous Waste project sought to develop best practices in the retrieval, treatment, and disposal of irradiated graphite including other irradiated carbonaceous waste such as structural material made of graphite, nongraphitized carbon bricks, and fuel coatings. Emphasis was given on legacy irradiated graphite, as this represents a significant inventory in respective national waste management programs. This paper provides an overview of the characteristics of graphite irradiated during its use, primarily as a moderator material, within nuclear reactors. It describes the potential techniques applicable to the retrieval, treatment, recycling/reuse, and disposal of these graphite wastes. Considering the lifecycle of nuclear graphite, from manufacture to final disposal, a number of waste management options have been developed. These options consider the techniques and technologies required to address each stage of the lifecycle, such as segregation, treatment, recycle, and ultimate disposal in a radioactive waste repository, providing a toolbox to aid operators and regulators to determine the most appropriate management strategy. It is noted that national waste management programs currently have, or are in the process of developing, respective approaches to irradiated graphite management. The output of the Treatment and Disposal of Irradiated Graphite and other Carbonaceous Waste project is intended to aid these considerations, rather than dictate them.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.92-102
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• 2015

Current plans for legacy nuclear wastes stored in underground tanks at the U.S. Department of Energy's Hanford Site in Washington are that they will be separated into high-level waste and low-activity waste fractions that will be vitrified separately. Formulating optimized glass compositions that maximize the waste loading in glass is critical for successful and economical treatment and immobilization of these nuclear wastes. Glass property-composition models have been developed and applied to formulate glass compositions for various objectives for the past several decades. Property models with associated uncertainties combined with composition and property constraints have been used to develop preliminary glass formulation algorithms designed for vitrification process control and waste-form qualification at the planned waste vitrification plant. This paper provides an overview of the current status of glass property-composition models, constraints applicable to Hanford waste vitrification, and glass formulation approaches that have been developed for vitrification of hazardous and highly radioactive wastes stored at the Hanford Site.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.817-825
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• 2022

A recent benchmarking effort, under the auspices of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), has been made to evaluate the current state of modeling and simulation tools available to model fluoride salt-cooled high temperature reactors (FHRs). The FHR benchmarking effort considered in this work consists of several cases evaluating the neutronic parameters of a 2D prismatic FHR fuel assembly model using the participants' choice of simulation tools. Benchmark participants blindly submitted results for comparison with overall good agreement, except for some which significantly differed on cases utilizing a molybdenum-bearing control rod. Participants utilizing more recently updated explicit isotopic cross sections had consistent results, whereas those using elemental molybdenum cross sections observed reactivity differences on the order of thousands of pcm relative to their peers. Through a series of supporting tests, the authors attribute the differences as being nuclear data driven from using older legacy elemental molybdenum cross sections. Quantitative analysis is conducted on the control rod to identify spectral, reaction rate, and cross section phenomena responsible for the observed differences. Results confirm the observed differences are attributable to the use of elemental cross sections which overestimate the reaction rates in strong resonance channels.