• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.109-115
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• 2024

As a global effort for eco-friendly, the ship building is making great efforts to develop ships using low-carbon, eco-friendly alternative fuels. Nuclear energy, one of several eco-friendly alternative energy sources, is evaluated as an effective alternative for future ships by minimizing carbon emissions and securing economic feasibility with low power generation cost. However, although appropriate regulatory requirements are necessary for commercialization of nuclear powered ships, there are currently no regulatory requirements for nuclear powered ships in Korea. In this study, accordingly, domestic and international regulatory requirements related to nuclear powered ships were reviewed, matters to be considered in terms of safety when developing domestic marine nuclear reactor regulatory requirements were derived, and a licensing regulatory system for nuclear powered ships was derived.This study is expected to be used as basic reference data when developing regulatory requirements for nuclear powered ships.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.53-68
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• 1975

The world's nuclear powered ships have been reviewed mainly based on development of the marine nuclear reactor and the present trends of nuclear warships and merchant ships in the world. In particular, emphasis was on the four nonmilitary nuclear ships, Russian Ice breaker Lenin, American Cargo-passenger ship Savannah, German Ore carrier Otto Hahn, and Japanese Cargo ship Mutsu. They are the only civilian nuclear ships which have entered service at the present time in the world. The nuclear fleets in United States, United Kingdom, Soviet, and France were described in view of historical development and the present stock of the nuclear ships. The present projects and the future trends for the nuclear merchant ships in the main shipbuilding countries have been also discussed. The nuclear fission and reactor were briefly discussed in the beginning of this article.

• Journal of The Korean Institute of Defense Technology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.1-8
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• 2023

In this study the economic impact of each plan for introducing Korea unclear-powered submarines were analyzed. This study conducted a preliminary investigation into foreign countries cases of unclear-powered submarines and classified three introduction plans. In order to analyze the economic impact of each introduction plan, a multiple-level survey was conducted targeting experts with experience in developing and operating ship weapon systems, and quantitative results were calculated for subcategory items with industrial relevance for industrial correlation analysis. The value added inducement coefficient and production inducement coefficient and employment inducement coefficient were calculated for each introduction method, and a favorable introduction method was derived. It is hoped that the results of this study will serve as a reference for policy decision-making during prior research for the introduction of korea nuclear submarines.

• Strategy21
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• s.41
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• pp.261-293
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• 2017

Nuclear power is a way of attaining an enormous amount of energy with relatively small amount of resources and after it has been introduced to the submarine since 1954, there are approximately 150 of nuclear powered submarine currently on a mission around the world. This is due to the maneuverability, mountability and covertness of nuclear submarines. However, there are other tasks, not only the high level of nuclear technology that are needed to be dealt with in order to construct nuclear powered submarine. The biggest task of all is to secure the enriched uranium. Accordingly, this research is about the way of enriching and securing the nuclear fuel that are used in the nuclear submarine with the characteristics, merits and demerits of the nuclear submarine. Due to the fact that the pressurized water reactor in South Korea is the reactor that was originally built for the development of nuclear powered submarine, many parts is designed to be suitable for the submarine propulsion. However, in order to apply this to submarine it is needed to consider additional requests such as the position of reactor, accident-coping system, radioactive covering, reactor output adjustment and ship's pitch and roll in order to apply this to submarine. Nuclear submarines have much higher speed based on the powerful propulsion in comparison with diesel-electric submarine and also have bigger loading area. Besides, there is no need to snorkel and they also have advantages in covertness with the multi-noise proof system. The nuclear technology in South Korea has seen the dramatic development since 1962 and in 1998 reached to the level that we have succeeded in the localization of nuclear plant and exported the world-class one-piece small-sized reactor (SMART) to UAE. To operate these reactors, we import the whole quantity of low-enriched uranium and having our own uranium enrich facility is not probable because of the budget and international regulations. With the ROK/US nuclear agreement revised on 2015 November, the enrichment of uranium that are available without special permission has changed up to 20%. According to the assumption that we use the 20% enrichment of Uranium on U.S. virginia class submarine, it is necessary to change the fuel after 11 years and it will cause additional cost of 1 billion dollars. But the replace period by the uranium's enrichment rate is not fixed so that it is possible to change according to the design of reactor. Therefore, I would like to make a suggestion on two types of design concepts of nuclear submarine that can be operated for 30 years without nuclear fuel change by using the 20% enriched uranium from ONNp.First of all, it is possible by increasing the size of reactor by 3 times and it results in the 1,000t increase of the weight. And secondly, it is by designing the one piece reactor to insert devices such as steam turbine, condenser into the inside of nuclear core like the Rubis class submarines of France.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.12
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• pp.4335-4349
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• 2023

Nuclear marine propulsion has been emerging as a next generation carbon-free power source, for which proper passive residual heat removal systems (PRHRSs) are needed for long-term safety. In particular, the characteristics of unlimited operation time and compact design are crucial in maritime applications due to the difficulties of safety aids and limited space. Accordingly, a compact and long-term-operable PRHRS has been proposed with the key design concept of using both air cooling and seawater cooling in tandem. To confirm its feasibility, this study conducted system design and a transient analysis in an accident scenario. Design results indicate that seawater cooling can considerably reduce the overall system size, and thus the compact and long-term-operable PRHRS can be realized. Regarding the transient analysis, the Multi-dimensional Analysis of Reactor Safety (MARS-KS) code was used to analyze the system behavior under a station blackout condition. Results show that the proposed design can satisfy the design requirements with a sufficient margin: the coolant temperature reached the safe shutdown condition within 36 h, and the maximum cooling rate did not exceed 40 ℃/h. Lastly, it was assessed that both air cooling and seawater cooling are necessary for achieving long-term operation and compact design.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.142-149
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• 2019

In the early 2000s, the Korean government first attempted to acquire nuclear-powered submarines as strategic assets. Acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines must overcome the challenges of the initial costs and operating costs of trillions of US dollars per ship, must be agreed to by the international community (including neighboring countries) and in a national consensus, and must have an established technical infrastructure (including manpower). The US navy has been working with governments that want to acquire nuclear propulsion warships since the 1950s, and in 1982, they enacted an executive order called the United States Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program to consolidate efforts and prepare for the future, which sets out the organizational structure, authority, and responsibilities of US governmental management, and integrates national efforts. This paper is to gain valuable wisdom from the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program by analyzing all of its histories and contributions, thereby providing valuable lessons for a future program in Korea. It might not be possible to follow the U.S.A. one-on-one because of the scale of national and military forces, but at least we can avoid time and effort spent on trial and error.