• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2600-2609
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• 2021

Low cycle fatigue behaviors of SA508-3 low-alloy steel were investigated in room-temperature air, high-temperature air and in light water reactor (LWR) water environments. The fatigue mean curve and design curve for the low-alloy steel are developed based on the fatigue data in room-temperature and high-temperature air. The environmental fatigue model for low-alloy steel is developed by the environmental fatigue correction factor (F_en) methodology based on the fatigue data in LWR water environments with the consideration of effects of strain rate, temperature, and dissolved oxygen concentration on the fatigue life.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.9
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• pp.2977-2981
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• 2021

Corrosion fatigue crack growth (FCG) behavior of 316LN stainless steel was investigated in high-temperature pressurized water at different temperatures, load ratios (R = K_max/K_min) and rise times (t_R). The environmental assisted effect on FCG rate was observed when both the R and t_R exceeded their critical values. The FCG rate showed a linear relation with stress intensity factor range (ΔK) in double logarithmic coordinate. The environmental assisted effect on FCG rate depended on the ΔK and quantitative relations were proposed. Possible mechanisms of environmental assisted FCG rate under different testing conditions are also discussed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.1176-1180
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• 2021

The current study relates to RADAR (RAdio Detection and Ranging) application for level measurement of vitrified radioactive liquid nuclear waste. The vitrification of radioactive liquid waste is carried out in special equipment called 'Melters'. The study is directed towards the design and frequency modulation used in the level measurement of vitrified waste. More specifically, the RADAR design and frequency used for level measurement in a melter. This level measurement technique can also be used for dynamic vitrification process and can be used to measure the level variations without using any external medium/material and using only electromagnetic waves. Also, this technique is durable and accurate even under the high radioactive environment present inside the melter.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.8
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• pp.977-984
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• 2012

The cross-correlation technique has been widely used for leakage detection of buried pipes, and this technique can be successfully applied when the leakage signal has a high signal-to-noise ratio. In the case of a power plant, the measured leakage signals obtained from the sensors may contain background noise and mechanical noise generated by adjacent machinery. In such a case, the conventional method using the cross-correlation function may fail to estimate the leakage point. In order to enhance the leakage estimation capability of a buried pipe in a noisy environment, an improved cross-correlation technique is proposed. It uses a noise rejection technique in the frequency domain to effectively eliminate the tonal noise due to rotating machinery. Experiments were carried out to verify the validity of the proposed method. The results show that even in a tonal noisy environment, the proposed method can provide more reliable means for estimating the time delay of the leakage signals.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.1887-1894
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• 2024

Fatigue strength of the structural materials of lead-cooled fast reactors (LFRs) and accelerator-driven systems (ADS) may be degraded in liquid metal (Lead or lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE)) environments. The fatigue crack growth (FCG) data of structural materials in liquid LBE are necessary for damage tolerance design, safety assessment and life management of key equipment. A novel monitoring system for fatigue crack length was designed on the compliance method and the monitor technology of crack opening displacement (COD) of CT specimens by the linear variable differential transformers (LVDT) system. It can be used to predict the crack length by monitoring the COD of CT specimens in harsh high-temperature liquid LBE using a LVDT system. The prediction accuracy of this system was verified by FCG experiments in room temperature air and liquid LBE at 150, 250 and 350 ℃. The first results obtained in the FCG test for T91 steel in liquid LBE at 350 ℃ are presented.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.800-806
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• 2019

This paper presents a laboratory experiment on data acquisition technique that applied to the gamma radiation scanning coupled with computed tomography (CT) technique for inspection of broken nozzle inside the vertical vessel. The acquisition technique was developed to inspect a large diameter vessel when suspicious problem location is not easily accessed. This technique allows the installation of gamma radiation source (Cesium 137, Cs-137), and detectors (Sodium Iodine. NaI(Tl)) from the accessible location to the required location and performs the scanning by designed pattern. To demonstrate the designed technique, top opened tank which installed with six cut steel pipes diameter of 76.2 mm (3") at a certain position was selected. They were assumed to be a gas riser pipes inside the vessel. Three studied cases were performed, (a) projection of well installed six pipes, (b) projection of one out of six broken pipe and (c) one of nozzle was assumed to be failure and fell down until one out of six pipes was broken and obstructed by nozzle. Results clearly indicated the capability of developed technique to distinguish between normal situation case and abnormal situation cases.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.1398-1406
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• 2024

The control rod worth is a key safety parameter required to be measured in commercial pressurized water reactors (PWRs). Conventionally, the control rod worth is measured after reaching the critical state, which occupies the considerable time in the zero-power physics test. In this study, an efficient control-rod worth measurement technique has been proposed based on the improved neutron-source multiplication method, which can be implemented with the source-range detector count rates in the subcritical states. Moreover, the noise reduction technique has been adopted to smooth the large fluctuation existing in the original signals. In order to verify the engineering performance of the proposed measurement technique, the measured source-range detector count rates during the rod withdrawal process before reaching critical state in a CNP1000 reactor have been employed. It demonstrated that almost all estimated results of control rod worth satisfy the engineering acceptance criteria, except one control rod with the relative difference over 10 %, which indicates the capability of the proposed method in estimating control rod worth.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.1289-1296
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• 2019

Non-functional requirements plays a critical role in designing variety of applications domain ranges from safety-critical systems to simple gaming applications. Performance is one of the crucial non-functional requirement, especially in control and safety systems, that validates the design. System risk can be quantified as a product of probability of system failure and severity of its impact. In this paper, we devise a technique to do the performance analysis of safety critical and control systems and to estimate performance based risk factor. The technique elaborates Petri nets to estimate performability to ensure system dependability requirements. We illustrate the technique on a case study of Nuclear Power Plant system. The technique has been validated on 17 safety critical and control systems of Nuclear Power Plant.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.1221-1229
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• 2022

In this work, the guided wave de-bonding area-detecting technique was studied for application to containment liner plates in nuclear power plant areas. To apply this technique, an appropriate Lamb wave mode, symmetric and longitudinal dominance, was verified by the frequency shifting technique. The S0 2.7 MHz mm Lamb wave mode was chosen to realize quantitative experimental results and their visualization. Results of the bulk wave, longitudinal wave mode, and comparison experiments indicate that the wave mode was able to distinguish between the de-bonded and bonded areas. Similar to the bulk wave cases, the bonded region could be distinguished from the de-bonded region using the Lamb wave approach. The Lamb wave technique results showed significant correlation to the de-bonding area. As the de-bonding area increased, the Lamb wave energy attenuation effect decreased, which was a prominent factor in the realization of quantitative tomographic visualization. The feasibility of tomographic visualization was studied via the application of Lamb waves. The reconstruction algorithm for the probabilistic inspection of damage (RAPID) technique was applied to the containment liner plate to verify and visualize the de-bonding condition. The results obtained using the tomography image indicated that the Lamb wave-based RAPID algorithm was capable of delineating debonding areas.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.127-129
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• 2008

EPR spectroscopic technique was applied for a quantitative analysis of Eu(II) for a speciation of europium in a LiCl-KCl eutectic melt. By adopting the first absorption line of each isotopes (151Eu and 153Eu), a calibration plot was obtained. The calibration of the EPR intensity shows a good linearity according to the amount of Eu(II). The EPR intensity was identified to increase proportionally with a decrease of the attenuation parameter for EPR microwave power. The fluorescence technique was used qualitatively to find whether either of Eu(II) or Eu(III) ions exists in a molten salt sample. The ICP-AES technique was also adopted to determine the total concentration of europium in the sample, since EPR is only sensitive for detecting the Eu(II) ion. The extent of the reduction of Eu(III) in the LiCl-KCl eutectic melt at 723 K was determined by using this technique.