• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.461-477
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• 2010

Recent environmental issues such as genetically modified organisms, the loss of biodiversity, climate change, and nuclear waste cannot be reduced to a matter of science or society and explained through nature-society dualist approaches because of their complexity and heterogeneity. This paper examines how nature-society dualism has been embedded in science studies and geography and how this dualism can be overcome. Actor-Network Theory as an attempt to overcome this nature-society dualism is appropriate in analysing "strange imbriglio" of biology, politics, technoscience, market, value, ethics and facts that constitute our society by focusing on heterogeneous association, and can contribute to providing a useful framework to solve environmental problems.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.151-166
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• 2002

Groundwater development as a means of acquiring subsidiary water resource is very important for the persistent security of water resource. Nowadays, pneumatic fracturing technology which was developed in the advanced countries is applied for increasing pumping rate and eliminating contaminants. This study gives an experimental data to clarify permeability characteristics of the single discontinuity which is newly developed or increased in aperture by the pneumatic fracturing or damage propagation of the natural barrier for the nuclear waste disposal. On the basis of understanding the relationship between permeability and hydraulic aperture the result could apply as one of the basic data for researches concerned with increasing pumping rate and eliminating contaminants. Hydraulic aperture is decreased exponentially with increasing confining pressure and proportioned to permeability in the same confining pressure. Especially, with the increasing aperture permeability of coarse- and medium- grained granite shows the more rapid increasing than that of fine- grained granite.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.15-28
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• 2020

In this study, a procedure was introduced to estimate strength and deformation modulus of the 3-D discrete fracture network(DFN) systems using the distinct element method(DEM). Fracture entities were treated as non-persistent square planes in the DFN systems. Systematically generated fictitious fractures having similar mechanical characteristics of intact rock were combined with non-persistent real fractures to create polyhedral blocks in the analysis domain. Strength and deformation modulus for 10 m cube domain of various deterministic and stochastic 3-D DFN systems were estimated using the DEM to explore the applicability of suggested method and to examine the effect of fracture geometry on strength and deformability of DFN systems. The suggested procedures were found to effective in estimating anisotropic strength and deformability of the 3-D DFN systems.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.37 no.10
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• pp.5-11
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• 2021

The compacted bentonite buffer is one of the most important components in an engineered barrier system (EBS) to dispose of high-level radioactive waste (HLW) produced by nuclear power generation. The compacted bentonite buffer has a crucial role in protecting the disposal canister against the external impact and penetration of groundwater, so it has to satisfy the thermal-hydraulic-mechanical requirements. Even though there have been various researches on the investigation of thermal-hydraulic properties, few studies have been conducted to evaluate mechanical properties for the compacted bentonite buffer. For this reason, this paper conducted a series of unconfined compression tests and obtained mechanical properties such as unconfined compressive strength, elastic modulus, and void ratio of Korean compacted bentonite specimens with different water content and dry density values. The unconfined compressive strength and elastic modulus increased, and the Poisson's ratio decreased a little with increasing dry density. It showed that unconfined compressive strength and elastic modulus were proportional to dry density. However, there was not a remarkable correlation between mechanical properties and water content.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.461-476
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• 2022

Research studies on the scale effect on triaxial strength of intact rocks are scarce, being more common those in uniaxial strength. In this paper, the authors present and briefly interpret the peak and residual strength trends on a series of triaxial tests on different size specimens (30 mm to 84 mm diameter) of an intact granitic rock at confinements ranging from 0 to 15 MPa. Peak strength tends to grow from smaller to standard-size samples (54 mm) and then diminishes for larger values at low confinement. However, a slight change in strength is observed at higher confinements. Residual strength is observed to be much less size-dependent. Additionally, this study introduces preliminary modelling approaches of these laboratory observations with the help of three-dimensional particle flow code (PFC3D) simulations based on bonded particle models (BPM). Based on previous studies, two modelling approaches have been followed. In the first one, the maximum and minimum particle diameter (D_max and D_min) are kept constant irrespective of the sample size, whereas in the second one, the resolution (number of particles within the sample or ϕ_v) was kept constant. Neither of these approaches properly represent the observations in actual laboratory tests, even if both of them show some interesting capabilities reported in this document. Eventually, some suggestions are provided to proceed towards improving modelling approaches to represent observed scale effects.

• Advanced Industrial SCIence
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.1-7
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• 2023

Recently, it is increasing that a issue of concern about radiation exposure. It affects soil, water, air, crops, etc., and in the long term, environmental pollution and food pollution occur, and it is considered to cause social problems and economic damage. Radiation exposure causes diseases and health problems, but as a method for diagnosing diseases, nuclear medicine tests such as X-ray imaging, CT, and PET-CT are conducted, and radiation isotopes are exposed for the purpose of cancer treatment. A Hungarian case study on radiation in water, particularly drinking water, following the release of radioactive waste from Fukushima, and an examination of the Larsemann Hills area in Antarctica, found that it was within the prescribed radioactivity limits of drinking water recommended by the World Health Organization. We looked at radioprotective agents, focusing on DNA damage, cell and organ damage, and cancer, and also investigated various literatures on ACE inhibitors, antioxidants, and natural substances among restoration materials. Although exposed to radiation in everyday life, the reason why it can be safe is probably because there is a radiation protection material and a recovery material for radiation exposure, so we are trying to find possible materials.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.65-72
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• 2008

The purpose of the HLW deep geological disposal is to isolate and to delay the radioactive material release to human beings and the environment for a long time so that the toxicity does not affect to the environment. The main requirements for the HLW repository design is to keep the buffer temperature below $100\;^{\circ}C$ in order to maintain its integrity. So the cooling time of spent fuels discharged from the nuclear power plant is the key consideration factors for efficiency and economic feasibility of the repository. The disposal tunnel/disposal hole spacing, the disposal area and thermal capacity required for the deep geological repository layout which satisfies the temperature requirement of the disposal system is analyzed to set the optimized spent fuels cooling time. To do this, based on the reference disposal concept, thermal stability analyses of the disposal system have been performed and the derived results have been compared by setting the spent fuels cooling time and the disposal tunnel/disposal hole spacing in various ways. From these results, desirable spent fuels cooling time in view of disposal area is derived. The results shows that the time reaching the maximum temperature within the design limit of the temperature in the disposal site is likely shortened as the cooling time of spent fuels becomes short. Also it seems that the temperature-rising and-dropping patterns in the disposal site are of smoothly varying form as the cooling time of spent fuels becomes long. In addition, it is revealed that a desirable cooling time of spent fuels is approximately 40-50 years when spent fuels are supposedly disposed in the deep geological disposal site with its structural scale under consideration in this study.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2009

This study has been focused on determining the chemical composition of $^{14}C$ - in terms of both organic and inorganic $^{14}C$ contents - in reactor coolant from 3 different PWR's reactor type. The purpose was to evaluate the characteristic of $^{14}C$ that can serve as a basis for reliable estimation of the environmental release at domestic PWR sites. $^{14}C$ is the most important nuclide in the inventory, since it contributes one of the main dose contributors in future release scenarios. The reason for this is its high mobility in the environment, biological availability and long half-life(5730yr). More recent studies - where a more detailed investigation of organic $^{14}C$ species believed to be formed in the coolant under reducing conditions have been made - show that the organic compounds not only are limited to hydrocarbons and CO. Possible organic compounds formed including formaldehyde, formic acid and acetic acid, etc. Under oxidizing conditions shows the oxidized carbon forms, possibly mainly carbon dioxide and bicarbonate forms. Measurements of organic and inorganic $^{14}C$ in various water systems were also performed. The $^{14}C$ inventory in the reactor water was found to be 3.1 GBq/kg in PWR of which less than 10% was in inorganic form. Generally, the $^{14}C$ activity in the water was divided equally between the gas- and water- phase. Even though organic $^{14}C$ compound shows that dominant species during the reactor operation, But during the releasing of $^{14}C$ from the plant stack, chemical forms of $^{14}C$ shows the different composition due to the operation conditions such as temperature, pH, volume control tank venting and shut down chemistry.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.87-96
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• 2004

Studies were conducted to select the candidate buffer material for a high-level waste (HLW) repository in Korea. This paper presents the hydraulic properties, the swelling properties, the thermal properties, and the mechanical properties as well as the radionuclide release-retarding capacity of Kyungju bentonite as part of those studies. Experimental results showed that the hydraulic conductivities of the compacted bentonite were very low and less than $10^{-11}$m/s. The values decreased with increasing the dry density of the compacted bentonite. The swelling pressures were in the range of 0.66 MPa to 14.4 ㎫ and they increased with increasing the dry density. The thermal conductivities were in the range of 0.80 ㎉/m $h^{\circ}C$ to 1.52 ㎉/m $h^{\circ}C$. The unconfined compressive strength, Young's modulus and Poison's ratio showed the range of 0.55 ㎫ to 8.83 ㎫, 59 ㎫ to 1275 ㎫, and 0.05 to 0.20, respectively, when the dry densities of the compacted bentonite were 1.4 Ms/㎥ to 1.8 Mg/㎥. The diffusion coefficients in the compacted bentonite were measured under an oxidizing condition. The values were $1.7{\times}10^{-10}$m^2$/s to 3.4{\times}10^{-10}$m^2$/s for electrically neutral tritium (H-3), 8.6{\times}10^{-14}$m^2$/s to 1.3{\times}10^{-12}$m^2$/s for cations (Cs, Sr, Ni), 1.2{\times}10^{-11}$m^2$/s to 9.5{\times}10^{-11}$m^2$/s for anions (I, Tc), and 3.0{\times}10^{-14} $m^2$/s to 1.8{\times}10^{-13}$m^2$/s $for actinides (U, Am), when tile dry densities were in the range of 1.2 Mg/㎥ to 1.8 Mg/㎥. The obtained results will be used in assessing the barrier properties of Kyungju bentonite as a buffer material of a repository in Korea.n Korea.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.281-290
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• 2018

In order to understand the long-term behavior of radionuclides in granite environments, geochemical behavior characteristics of uranium in granitic host rock of KURT (KAERI Underground Research Tunnel) were investigated by dissolution experiment with different reaction time and solutions. In the dissolution experiment, significantly increased dissolution levels of uranium from granite powder samples were identified during the reaction time of 0~10 days for reaction solutions ($UD-CO_3$ and UD-Bg) containing a large amount of $CO_3{^{2-}}$. On the other hand, significantly increased dissolution levels of uranium were also identified for reaction solutions containing Na and Ca after 60 days. Dissolution of uranium continuously increased in reaction solutions of $UD-CO_3$ ($44.61{\mu}g{\cdot}L^{-1}$), UD-Bg ($41.01{\mu}g{\cdot}L^{-1}$), UD-Na ($26.87{\mu}g{\cdot}L^{-1}$), UD-Ca ($20.26{\mu}g{\cdot}L^{-1}$), UD-CaSi ($17.03{\mu}g{\cdot}L^{-1}$), and UD-Si ($10.47{\mu}g{\cdot}L^{-1}$) in the experimental period of ~270 days. However, after day 270, dissolution of uranium showed a decreasing tendency. This is thought to have occurred because existing uranium in granite samples reached the limit of dissolution by interaction with reaction solutions. Concentrations of dissolved uranium and points of maximum concentration value were found to differ depending on the $CO_3{^{2-}}$ presence in the mixed reaction solution and on the geochemical type of the water. It is estimated that differences in the reaction rate between the granite sample and the reaction solution are due to the influence of dissolved ions in the reaction solution.