• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.163-169
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• 2019

The robust controller synthesis and analysis of the water level process in the U-tube system generator (UTSG) is addressed in this paper. The parameter uncertainties of the steam generator (SG) are modeled as multiplicative perturbations which are normalized by designing suitable weighting functions. The relative errors of the nominal SG model with respect to the other operating power level models are employed to specify the weighting functions for normalizing the plant uncertainties. Then, a robust controller is designed based on ${\mu}$-synthesis and D-K iteration, and its stability robustness is verified over the whole range of power operations. A gain-scheduled controller with $H_{\infty}$-synthesis is also designed to compare its robustness with the proposed controller. The stability analysis is accomplished and compared with the previous QFT design. The ${\mu}$-analysis of the system shows that the proposed controller has a favorable stability robustness for the whole range of operating power conditions. The proposed controller response is simulated against the power level deviation in start-up and shutdown stages and compared with the other concerning controllers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.16-26
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• 2020

Improving operator performance in complex and time-critical situations is critical to maintain plant safety and operability. These situations require quick detection, diagnosis, and mitigation actions to recover from the root cause of failure. One of the key challenges for operators in nuclear power plants is information management and following the control procedures and instructions. Nowadays Digital Twin technology can be used for analyzing and fast detection of failures and transient situations with the recommender system to provide the operator or maintenance engineer with recommended action to be carried out. Systems engineering approach (SE) is used in developing a digital twin for the CEDM system to support operator actions when there is a misalignment in the control element assembly group. Systems engineering is introduced for identifying the requirements, operational concept, and associated verification and validation steps required in the development process. The system developed by using a machine learning algorithm with a text mining technique to extract the required actions from limiting conditions for operations (LCO) or procedures that represent certain tasks.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.69-81
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• 2021

The human performance issues and increased automation issues in advanced Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are critical to numerous stakeholders in the nuclear industry, due to the undesirable implications targeting the Man Machine Interface Systems (MMIS) complexity of (Generation IV) SMRs. It is imperative that the design of future SMRs must address these problems. Nowadays, Multi Agent Systems (MAS) are used in the industrial sector to solve multiple complex problems; therefore incorporating this technology in the proposed innovative SMR (I-SMR) design will contribute greatly in the decision making process during plant operations, also reduce the number MCR operating crew and human errors. However, it is speculated that an increased level of complexity will be introduced. Prior to achieving the objectives of this research, the tools used to analyze the system for complexity reduction, are the McCabe's Cyclomatic complexity metric and the Henry-Kafura Information Flow metric. In this research, the systems engineering approach is used to guide the engineering process of complexity reduction concept of the system in its entirety.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.866-878
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• 2021

Procedures play a key role in ensuring safe operation at nuclear power plants (NPPs). Development and maintenance of a large number of procedures reflecting the best knowledge available in all relevant areas is a complex job. This paper introduces a newly developed methodology and the implemented software, called iExtractor, for the extraction of syntactic and semantic information from NPP procedures utilizing natural language processing (NLP)-based technologies. The steps of the iExtractor integrated with sets of rules and an ontology for NPPs are described in detail with examples. Case study results of the iExtractor applied to selected procedures of a U.S. commercial NPP are also introduced. It is shown that the iExtractor can provide overall comprehension of the analyzed procedures and indicate parts of procedures that need improvement. The rich information extracted from procedures could be further utilized as a basis for their enhanced management.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.221-226
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• 2000

Hot air heater with light oil burner is the most common heater for greenhouse heating in the winter season in Korea. However, since the thermal efficiency of the heater is about 80∼85%, considerable unused heat amount in the form of exhaust gas heat discharges to atmosphere. In order to capture this exhaust heat a heat recovery system for plant bed heating in the greenhouse was built and tested in the hot air heating system of greenhouse. The heat recovery system is made for plant bed or soil heating in the greenhouse. The system consisted of a heat exchanger made of copper pipes, ${\Phi}12.7{\times}0.7t$ located in the rectangular column of $330{\times}330{\times}900mm$, a water circulation pump, circulation plastic pipe and a water tank. The total heat exchanger area is 1.5$m^2$, calculated considering the heat exchange amount between flue gas and water circulated in the copper pipes. The system was attached to the exhaust gas path. The heat recovery system was designed as to even recapture the latent heat of flue gas when exposing to low temperature water in the heat exchanger. According to the performance test it could recover 45,200 to 51,000kJ/hr depending on the water circulation rates of 330 to $690\ell$/hr from the waste heat discharged. The exhaust gas temperature left the heat exchanger dropped to $100^{\circ}C$ from $270^{\circ}C$ by the heat exchange between the water and the flue gas, while water gained the difference and temperature increased to $38^{\circ}C$ from $21^{\circ}C$ at the water flow rate of $690\ell$/hr. By the feasibility test conducted in the greenhouse, the system did not encounter any difficulty in operations. And, the system could recover 220,235kJ of exhaust gas heat in a day, which is equivalent of 34% of the fuel consumption by the water boiler for plant bed heating of 0.2ha in the greenhouse.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.99-109
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• 2001

In this study, we tried to build a model which can deal with the efficient and effective operation of electric power industry, especially focused on the nuclear industry. Here, SD (System Dynamics) approach is used to visualize the underlying phenomenon of the nuclear power industry. SD is a methodology for studying and managing complex feedback systems, such as one finds in business and other social systems. The spend of SD applications has grown extensively and now encompasses work in corporate planning and policy design, public management and policy, biological and medical modeling, energy and the environment. Recently, according to the report from KEPCO (Korea Electric Power Corporation), they are considering delaying a new power plant construction. It may be based upon business fluctuation downsized from Korean economic crisis in 1997 and freezing of construction funds due to unstable foreign exchange rate. At this point, we need disparately a kind of strategic model that would contribute to cope with the current business situation, energy generation, production, and resulting pollution. Specifically, this model, using SD approach, starts with the detailed drawing of influence diagram, which describes those relevant key points on nuclear power generation systems in electric power industry of Korea. These include such factors as the operation of nuclear industry and parameters related to the decision making for business policy. Based upon the above-mentioned influence diagram drawn, we developed SD simulation model to evaluate and analyze strategic management of KEPCO. Based on our analysis, we could demonstrate how simulation model can be applied to the real electric power generation in Korea.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.157-164
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• 2017

A parallel slide gate valve (PSGV) is located between the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) and the steam turbine in a combined cycle power plant (CCPP). It is used to control the flow of steam and runs with repetitive operations such as startups, load changes, and shutdowns during its operation period. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the fatigue damage and the structural integrity under a large compressive thermal stress due to the temperature difference through the valve wall thickness during the startup operations. In this paper, the thermal-structural analysis and the fatigue life evaluation of a 16-inch PSGV, which is installed on the HP steam line, is performed according to the fatigue life assessment method described in the ASME B&PVC VIII-2; the method uses the equivalent stress from the elastic stress analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.57-70
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• 2004

Given a tree network on which each node has its own demand and also stands for a candidate location of a potential facility. such as plant or warehouse, the f-median problem on the network (PMPOT) is to select less than or equal to P number of facility locations so that the whole demand on a node is satisfied from only one facility and the total demand occurred on the network can be satisfied from those facilities with the minimum total cost, where the total cost Is the sum of transportation costs and the fixed costs of establishing facilities. Tamir(1996) developed an O(p n$^2$) algorithm for PMPOT which is known to be the best algorithm In terms of the time complexity, where n is the number of nodes in the network, but he didn't make any comments or explanation about implementation details for finding the optimal solution. In contrast to Tamir's work, Kariv and Hakimi(1979) developed O(p$^2$n$^2$) algorithm for PMPOT and presented O(n$^2$) algorithm for finding the optimal solution in detail. In this paper, we not only develop another O(p n$^2$) dynamic programming algorithm for PMPOT that is competitive to Tamir's algorithm in terms of the time complexity, but also present O(n) algorithm that is more efficient than kariv and Hakimi's algorithm in finding the optimal solution. finally, we implement our algorithm on a set of randomly generated problems and report the computational results.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.66 no.7
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• pp.1066-1071
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• 2017

Recently high voltage impulse (HVI) technique has been extensively studied for desalting processes to control the $CaCO_3$ scale formation in industrial water practices such as power plant, boiler, and heat exchange operations. Investigation of the operational parameters for the HVI is important, however, those had not been reported yet. In this study, the effect of initial feed volume and contact time on reduction of calcium ion concentration by the HVI technique was investigated. Initial feed volumes of artificial hard water which contained 100 mg/L of $Ca^{2+}$, were set to 1, 2, and 3 L respectively. After 24hr of HVI contact with 12kV, $Ca^{2+}$ ion was reduced to 50, 29 and 19 % of their initial concentration, indicating that calcium removal increased as initial feed volume decreased. This implies the applied HVI pulse energy per unit mass of calcium is important parameter determining overall desalting efficiency. A series of extended operations of HVI up to 30 days verified the long term stability of the HVI system. The calcium ion declined to 40 mg/L after 2~3 days, and further reduction of calcium was not achieved, indicating that optimum operation time could be 2~3 days under these experimental conditions. Consequently, it was confirmed that the important operational parameter of HVI technique is initial feed volume and contact time as well as the applied voltage that was already proven in the previous study.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.653-664
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• 2010

The land surface reflectance is a key parameter influencing the climate near the surface. Therefore, it must be determined with sufficient accuracy for climate change research. In particular, the characteristics of the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) when using earth observation system (EOS) are important for normalizing the reflected solar radiation from the earth's surface. Also, wide swath satellites like SPOT/VGT (VEGETATION) permit sufficient angular sampling, but high resolution satellites are impossible to obtain sufficient angular sampling over a pixel during short period because of their narrow swath scanning. This gives a difficulty to BRDF model based reflectance normalization of high resolution satellites. The principal objective of the study is to add BRDF modeling of high resolution satellites and to supply insufficient angular sampling through identifying BRDF components from SPOT/VGT. This study is performed as the preliminary data for apply to high-resolution satellite. The study provides surface parameters by eliminating BRD effect when calculated biophysical index of plant by BRDF model. We use semi-empirical BRDF model to identify the BRD components. This study uses SPOT/VGT satellite data acquired in the S1 (daily) data. Modeled reflectance values show a good agreement with measured reflectance values from SPOT satellite. This study analyzes BRD effect components by using the NDVI(Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and the angle components such as solar zenith angle, satellite zenith angle and relative azimuth angle. Geometric scattering kernel mainly depends on the azimuth angle variation and volumetric scattering kernel is less dependent on the azimuth angle variation. Also, forest from land cover shows the wider distribution of value than cropland, overall tendency is similar. Forest shows relatively larger value of geometric term ($K_1{\cdot}f_1$) than cropland, When performed comparison between cropland and forest. Angle and NDVI value are closely related.