• Computers and Concrete
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• 제31권5호
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• pp.433-442
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• 2023

This study presents the visually observed behavior of fibers embedded in concrete samples that were subjected to a flexural bending test. Three types of fibers such as macro polypropylene, macro polyethylene, and the hybrid of steel and polyvinyl alcohol were mixed with cement by a designated mix ratio to prepare a total of nine specimens of each. The bending test was conducted by following ASTM C1609 with a net deflection of 2, 4, and 7 mm. The X-ray computed tomography (XCT) was carried out for 7 mm-deflection specimens. The original XCT images were post-processed to denoise the beam-hardening effect. Then, fiber, crack, and void were semi-manually segmented. The hybrid specimen showed the highest toughness compared to the other two types. Debonding based on 2D XCT sliced images was commonly observed for all three groups. The cement matrix near the crack surface often involved partially localized breakage in conjunction with debonding. The pullout was predominant for steel fibers that were partially slipped toward the crack. Crack bridging and rupture were not found presumably due to the image resolution and the level of energy dissipation for poly-fibers, while the XCT imaging was advantageous in evaluating the distribution and behavior of various fibers upon bending for fiber-reinforced concrete beam elements.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권6호
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• pp.2158-2165
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• 2023

Marine radioactivity monitoring is critical for taking immediate action in case of unexpected nuclear accidents at nuclear facilities located near coastal areas. Especially when the level of contamination is not predictable, mobile monitoring systems will be useful for wide-area ocean radiation survey and for determination of the level of radioactivity. Here, we used a silicon photomultiplier and a high-efficiency GAGG crystal to fabricate a compact, battery-powered gamma spectroscopy that can be used in an ocean environment. The developed spectroscopy has compact dimensions of 6.5 × 6.5× 8 cm³ and weighs 560 g. We used LoRa, a low-power wireless protocol for communication. Successful data transmission was achieved within 1.4 m water depth. The developed gamma spectroscopy was able to detect radioactivity from a ¹³⁷Cs point source (3.7 kBq) at a distance of 20 cm in water. Moreover, we demonstrated an unmanned radioactivity monitoring system in a real sea by combining unmanned surface vehicle with the developed gamma spectroscopy. A hidden ¹³⁷Cs source (3.07 MBq) was detected by the unmanned system at a distance of 3 m. After successfully testing the developed mobile spectroscopy in an ocean environment, we believe that our proposed system will be an effective solution for mobile real-time marine radioactivity monitoring.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권5호
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• pp.1935-1945
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• 2023

The radiological safety of workers in a newly developed microwave-based spent resin treatment facility was assessed based on work location and operational scenarios. The results show that the remote-operation room worker was exposed to maximum annual dose of 3.19E+00 mSv, which is 15.9% of the dose limit, thereby confirming radiological safety. Inside the pathway, annual doses in the range of 7.87E-02-2.07E-01 mSv were measured initially at the mock-up tank and later at the point between the spent resin separation and treatment parts. The dose of emergency maintenance workers was below the dose limit (4.08E-03-4.99E+00 mSv); however, before treatment (separation and microwave), the dose of maintenance and repair workers exceeded the dose limit. The doses of the effluent removal workers at the zeolite and activated carbon storage tank and spent resin storage tank were the lowest at 2.79E-01-2.87E-01 mSv and 9.27E-01 mSv in "1 h" and "4-5 h of operation", respectively. The immediately lower and upper layers of the facility room exhibited the highest annual doses of 1.84E+00 and 3.22E+00 mSv, respectively. Through this study, a scenario that can minimize the dose considering the movement of spent resin through the facility can be developed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권10호
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• pp.3822-3830
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• 2023

The large-area Compton camera (LACC), featuring significantly high detection sensitivity, was developed for high-speed localization of gamma-ray sources. Due to the high gamma-ray interaction event rate induced by the high sensitivity, however, the multiplexer-based data acquisition system (DAQ) rapidly saturated, leading to deteriorated energy and imaging resolution at event rates higher than 4.7 × 10³ s^-1. In the present study, a new simultaneous multi-channel DAQ was developed to improve the energy and imaging resolution of the LACC even under high event rate conditions (10⁴-10⁶ s^-1). The performance of the DAQ was evaluated with several point sources under different event rate conditions. The results indicated that the new DAQ offers significantly better performance than the existing DAQ over the entire energy and event rate ranges. Especially, the new DAQ showed high energy resolution under very high event rate conditions, i.e., 6.9% and 8.6% (for 662 keV) at 1.3 × 10⁵ and 1.2 × 10⁶ s^-1, respectively. Furthermore, the new DAQ successfully acquired Compton images under those event rates, i.e., imaging resolutions of 13.8° and 19.3° at 8.7 × 10⁴ and 10⁶ s^-1, which correspond to 1.8 and 73 μSv/hr or about 18 and 730 times the background level, respectively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권3호
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• pp.973-979
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• 2024

In the framework of the Generation IV research and development project, in which the French Commission of Alternative and Atomic Energies (CEA) is involved, a main objective for the design of Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) is to meet the safety goals for severe accidents. Among the severe ones, the Unprotected Transient OverPower (UTOP) accidents can lead very quickly to a global melting of the core. UTOP accidents can be considered either as slow during a Control Rod Withdrawal (CRW) or as fast. The paper focuses on fast UTOP accidents, which occur in a few milliseconds, and three different scenarios are considered: rupture of the core support plate, uncontrolled passage of a gas bubble inside the core and core mechanical distortion such as a core flowering/compaction during an earthquake. Several levels and rates of reactivity insertions are also considered and the thermal-mechanical behavior of an ASTRID fuel pin from the ASTRID CFV core is simulated with the GERMINAL code. Two types of fuel pins are simulated, inner and outer core pins, and three different burn-up are considered. Moreover, the feedback from the CABRI programs on these type of transients is used in order to evaluate the failure mechanism in terms of kinetics of energy injection and fuel melting. The CABRI experiments complete the analysis made with GERMINAL calculations and have shown that three dominant mechanisms can be considered as responsible for pin failure or onset of pin degradation during ULOF/UTOP accident: molten cavity pressure loading, fuel-cladding mechanical interaction (FCMI) and fuel break-up. The study is one of the first step in fast UTOP accidents modelling with GERMINAL and it has shown that the code can already succeed in modelling these type of scenarios up to the sodium boiling point. The modeling of the radial propagation of the melting front, validated by comparison with CABRI tests, is already very efficient.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권4호
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• pp.1225-1233
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• 2024

Level 3 probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) is performed to calculate radionuclide concentrations and exposure dose resulting from nuclear power plant accidents. To calculate the external exposure dose from the released radioactive materials, the radionuclide concentrations are multiplied by two factors of dose coefficient and a finite cloud dose correction factor (FCDCF), and the obtained values are summed. This indicates that a standard set of FCDCFs is required for external exposure dose calculations. To calculate a standard set of FCDCFs, the effective distance from the release point to the receptor along the wind direction should be predetermined. The TID-24190 document published in 1968 provides equations to calculate FCDCFs and the resultant standard set of FCDCFs. However, it does not provide any explanation on the effective distance required to calculate the standard set of FCDCFs. In 2021, Sandia National Laboratories (SNLs) proposed a method to predetermine finite effective distances depending on the atmospheric stability classes A to F, which results in six standard sets of FCDCFs. Meanwhile, independently of the SNLs, the authors of this paper discovered that an infinite effective distance assumption is a very reasonable approach to calculate one standard set of FCDCFs, and they implemented it into the multi-unit radiological consequence calculator (MURCC) code, which is a post-processor of the level 3 PSA codes. This paper calculates and compares short- and long-range FCDCFs calculated using the TID-24190, SNLs method, and MURCC method, and explains the strength of the MURCC method over the SNLs method. Although six standard sets of FCDCFs are required by the SNLs method, one standard sets of FCDCFs are sufficient by the MURCC method. Additionally, the use of the MURCC method and its resultant FCDCFs for level 3 PSA was strongly recommended.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권7호
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• pp.2650-2658
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• 2024

In this paper, we use a Monte Carlo (MC) simulation based on Geant4 to investigate the influence of four parameters on the spatial resolution of the lens-coupled lutetium yttrium orthosilicate (LYSO) scintillator, including the thickness of the LYSO scintillator, the F-number and minification factor of the lens, and the incident position of the gamma-rays. Simulation results show that when the gamma-rays are incident along the lens axis, the smaller the thickness, the larger the F-number, the larger the minification factor, the higher the spatial resolution, with an isotropic point spread function (PSF). As the incident position of the gamma-rays deviates from the lens axis, the spatial resolution decreases, and the PSF becomes anisotropic. In addition, by analyzing the whole physical process of the lens-coupled LYSO scintillator from gamma-rays to secondary electrons to fluorescence photons, we aim to provide a detailed analysis of the influence of each parameter on the spatial resolution. The results show that the PSF of the secondary electrons energy deposition is almost constant in the simulation, which determines the upper limit of the spatial resolution. Meanwhile, the dispersion process of the fluorescence photons can explain the reason why each parameter affects the spatial resolution.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권7호
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• pp.2690-2697
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• 2024

With advancements in machine learning technologies, artificial neural networks (ANNs) are being widely used to improve the performance of gamma-ray spectroscopy based on NaI(Tl) scintillation detectors. Typically, the performance of ANNs is evaluated using test datasets composed of actual spectra. However, the generation of such test datasets encompassing a wide range of actual spectra representing various scenarios often proves inefficient and time-consuming. Thus, instead of measuring actual spectra, we generated virtual spectra with diverse spectral features by sampling from categorical distribution functions derived from the base spectra of six radioactive isotopes: ⁵⁴Mn, ⁵⁷Co, ⁶⁰Co, ¹³⁴Cs, ¹³⁷Cs, and ²⁴¹Am. For practical applications, we determined the optimum counting time (OCT) as the point at which the change in the Kullback-Leibler divergence (ΔKLDV) values between the synthetic spectra used for training the ANN and the virtual spectra approaches zero. The accuracies of the actual spectra were significantly improved when measured up to their respective OCTs. The outcomes demonstrated that the proposed method can effectively determine the OCTs for gamma-ray spectroscopy based on ANNs without the need to measure actual spectra.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권6호
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• pp.2131-2140
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• 2024

The chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) is one of the major integrity concerns in dry storage canisters made of austenitic stainless steels (ASSs). In this study, an advanced duplex stainless steel (DSS) with a composition of Fe-19Cr-4Ni-2.5Mo-4.5Mn (ADCS) was developed and its performance was compared with that of commercial ASS and DSS alloys. The chemical composition of ADCS was determined to obtain greater pitting and CISCC resistance as well as a proper combination of strength and ductility. Then, the thermomechanical processing (TMP) condition was applied, which resulted in higher strength than ASSs (304L SS and 316L SS) and better ductility than DSSs (2101 LDSS and 2205 DSS). The potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectra (EIS) results represented the better pitting corrosion resistance of ADCS compared to 304L SS and 316L SS by forming a better passive layer. The CISCC tests using four-point loaded specimens showed that cracks were initiated at 24 h for 304L SS and 144 h for 316L SS, while crack was not found until 1008 h for ADCS. Overall, the developed alloy, ADCS, showed better combination of CISCC resistance and mechanical properties as dry storage canister materials than commercial alloys.

• 한국응용곤충학회지
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• 제42권3호
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• pp.211-216
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• 2003

최근 국내에 유입된 해충으로서 시설재배 난을 가해하는 난총채벌레(Dichromorhrips smithi)의 발육생태 및 생식을 구명할 목적으로 온도별 알, 유충, 전용, 용의 발육기간, 성충수명 및 산란수를 조사하였다. 알에서 우화까지의 발육기간은 13$^{\circ}C$에서 44.0일이고, 32$^{\circ}C$에서 8.7일이었다. 온도가 높을수록 짧은 발육기간을 보였다. 알, 유충, 전용, 용, 알에서 우화까지의 발육영점온도와 유효적산온도는 각각 9.4$^{\circ}C$, 8.9$^{\circ}C$, 10.5$^{\circ}C$, 10.8$^{\circ}C$, 9.5$^{\circ}C$ 그리고 46.1, 90.1, 23.9, 41.2, 204.4일도이었다. 암컷 성충수명은 15$^{\circ}C$에서 28.3일이고 3$0^{\circ}C$에서 14.3일로 온도가 높을수록 짧았으며, 암컷 한 마리당 산란수는 $25^{\circ}C$에서 69.3개로 가장 많았다. 내적자연증가율(r$_{m}$ )은 3$0^{\circ}C$에서 0.241, 1세대당 순증식율(R$_{o}$ )은 $25^{\circ}C$에서 56.56로 가장 높았다. 결과적으로 난총채벌레의 성장에 적합한 온도범위는 25-3$0^{\circ}C$이었다.