• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.1085-1097
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• 2022

A printed circuit steam generator (PCSG) is being considered as the component for pressurized water reactor (PWR) type small modular reactor (SMR) that can further reduce the physical size of the system. Since a steam generator in many PWR-type SMR generates superheated steam, it is expected that dryout front oscillation can potentially cause thermal fatigue failure due to cyclic thermal stresses induced by the transition in boiling regimes between convective evaporation and film boiling. To investigate the fatigue issue of a PCSG, a reference PCSG is designed in this study first using an in-house PCSG design tool. For the stress analysis, a finite element method analysis model is developed to obtain the temperature and stress fields of the designed PCSG. Fatigue estimation is performed based on ASME Boiler and pressure vessel code to identify the major parameters influencing the fatigue life time originating from the dryout front oscillation. As a result of this study, the limit on the temperature difference between the hot side and cold side fluids is obtained. Moreover, it is found that the heat transfer coefficient of convective evaporation and film boiling regimes play an essential role in the fatigue life cycle as well as the temperature difference.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.832-845
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• 2024

Reactor cavity cooling systems (RCCSs) comprising passive safety features use the atmosphere as a coolant, which cannot be lost. However, their drawback is that they are easily affected by atmospheric disturbances. To realize the commercial application of the two types of passive RCCSs, namely RCCSs based on atmospheric radiation and atmospheric natural circulation, their safety must be evaluated, that is, they must be able to remove heat from the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) surface at all times and under any condition other than under normal operating conditions. These include both expected and unexpected natural phenomena and accidents. Moreover, they must be able to eliminate the heat leakage emitted from the RPV surface during normal operation. However, utilizing all of the heat emitted from the RPV surface increases the degree of waste heat utilization. This study aims to understand the characteristics and degree of passive safety features for heat removal by comparing RCCSs based on atmospheric radiation and atmospheric natural circulation under the same conditions. It was concluded that the proposed RCCS based on atmospheric radiation has an advantage in that the temperature of the RPV could be stably maintained against disturbances in the ambient air.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.109-114
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• 2014

After the Fukushima accident in 2011, it was revealed that nuclear power plant has the vulnerability to SBO accident and its extension situation without sufficient cooling of reactor core resulting core meltdown and radioactive material release even after reactor shutdown. Many safety systems had been developed like PAFS, hybrid SIT, and relocation of RPV and IRWST as a part of steps for the Fukushima accident, however, their applications have limitation in the situation that supply of feedwater into reactor is impossible due to high pressure inside reactor pressure vessel. The concept of hybrid heat pipe with control rod is introduced for breaking through the limitation. Hybrid heat pipe with control rod is the passive decay heat removal system in core, which has the abilities of reactor shutdown as control rod as well as decay heat removal as heat pipe. For evaluating the cooling performance hybrid heat pipe, a commercial CFD code, ANSYS-CFX was used. First, for validating CFD results, numerical results and experimental results with same geometry and fluid conditions were compared to a tube type heat pipe resulting in a resonable agreement between them. After that, wall temperature and thermal resistances of 2 design concepts of hybrid heat pipe were analyzed about various heat inputs. For unit length, hybrid heat pipe with a tube type of $B_4C$ pellet has a decreasing tendency of thermal resistance, on the other hand, hybrid heat pipe with an annular type $B_4C$ pellet has an increasing tendency as heat input increases.

• International Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology Speciallssue:Selected Papers
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.22-28
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• 2002

A New concept for the LNG-FPSO ship, with moonpool and bilge step in bottom, is proposed. This concept is investigated with regard to motion reduction and sloshing phenomena of the cargo and operation tanks. The principal dimensions of the ship are $L\timesb B\times D\times t(design)=270.0\times51.0\times32.32\times13.7(m)$, with a total cargo capacity of 161KT; a 98% loading condition is considered for this study. The moonpools and rectangular step at the bilge have been designed for the purpose of decreasing the motion within the tank. For the motion analysis, linearized three-dimensional diffraction theory, with the simplified boundary condition was used. The six-degree of freedom coupled motion responses were calculated for the LNG-FPSO ship. Viscous effects on the roll motion responses of a vessel were taken into account in this calculation program, using an empirical formula suggested by Himeno(1981). The case study for the moonpool size has been conducted using theoretical estimation and the experimental method. For the optimization of the moonpool size and effect of the bilge step, 9 cases of its size, both with and without bilge step, were involved in the study. no motion responses, especially roll motion, for the designed LNG-FPSO ships are much lower than those of other drill ships and shuttle tankers. The limit criterions are satisfied. To check the cargo tank and operation tank sizes, we performed a sloshing analysis in the irregular waves which focuses on the pressure distribution on the tank wall and the time history of pressure and free surface for No.2 and 5 tanks of LNG-FPSO with chamfers. Finally, optimum tank sire was estimated.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.425-431
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• 2015

LNG (liquefied natural gas) is considered the best alternative eco-fuel, and many studies on the LNG fuel system have been performed to use LNG as the fuel for ships. For the LNG fuel supply system, natural gas transfers from the vaporizer to the engine in the gaseous state with a temperature of $50^{\circ}C$ and a pressure of 35MPa. Therefore, a structural safety evaluation of the double-walled pipelines considering thermal load is essential. In this article, an uniaxial tensile test for super duplex stainless steel, material for double-walled pipe, according to the annealing time was carried out to analyze the thermal effect. In addition, thermo-structural analysis of the high temperature-high pressure double-walled pipe with fixed supports that are now used widely was carried out to evaluate the structural safety. To minimize stress concentration of the connection point between the support and inner pipe, the shapes of the new type support that can slip through inner pipe were proposed, and the supports which has best structural performance was selected using the results from the thermo-structural analyses of new supports and an analysis of the whole double-walled pipeline was performed to ensure structural safety. These results can be used as a database for the design of double-walled pipelines and sliding support.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.37 no.12
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• pp.1497-1502
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• 2013

When using hydrogen gas as an ecofriendly energy sources, it is necessary to conduct a safety assessment and ensure thereliability of the hydrogen pressure vessel against hydrogen embrittlement expected in the steel materials. In this study, by applying the in-situ SP test method, the gas hydrogen embrittlement behaviors in SA372 steel, which is commonly used as a pressurized hydrogen gas storage container, were evaluated. To investigate the hydrogen embrittlement behavior, SP tests at different punch velocities were conducted for specimens with differently fabricated surfaces at atmospheric pressure and under high-pressure hydrogen gas conditions. As a result, the SA372 steel showed significant hydrogen embrittlement under pressurized hydrogen gas conditions. The effect of punch velocity on the hydrogen embrittlement appeared clearly; the lower punch velocity case indicated significant hydrogen embrittlement resulting in lower SP energy. The fractographic morphologies observed after SP test also revealed the hydrogen embrittlement behavior corresponding to the punch velocity adopted. Under this pressurized gas hydrogen test condition, the influence of specimen surface condition on the extent of hydrogen embrittlement could not be determined clearly.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.147-156
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• 2009

As the result of the rapid development of IT technology, an on-line diagnostic system using the field bus communication network coupled with a smart sensor module will be widely used at the nuclear power plant in the near future. The smart sensor system is very useful for the prompt understanding of abnormal state of the key equipments installed in the nuclear power plant. In this paper, it is assumed that a smart sensor system based on the fieldbus communication network for the surveillance and diagnostics of safety-critical equipments will be installed in the harsh-environment of the nuclear power plant. It means that the key components of fieldbus communication system including microprocessor, FPGA, and ASIC devices, are to be installed in the RPV (reactor pressure vessel) and the RCS (reactor coolant system) area, which is the area of a high dose-rate gamma irradiation fields. Gamma radiation constraints for the DBA (design basis accident) qualification of the RTD sensor installed in the harsh environment of nuclear power plant, are typically on the order of 4 kGy/h. In order to use a field bus communication network as an ad-hoc diagnostics sensor network in the vicinity of the RCS pump area of the nuclear power plant, the robust survivability of IT-based micro-electronic components in such intense gamma-radiation fields therefore should be verified. An intelligent CCD camera system, which are composed of advanced micro-electronics devices based on IT technology, have been gamma irradiated at the dose rate of about 4.2kGy/h during an hour UP to a total dose of 4kGy. The degradation performance of the gamma irradiated CCD camera system is explained.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.589-601
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• 2014

Natural gas hydrate (NGH) is emerging as a new eco-friendly source of energy to replace fossil fuels in the 21st century. It is well known that the Natural Gas Hydrate contains large amount of natural gas about 170 times as much as its volume and it is easy to be stored and transported safely at about $-20^{\circ}C$ under atmospheric pressure due to so called "self-preservation effect". The option of gas transport by gas hydrate pellets carrier has been investigated and developed in various industry and academy. The natural gas hydrate pellet carrier is on major link in a potential gas hydrate process chain, starting with the extraction of natural gas from the reservoir, followed by the production of hydrate pellets and the transportation to an onshore terminal for further processing or marketing. In recent years, Korean project team supported by Korean Government has been working on the development of NGH total systems including novel NGH carrier since 2011. In order to increase the knowledge on the NGH pellet carrier developed and to understand the major hazards that could have significant impact on the safety of the vessel, this paper presents and evaluates the pros and cons of cargo holds, loading and unloading systems through the analysis of current patent technology. Based on the proven and well-known technologies as well as potential measures to mitigate sintering and minimize mechanical stress on the hydrate pellet in the self-preservation state, this study presents the conceptual and basic design for NGH carrier.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.340-350
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• 2015

This paper proposes strain-based acceptance criteria for assessing plastic instability of the safety class 1 nuclear components made of ferritic steel during level D service loads. The strain-based criteria were proposed with two approaches: (1) a section average approach and (2) a critical location approach. Both approaches were based on the damage initiation point corresponding to the maximum load-carrying capability point instead of the fracture point via tensile tests and finite element analysis (FEA) for the notched specimen under uni-axial tensile loading. The two proposed criteria were reviewed from the viewpoint of design practice and philosophy to select a more appropriate criterion. As a result of the review, it was found that the section average approach is more appropriate than the critical location approach from the viewpoint of design practice and philosophy. Finally, the criterion based on the section average approach was applied to a simplified reactor pressure vessel (RPV) outlet nozzle subject to SSE loads. The application shows that the strain-based acceptance criteria can consider cumulative damages caused by the sequential loads unlike the stress-based acceptance criteria and can reduce the overconservatism of the stress-based acceptance criteria, which often occurs for level D service loads.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.1130-1147
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• 2014

Large size ships have a very flexible construction resulting in low resonance frequencies of the structural eigen-modes. This feature increases the dynamic response of the structure on short period waves (springing) and on impulsive wave loads (whipping). This dynamic response in its turn increases both the fatigue damage and the ultimate load on the structure; these aspects illustrate the importance of including the dynamic response into the design loads for these ship types. Experiments have been carried out using a segmented scaled model of a container ship in a Seakeeping Basin. This paper describes the development of the model for these experiments; the choice was made to divide the hull into six rigid segments connected with a flexible beam. In order to model the typical feature of the open structure of the containership that the shear center is well below the keel line of the vessel, the beam was built into the model as low as possible. The model was instrumented with accelerometers and rotation rate gyroscopes on each segment, relative wave height meters and pressure gauges in the bow area. The beam was instrumented with strain gauges to measure the internal loads at the position of each of the cuts. Experiments have been carried out in regular waves at different amplitudes for the same wave period and in long crested irregular waves for a matrix of wave heights and periods. The results of the experiments are compared to results of calculations with a linear model based on potential flow theory that includes the effects of the flexural modes. Some of the tests were repeated with additional links between the segments to increase the model rigidity by several orders of magnitude, in order to compare the loads between a rigid and a flexible model.