• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.381-390
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• 2017

In Korea, commercial nuclear power plants and research reactors have on-site storage systems for the spent nuclear fuel, but it is difficult to expand the facilities used for the storage systems. If decommissioning of nuclear power plants starts, an amount of high level radioactive waste will be generated. In this study, a radiological impact assessment of the railroad transport of high level radioactive waste was carried out considering radiation workers and the public, using the developed transport container as the transport package. The dose rates for workers and the public during the transport period were estimated, considering anticipated transport scenarios, and the results compared with the regulatory limit. A sensitivity analysis was also carried out by considering the different release ratios of the radioactive materials in the high level radioactive waste, and different distances between the transport container and workers during loading and unloading phases and while attaching another freight car. For all the anticipated transport scenarios, the radiological impacts for workers and the public met the regulatory limits.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.385-410
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• 2016

The disposal facility in Gyeongju is planning to dispose of 800,000 packages of low- and intermediate- level radioactive waste. This facility will be developed as a complex disposal facility that has various types of disposal facilities and accompanying management. In this study, based on the comprehensive development plan of the disposal facility, a preliminary post-closure safety assessment is performed to predict the phase development of the total capacity for the 800,000 packages to be disposed of at the site. The results for each scenario meet the performance target of the disposal facility. The assessment revealed that there is a significant impact of the inventory of intermediate-level radionuclide waste on the safety evaluation. Due to this finding, we introduce a disposal limit value for intermediate-level radioactive waste. With stepwise development of safety case, this development plan will increase the safety of disposal facilities by reducing uncertainties within the future development of the underground silo disposal facilities.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2014

This study was conducted to propose medical radioactive waste management methods by background factors of radioactive workers, their awareness of safety management and reduce the difficulty of self-disposal. A population of 102 radiotechnologist who work at hospital in Busan was the subject of this study and a survey was conducted to them. the analysis for the collected data used SPSS/PC+Win13 version and one-way, ANOVA was carried out of verify differences between the groups. The result showed that most of workers had correct awareness of radioactive waste management. Also, about the difficulty of self-disposal, legal procedures were mentioned most often, and as efficient improvement of management methods is concerned, changing the awareness of safety management and disposal was proposed. According to this study, the right way of managing medical radioactive waste is to change the awareness of radioactive workers by reinforcing regular training.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.219-230
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• 2004

Most of the low-level liquid radioactive wastes generated from PWR plants are classified into high or low total suspended solid(HTDS or LTDS), and into radiochemical and radioactive laundry waste. Although the evaporation process has a high decontami- nation ability, it has several problems such as corrosion, foam, and congestion. A new liquid waste disposal process using the ion-exchange demineralizer(IED), instead of the current evaporation process, has been introduced into the Yonggwang NPP #5 and 6. These two methods have been compared to understand the differences in this study. Aspects compared here were the released radioactivity amount of the liquid radioactive wastes, the dose of off-site residents, the decontamination factor, and the amount of the solid radioactive wastes. The IED system is designed to discharge higher radioactivity about 20% than the evaporating system, and the actual radioactivity released from the evaporating and IED system were 0.473mCi and 1.098mCi, respectively. The radioactivity released from the IED was 2.32 times higher than that of the evaporating system. The dose of off-site residents was $2.97{\times}10^{-6}$mSv for the evaporating system, and $6.47{\times}10^{-6}$mSv for IED. The decontamination factor(DF) of the evaporator is, in most cases, far lower than the lower limits of detection(LLD) with the Ge-Li detector. Due to the low concentration of the liquid wastes collected from the liquid waste system, the decontamination factor of IED is very low. Since there is not enough data on the amount of solid radioactive wastes generated by the evaporation system, the comparison on these two systems has been conducted on the basis of the design, and the comparison result was that the evaporating system generated more wastes about 40% than IED.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2003

As a follow up to the Agenda 21's policy statement for safe management of radioactive waste adopted at Rio Conference held in 1992, the UN invited the LAEA to develop and implement indicators of sustainable development for the management of radioactive waste. The IAEA finalized the indicators in 2002, and is planning to calculate the member states' values of indicators in connection with operation of its Net-Enabled Waste Management Database system. In this paper, the basis for introducing the indicators into the radioactive waste management was analyzed, and calculation methodology and standard assessment procedure were simply depicted. In addition, a series of innate limitations in calculation and comparison of the indicators was analyzed. According to the proposed standard procedure, the indicators for a few major countries including Korea were calculated and compared, by use of each country's radioactive waste management framework and its practices. In addition, a series of measures increasing the values of the indicators was derived so as to enhance the sustainability of domestic radioactive waste management program.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.231-238
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• 2004

The conditions are obtained for the decomposition of solid radioactive wastes, including ion exchange resin, zeolite, charcoal, and sludge from nuclear power plant. In the process of decomposing the radioactive wastes was used the microwave acid digestion method with mixed acid. The solution after acid digestion by the following method was colorless and transparent. Each solution was analyzed with ICP-AES and AAS and the recovery yield for 5 different elements added into the simulated radioactive wastes were over $94{\%}$. The elemental analysis of destructive low and medium level radioactive wastes by the proposed microwave acid digestion conditions concerning the chemical characteristics of each radioactive waste are expected to be useful basic data for development of optimal glass formulation.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.203-212
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• 2019

Disposal nonconformity of radioactive wastes refers to radioactive wastes that need to be treated, solidified and packaged during operation or decommissioning of NPPs, and are typically exemplified by particulate radioactive wastes with dispersion characteristics. These wastes include the dried powders of concentrated wastes generated in the process of operating NPPs, slurry and sludge, various powdered wastes generated in the decommissioning process (crushed concrete, decontamination sludge, etc.), and fine radioactive soil, which is not easy to decontaminate. As these particulate wastes must be packaged so that they become non-dispersive, they are solidified with solidification agents such as cement and polymer. If they are treated using existing solidification methods, however, the volume of the final wastes will increase. This drawback may increase the disposal cost and reduce the acceptability of disposal sites. Accordingly, to solve these problems, this study investigates the pelletization of particulate radioactive wastes in order to reduce final waste volume.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.44-51
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• 2023

Background: Aptamers are currently being used in various fields including medical treatments due to their characteristics of selectively binding to specific molecules. Due to their special characteristics, the aptamers are expected to be used to remove radionuclides from a large amount of liquid radioactive waste generated during the decommissioning of nuclear power plants. The radiological effects on the aptamers should be evaluated to ensure their integrity for the application of a radionuclide removal technique. Materials and Methods: In this study, Monte Carlo N-Particle transport code version 6 (MCNP6) and Monte Carlo damage simulation (MCDS) codes were employed to evaluate the radiological effects on the aptamers. MCNP6 was used to evaluate the secondary electron spectrum and the absorbed dose in a medium. MCDS was used to calculate the DNA damage by using the secondary electron spectrum and the absorbed dose. Binding experiments were conducted to indirectly verify the results derived by MCNP6 and MCDS calculations. Results and Discussion: Damage yields of about 5.00×10^-4 were calculated for 100 bp aptamer due to the radiation dose of 1 Gy. In experiments with radioactive materials, the results that the removal rate of the radioactive ⁶⁰Co by the aptamer is the same with the non-radioactive ⁵⁹Co prove the accuracy of the previous DNA damage calculation. Conclusion: The evaluation results suggest that only very small fraction of significant number of the aptamers will be damaged by the radioactive materials in the liquid radioactive waste.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.27 no.2_2
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• pp.437-443
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• 2024

The purpose of radiological Dispersal Device(RDD) is to kill people by explosives and to cause radiation exposure by dispersing radioactive materials. And It is a form of explosive that combines radioactive materials such as Co-60 and Ir-192 with improvised explosives. In this study, we tested and evaluated whether it was possible to read the internal structure of an explosive using X-rays in a radioactive explosive situation. The improvised explosive device was manufactured using 2 lb of model TNT explosives, one practice detonator, one 9V battery, and a timer switch in a leather briefcase measuring 41×35×10 cm³. The radioactive material used was the Co-60 source used in the low-level gamma ray irradiation device operated at the Advanced Radiation Research Institute of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. The radiation dose used was gamma ray energy of 1.17 MeV and 1.33 MeV from a Co-60 source of 2208 Ci. The dose rates are divided into 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 Gy/h, and the exposure time was divided into 1, 3, 5, and 10 minutes. Co-60 source was mixed with the manufactured explosive and X-ray image reading was performed. As a result of the experiment, the X-ray image appeared black in all conditions divided by dose rate and time, and it was impossible to confirm the internal structure of the explosive. This is because γ-rays emitted from radioactive explosives have higher energy and stronger penetrating power than X-rays, so it is believed that imaging using X-rays is limited By blackening the film. The results of this study are expected to be used as basic data for research and development of X-ray imaging that can read the internal structure of explosives in radioactive explosive situations.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.509-518
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• 2023

The Kori Unit 1 nuclear power plant, which is planned to be dismantled after permanent shutdown, is expected to generate a large amount of various types of radioactive waste during the dismantling process. For the disposal of Very-low-level waste, which is expected to account for the largest amount of generation, the Korea Radioactive waste Agency (KORAD) is in the process of detailed design to build a 3-phase landfill disposal facility in Gyeongju. In addition, a large container is being developed to efficiently dispose of metal and concrete waste, which are mainly generated as Very low-level waste of decommissioning. In this study, based on the design characteristics of the 3-phase landfill disposal facility and the large container under development, radiation exposure dose evaluation was performed considering the normal and accident scenarios of radiation workers during operation. The direct exposure dose evaluation of workers during normal operation was performed using the MCNP computer program, and the internal and external exposure dose evaluation due to damage to the decommissioning waste package during a drop accident was performed based on the evaluation method of ICRP. For the assumed scenario, the exposure dose of worker was calculated to determine whether the exposure dose standards in the domestic nuclear safety act were satisfied. As a result of the evaluation, it was confirmed that the result was quite low, and the result that satisfied the standard limit was confirmed, and the radiational disposal suitability for the 3-phase landfill disposal facility of the large container for dismantled radioactive waste, which is currently under development, was confirmed.