• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.171-179
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• 2004

The design concepts of in-service inspection and maintenance are very important for the reactor system design of the nuclear power plant. The strategy of in-service inspection and maintenance should be reflected in the mechanical system design for the verification of the operability of liquid metal reactor KALIMER. In this paper the fundamental approaches of the in-service inspection and maintenance of the KALIMER are established to ensure the safety and reliability of the reactor system. The general method and requirement of the in-service inspection and maintenance for the reactor system and components are proposed and described to satisfy the intents of the ASME Section XI Division 3 and the design characteristics of KALIMER.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.133.6-133
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• 2001

Reactor vessel is one of the most important equipment of Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) with regard to the nuclear safety. Thus reactor vessel must be examined periodically by certified experts. Currently, ultra-sonic(UT) non-destructive inspection is executed on reactor vessel. Two different techniques are used in this inspection. One is using the movable manipulator fixed with the support-guide placed on the vessel, and the other is using mobile robot moving in the vessel. Movable manipulator machine is very heavy, hard to handle, and very expensive. Mobile robot equipment is small and convenient but has a weak point on positional precision. To solve these problems we developed a reactor inspection system based on laser-driven mobile robot. This paper describes the main concept and structure of integrated inspection units and the feature of implemented units.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.8
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• pp.2915-2923
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• 2022

There is an increasing interest in passive safety systems to minimize the need for operator intervention or external power sources in nuclear power plants. Because a passive system has a weak driving force, there is greater uncertainty in the performance compared with an active system. In previous studies, several methods have been suggested to evaluate passive system reliability, and many of them estimated the failure probability using thermal-hydraulic analyses and the Monte Carlo method. However, if the functional failure of a passive system is rare, it is difficult to estimate the failure probability using conventional methods owing to their high computational time. In this paper, a procedure for the application of the Chernoff bound to the evaluation of passive system reliability is proposed. A feasibility study of the procedure was conducted on a passive decay heat removal system of a micro modular reactor in its conceptual design phase, and it was demonstrated that the passive system reliability can be evaluated without performing a large number of thermal-hydraulic analyses or Monte Carlo simulations when the system has a small failure probability. Accordingly, the advantages and constraints of applying the Chernoff bound for passive system reliability evaluation are discussed in this paper.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.1174-1183
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• 2016

Hydrogen release during severe accidents poses a serious threat to containment integrity. Mitigating procedures are necessary to prevent global or local explosions, especially in large steel shell containments. The management of hydrogen safety and prevention of over-pressurization could be implemented through a hydrogen reduction system and spray system. During the course of the hypothetical large break loss-of-coolant accident in a nuclear power plant, hydrogen is generated by a reaction between steam and the fuel-cladding inside the reactor pressure vessel and also core concrete interaction after ejection of melt into the cavity. The MELCOR 1.8.6 was used to assess core degradation and containment behavior during the large break loss-of-coolant accident without the actuation of the safety injection system except for accumulators in Beznau nuclear power plant. Also, hydrogen distribution in containment and performance of hydrogen reduction system were investigated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.260-266
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• 2015

Twenty sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) have provided valuable experience in design, licensing, and operation. This paper summarizes the important safety criteria and safety guidelines of intermediate sodium systems, steam generators, decay heat removal systems and associated construction materials and in-service inspection. The safety criteria and guidelines provide a sufficient framework for design and licensing, in particular by new entrants in SFRs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.1651-1664
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• 2023

It is very difficult to capture the multi-dimensional phenomena such as asymmetric flow and temperature distributions with the one-dimensional (1D) model, obviously, due to its inherent limitation. In order to overcome such a limitation of the 1D representation, many state-of-the-art system codes have equipped a three-dimensional (3D) component for multi-dimensional analysis capability. In this study, a standard multi-dimensional analysis model of APR1400 (Advanced Power Reactor 1400) has been developed using TRACE (TRAC/RELAP Advanced Computational Engine). The entire reactor pressure vessel (RPV) of APR1400 has been modeled using a single 3D component. The fuels in the reactor core have been described with detailed and coarse representations, respectively, to figure out the impact of the fuel description. Using both 3D RPV models, a comparative analysis has been performed postulating a double-ended guillotine break at a cold leg. Based on the results of comparative analysis, it is revealed that both models show no significant difference in general plant behavior and the model with coarse fuel model could be used for faster transient analysis without reactor kinetics coupling. The analysis indicates that the asymmetric temperature and flow distributions are captured during the transient, and such nonuniform distributions contribute to asymmetric quenching behaviors during blowdown and reflood phases. Such asymmetries are directly connected to the figure of merits in the LBLOCA analysis. Therefore, it is recommended to employ a multi-dimensional RPV model with a detailed fuel description for a realistic safety analysis with the consideration of the spatial configuration of the reactor core.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1997.07b
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• pp.600-602
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• 1997

The kalman filter which has good estimating capabilities by means of the recursive computation from the previously known of obtained data is usually used for the system estimation in the case of not being directly measurable. The best estimating technique is still open issues on the PWR reactor control system to increase operating contingencies and to predict the safety margins for safer reactor operation. This paper addressed its estimating technique using kalman filter for the more flexible reactor control and showed the reasonable approach for discretization of the continuos-time system for reduction of computation errors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.66-66
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• 2002

Under Atomic Energy Society of Japan (AESJ) and Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERO, a Working Party on Reactor Physics of Accelerator-Driven System (ADS-WP) has been set since March 1999 to review and investigate special subjects related to reactor physics research of Accelerator-Driven System (ADS). In the ADSWP, the extensive and aggressive activity is being made by 25 professional members in the field of reactor physics in Japan. The ADS is now studying three subjects related to subcriticality of ADS; (1) calculation accuracy of sub criticality on ADS, (2) critical safety issues of ADS, and (3) theoretical review of subcriticality and its measurement methods. This paper describes two topics related to the subjects (1) and (2); one is an analysis of maximum reactivity potentially inserted to a subcritical core and the other is a benchmark proposal for checking calculation accuracy of sub criticality on ADS. The full specification of the calculation benchmark will be supplied by June 2002. Researchers from overseas, especially from Korea, are welcome to join this benchmark

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.535-542
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• 2012

A sodium-cooled demonstration fast reactor with the KALIMER-600 as a reference plant is under design by KAERI. The safety grade decay heat removal system (DHRS), which is important to mitigate design basis accidents, was changed in the reactor design. A loss of heat sink and a vessel leak in design basis accidents were simulated using the MARS-LMR system transient analysis code on two plant systems. In the analyses, the DHRS of KALIMER-600 had a weakness due to elevation of the overflow path for the DHRS operation, while it was proved that the DHRS of the demonstration reactor had superior heat transfer characteristics due to the simplified heat transfer mechanism.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.570-573
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• 2001

Safety is very important to operate nuclear power plant. To have the safety, nuclear power plant should be run without trouble. This paper presents the application of a failure diagnosis approach based on discrete event system theory to the Main Feedwater System for Safe Integral Reactor.