• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.2315-2324
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• 2023

Space nuclear reactors are becoming popular in deep space exploration owing to their advantages of high-power density and stability. Following the fourth-generation nuclear reactor technology, a conceptual design of the dual drum-controlled space molten salt reactor (D²-SMSR) is proposed. The reactor concept uses molten salt as fuel and heat pipes for cooling. A new reactivity control strategy that combines control drums and safety drums was adopted. Critical physical characteristics such as neutron energy spectrum, neutron flux distribution, power distribution and burnup depth were calculated. Flow and heat transfer characteristics such as natural convection, velocity and temperature distribution of the D²-SMSR under low gravity conditions were analyzed. The reactivity control effect of the dual-drums strategy was evaluated. Results showed that the D²-SMSR with a fast spectrum could operate for 10 years at the full power of 40 kWth. The D²-SMSR has a high heat transfer coefficient between molten salt and heat pipe, which means that the core has a good heat-exchange performance. The new reactivity control strategy can achieve shutdown with one safety drum or three control drums, ensuring high-security standards. The present study can provide a theoretical reference for the design of space nuclear reactors.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.365-369
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• 2022

Operating and decommissioning nuclear power plants generates radioactive waste. This radioactive waste can be categorized into several different levels, for example, low, intermediate, and high, according to the regulations. Currently, low and intermediate-level waste are stored in conventional 200-liter drums to be disposed. However, in Korea, the disposal of intermediate-level radioactive waste is virtually impossible as there are no available facilities. Furthermore, large-sized intermediate-level radioactive waste, such as reactor internals from decommissioning, need to be segmented into smaller sizes so they can be adequately stored in the conventional drums. This segmentation process requires additional costs and also produces secondary waste. Therefore, this paper suggests repurposing the no-longer-used spent nuclear fuel casks. The casks are larger in size than the conventional drums, thus requiring less segmentation of waste. Furthermore, the safety requirements of the spent nuclear fuel casks are severer than those of the drums. Hence, repurposed spent nuclear fuel casks could better address potential risks such as dropping, submerging, or a fire. In addition, the spent nuclear fuel casks need to be disposed in compliance with the regulations for low level radioactive waste. This cost may be avoided by repurposing the casks.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.45-54
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• 2008

A new proposed repository has a final capacity of 800,000 drums radioactive waste. Most of foreign repositories have a general practice of segregating control zones which mainly contributes to classification of degree of control, whether it is called buffer zone or not. Domestic regulatory requirements of establishment of buffer zone in a repository are not much different from those of nuclear power plants for operation period, in which satisfactory design objective or performance objective is the most important factor in determination of the buffer zone. The meaning of buffer zone after closure is a minimum requested area which can prevent inadvertant intruders from leading to non-allowable exposure during institutional control period. Safety assessment with drinking well scenario giving rise to the highest probability of exposure among the intruder's actions can verify fulfillment of the buffer zone which is determined by operational safety of the repository. At present. for the repository to be constructed in a few years, the same procedure and concept as described in this paper are applied that can satisfy regulatory requirements and radiological safety as well. However, the capacity of the repository will be stepwise extended upto 800,000 drums, consequently its layout will be varied too. Timely considerations will be necessary for current boundary of the buffer zone which has been established on the basis of 100,000 drums disposal.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.63-71
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• 2009

Recyclable wastes coming into material recovery facilities(MRFs) is mostly packed by plastic bag or sack bag. Bag rupturing device is essential to improve capacity and efficiency of MRFs. Bag opening works of MRFs is mostly done by numerous workers and shredder-type bag rupturing device. It often makes a problems; decreased capacity, shredded recyclables, worker safety by explosion and broken glasses, etc. In the present work, bag rupturing device with octagonal rotating blade drums has been developed to solve the existing problems and environment assessment is also performed during operation of the device. Capacity of the device was about 5.6 ton/hr at 8.2 rpm of drum revolution speed and 1.25 m/min of belt conveyor speed. It satisfied initial designed capacity(5.0 ton/hr) and max. capacity 8.8 ton/hr was achieved at 12.5 rpm of drum revolution speed and 1.50m/min of belt conveyor speed. Bag rupturing efficiencies on outer and inner bag were obtained at 100% and about 95.6% as average, respectively and original form of glass bottles in the bag was maintained without broken by about 96.5%. This result shows that the safety in hand sorting by the workers could be improved. As result of environmental assessment on the noise, vibration and particulates, the measured levels on noise, vibration and particulates show the below standard regulatory limits. It could be concluded that the problems of existing devices in MRFs could be solved by adopting the bag rupturing device with octagonal rotating blade drums in on-site operation.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.511-521
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• 2022

Decommissioning of nuclear power plants generates a large amount of radioactive waste in a short period. Moreover, Radioactive waste has various forms including a large volumes of metal, concrete, and solid waste. The disposal of decommissioning waste using 200 L drums is inefficient in terms of economics, work efficiency, and radiation safety. Therefore, The Korea Radioactive Waste Agency is developing large containers for the packaging, transportation, and disposal of decommissioning waste. Assessing disposability considering the characteristics of the radioactive waste and facility, convenience of operation, and safety of workers is necessary. In this study, the exposure dose rate of workers during the disposal of new containers was evaluated using Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport code. Six normal and four abnormal scenarios were derived for the assessment of the dose rate in a near surface disposal facility operation. The results showed that the calculated dose rates in all normal scenarios were lower than the direct exposure dose limitation of workers in the safety analysis report. In abnormal scenarios, the work hours with dose rates below 20 mSv·y^-1 were calculated. The results of this study will be useful in establishing the optimal radiation work conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.26 no.4_1
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• pp.545-551
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• 2023

In this paper, a robot automation methodology for chemical drum assembly in semiconductor industries are presented. Robot automation is essential to resolve safety issues in which operators are directly or indirectly exposed to chemicals or fumes in assembling dispense heads on chemical drums. However, the chemical drum assembling process involves complex and difficult tasks, such as mating male/female keycodes and fastening screws with large-diameter, which may be very difficult to be performed by a single-arm robot with a commercial rigid F/T sensor. In order to solve the problems, a method for assembling a chemical drum using dual-arm collaborative robot system, compliance F/T sensor, robot vision and gripper is presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.71-76
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• 2024

Automatic production systems are constantly advancing technologies to improve productivity and safety. Specifically, liquid filling machines are primarily utilized to package products into drums after manufacturing process in the hazardous chemical industry. Most existing filling machines allow the operator to open the drum cap and inject the product directly or semi-automation. In this study, we have developed a cap opening and closing mechanism onto the existing drum filling machine, enabling automatic and safe cap manipulation while filling the product in the IBC tank. By applying the appropriate torque value through numerical analysis, we confirmed that the system worked without any problems during the process of opening and closing the cap. Therefore, it is expected that the developed machine will give more production and reduce human efforts without risk in the chemical packaging industry.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.1368-1375
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• 2016

A radiological safety assessment study was performed for the transportation of low level radioactive wastes which are temporarily stored in Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), Daejeon, Korea. We considered two kinds of wastes: (1) operation wastes generated from the routine operation of facilities; and (2) decommissioning wastes generated from the decommissioning of a research reactor in KAERI. The important part of the radiological safety assessment is related to the exposure dose assessment for the incidentfree (normal) transportation of wastes, i.e., the radiation exposure of transport personnel, radiation workers for loading and unloading of radioactive waste drums, and the general public. The effective doses were estimated based on the detailed information on the transportation plan and on the radiological characteristics of waste packages. We also estimated radiological risks and the effective doses for the general public resulting from accidents such as an impact and a fire caused by the impact during the transportation. According to the results, the effective doses for transport personnel, radiation workers, and the general public are far below the regulatory limits. Therefore, we can secure safety from the viewpoint of radiological safety for all situations during the transportation of radioactive wastes which have been stored temporarily in KAERI.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.255-269
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• 2023

Compared to operational wastes, nuclear power plant (NPP) decommissioning wastes are generated in larger quantities within a short time and include diverse types with a wider range of radiation characteristics. Currently used 200 L drums and IP-2 type transport containers are inefficient and restrictive in packaging and transporting decommissioning wastes. Therefore, new packaging and transport containers with greater size, loading weight, and shielding performance have been developed. When transporting radioactive materials, radiological safety should be assessed by reflecting parameters such as the type and quantity of the package, transport route, and transport environment. Thus far, safety evaluations of radioactive waste transport have mainly targeted operational wastes, that have less radioactivity and a smaller amount per transport than decommissioning wastes. Therefore, in this study, the possible radiation effects during the transport from NPP to disposal facilities were evaluated to reflect the characteristics of the newly developed containers and decommissioning wastes. According to the evaluation results, the exposure dose to transport workers, handling workers, and the public was lower than the domestic regulatory limit. In addition, all exposure dose results were confirmed, through sensitivity analysis, to satisfy the evaluation criteria even under circumstances when radioactive materials were released 100% from the container.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.163-181
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• 2023

Improving the detection performance of facilities corresponding to the sensors of autonomous vehicles helps driving safety. In the road and transportation field, research is being conducted to improve the detection performance of sensors by road infrastructure or facilities. As part of this on the development of autonomous driving support infrastructure, the shape of traffic cones and drums to ensure sufficient LiDAR detection performance even rainy conditions and maintain the line-of-sight guidance function in construction zones improvement effect. The principle was to increase reflection performance and ensure no significant difference in shape from existing facilities. Traffic cones were manufactured in square pyramid shapes instead of cones, and drums were manufactured in hexagonal and octagonal pillar shapes instead of cylinders. LiDAR detection data for the facility was confirmed on a clear day and with 20 mm/h and 40 mm/h rainfall. The detection performance of the square pyramid-shaped traffic cone and octagonal column-shaped drum was to the existing facility. On the other hand, deviations occurred due to repeated measurements, and significance could not be confirmed through statistical analysis. By reflecting these results, future studies will seek a form in which data can be obtained uniformly despite the diversity of measurement environments.