• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권9호
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• pp.3272-3282
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• 2022

To improve the safety and life extension qualities of nuclear fuel rods which is currently made of zirconium (Zr) alloy, research on the application of chromium (Cr) coating was conducted. Cr coating has advantages such as increased corrosion resistance and reduced oxidation rate, but non-destructive thickness evaluation studies are needed to ensure the reliability of the steps taken to provide uniform coating thickness. Eddy current testing (ECT) is a representative non-destructive technique for such as thickness evaluation and surface defect inspection. To inspect changes in thickness at micron scale, the Swept Frequency Eddy Current Testing (SFECT) method was applied to select a frequency range sensitive to changes in thickness. The coating thickness was evaluated using changes in signals, such as that for impedance. In this study, basic research was performed to evaluate the thickness of the Cr coating on a rod using an encircling sensor and the SFECT technique. The sensor design parameters were determined through simulation, after which the new sensor was manufactured. A sensor capable of measuring the thickness of a non-uniformly Cr-coating rod was selected through an experiment evaluating the performance of the manufactured sensor. This was done using the impedance-difference of a Cr-coating rod and a Zr alloy rod. The possibility of evaluation of the Cr coating thickness was confirmed by comparing the experimental results with the selected sensor and the signals of the measured Cr-coating rod. All simulation results were verified experimentally.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권7호
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• pp.2387-2395
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• 2021

Seismic qualifications of electrical equipment, such as cabinet systems, have been emerging as the key area of nuclear power plants in Korea since the 2016 Gyeongju earthquake, including the high-frequency domain. In addition, electrical equipment was sensitive to the high-frequency ground motions during the past earthquake. Therefore, this paper presents the rocking behavior of the electrical cabinet system subjected to Reg. 1.60 and UHS. The high fidelity finite element (FE) model of the cabinet related to the shaking table test data was developed. In particular, the first two global modes of the cabinet from the experimental test were 16 Hz and 24 Hz, respectively. In addition, 30.05 Hz and 37.5 Hz were determined to be the first two local modes in the cabinet. The high fidelity FE model of the cabinet using the ABAQUS platform was extremely reconciled with shaking table tests. As a result, the dynamic properties of the cabinet were sensitive to electrical instruments, such as relays and switchboards, during the shaking table test. In addition, the amplification with respect to the vibration transfer function of the cabinet was observed on the third floor in the cabinet due to localized impact corresponding to the rocking phenomenon of the cabinet under Reg.1.60 and UHS. Overall, the rocking of the cabinet system can be caused by the low-frequency oscillations and higher peak horizontal acceleration.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권3호
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• pp.763-775
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• 2021

The thermal hydraulic performances of Steam Generator (SG) under both steady and transient operation conditions are of great importance for the safety and economy in nuclear power plants. In this paper, based on our self-developed SG thermal hydraulic analysis code STAF (Steam-generator Thermalhydraulic Analysis code based on Fluent), an improved new version STAF-CT (fully Coupling and Transient) is developed and introduced. Compared with original STAF, the new version code STAF-CT has two main functional improvements including "Transient" and "Fully Three Dimensional Coupling" features. In STAF-CT, a three dimensional energy transferring module is established which can achieve energy exchange computing function at the corresponding position between two sides of SG. The STAF-CT is validated against the international benchmark experiment data and the results show great agreement. Then the U-shaped SG in AP1000 nuclear power plant is modeled and simulated using STAF-CT. The results show that three dimensional flow fields in the primary side make significant effect on the energy source distribution between two sides. The development of code STAF-CT in this paper can provide an effective method for further SG high fidelity research in the nuclear reactor system.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제43권6호
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• pp.434-440
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• 2022

Liver transplantation is a critical used treatment method for patients with end-stage liver disease. The number of cases of living donor liver transplantation is increasing due to the imbalance in needs and supplies for brain-dead organ donation. As a result, the importance of the accuracy of the donor's suitability evaluation is also increasing rapidly. To measure the donor's liver volume accurately is the most important, that is absolutely necessary for the recipient's postoperative progress and the donor's safety. Therefore, we propose liver segmentation in abdominal CT images from pre-operation, POD 7, and POD 63 with a two-dimensional U-Net. In addition, we introduce an algorithm to measure the volume of the segmented liver and measure the hepatectomy rate and regeneration rate of pre-operation, POD 7, and POD 63. The performance for the learning model shows the best results in the images from pre-operation. Each dataset from pre-operation, POD 7, and POD 63 has the DSC of 94.55 ± 9.24%, 88.40 ± 18.01%, and 90.64 ± 14.35%. The mean of the measured liver volumes by trained model are 1423.44 ± 270.17 ml in pre-operation, 842.99 ± 190.95 ml in POD 7, and 1048.32 ± 201.02 ml in POD 63. The donor's hepatectomy rate is an average of 39.68 ± 13.06%, and the regeneration rate in POD 63 is an average of 14.78 ± 14.07%.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권12호
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• pp.4130-4136
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• 2021

By polymerization of gadolinium methacrylate (Gd (MAA)₃), lead methacrylate (Pb(MAA)₂) and methyl methacrylate (MMA), Gd and Pb were chemically bonded into polymers. The X-ray shielding performance was evaluated by Monte Carlo simulation method, and the results showed that the more metal functional organic monomer, the better the shielding performance of terpolymers. When the X-ray energy is 65 keV, Gd (MAA)₃-containing polymers have better shielding performance than Pb(MAA)₂-containing polymers. Gd could compensate for the weak absorption region of Pb. Therefore, polymers containing both Gd and Pb enhanced shielding efficiency against X-ray in various low-energy ranges. For obtaining terpolymers with uniform monomer compositions, the relationship between the monomer composition of the terpolymers and the conversion level was optimized by calculating the reactivity ratios. The value of reactivity ratios of r (Gd (MAA)₃/Pb(MAA)₂), r (Pb(MAA)₂/Gd (MAA)₃), r (Gd (MAA)₃/MMA), r (MMA/Gd (MAA)₃), r (Pb(MAA)₂/MMA) and r (MMA/Pb(MAA)₂) was 0.483, 0.004, 0.338, 2.508, 0.255, 0.029. The terpolymers with uniform monomer composition could be obtained by controlling the monomer compositions or conversion levels. The results can provide new radiation protection materials and contribute to the improvement in nuclear safety.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권10호
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• pp.3620-3630
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• 2022

The diagnosis of abnormalities in a nuclear power plant is essential to maintain power plant safety. When an abnormal event occurs, the operator diagnoses the event and selects the appropriate abnormal operating procedures and sub-procedures to implement the necessary measures. To support this, abnormality diagnosis systems using data-driven methods such as artificial neural networks and convolutional neural networks have been developed. However, data-driven models cannot always guarantee an accurate diagnosis because they cannot simulate all possible abnormal events. Therefore, abnormality diagnosis systems should be able to detect their own potential misdiagnosis. This paper proposes a rulebased diagnostic validation algorithm using a previously developed two-stage diagnosis model in abnormal situations. We analyzed the diagnostic results of the sub-procedure stage when the first diagnostic results were inaccurate and derived a rule to filter the inconsistent sub-procedure diagnostic results, which may be inaccurate diagnoses. In a case study, two abnormality diagnosis models were built using gated recurrent units and long short-term memory cells, and consistency checks on the diagnostic results from both models were performed to detect any inconsistencies. Based on this, a re-diagnosis was performed to select the label of the second-best value in the first diagnosis, after which the diagnosis accuracy increased. That is, the model proposed in this study made it possible to detect diagnostic failures by the developed consistency check of the sub-procedure diagnostic results. The consistency check process has the advantage that the operator can review the results and increase the diagnosis success rate by performing additional re-diagnoses. The developed model is expected to have increased applicability as an operator support system in terms of selecting the appropriate AOPs and sub-procedures with re-diagnosis, thereby further increasing abnormal event diagnostic accuracy.

• 한국산업융합학회 논문집
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• 제25권6_3호
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• pp.1183-1190
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• 2022

Recently, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance announced a plan to reduce the proportion of economic evaluation in non-metropolitan areas and strengthen balanced development evaluation through the reorganization of the preliminary feasibility study system. In addition, the social value of the quality of life, such as job, environment, and safety, which may be affected by the implementation of transportation facility investment projects, was reflected as the main item of policy evaluation. In this study, the ripple effect of the project in terms of social value was reviewed for the Gangil-Chuncheon. The effect of highway opening was investigated by reviewing the feasibility report, post-evaluation report, and statistical indicators. Recently, the Gangil-Chuncheon highway is getting used by around 110,000 people per day. The number of tourists in Chuncheon rapidly has increased from 5 million a year to more than 11 million now. In addition, it was confirmed to produce effects such as population migration, net inflow and land price increase, improvement of living convenience, and expansion of emergency medical care. Although this ripple effect was influenced by various socio-economic factors as well as the opening of the highway, it is clear that it is difficult to occur without the opening of the highway. It is judged that the evaluation of indirect benefits and social values due to the opening of the highway can be quantified through continuous research and data construction. Post-evaluation of construction works, including project efficiency evaluation and ripple effect evaluation, is performed for construction works with a construction cost of more than 50 billion won. In the future, we will continuously improve the evaluation system in order to evaluate the indirect benefits and social values of public investment projects.

• 한국융합학회논문지
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• 제13권5호
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• pp.187-193
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• 2022

우리 사회에서 가정폭력은 학대 행위자와 학대 피해자가 한 공간에 공존하며, 학대가 재생산되는 가정 내에서 문제를 해결하지 못한 채 방치되고 있다. 특히 전통적인 대가족 중심적인 친족의 사회관계가 소원한 오늘날, 핵가족이라는 소외되고 고립된 환경 속에서 발생하는 가정폭력은 인권을 침해하고 짓밟는 범죄로 볼 수 있다. 가정폭력의 해결책도 가족적 지원망에만 해결하고 의존하기에는 가정폭력 피해자들이 겪어야 할 신체적, 정서적, 심리적 고통과 상처가 너무 깊다. 가정폭력 피해자들을 위해 이웃이나 지역사회에서 장기적이고 세심한 도움을 줄 수 있는 사례관리 서비스가 필요하다. 이를 위해 가정폭력은 예방과 치료가 함께 고려되어야 할것이며 지역사회의 관심과 역할도 뒤따라야 한다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권8호
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• pp.3046-3053
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• 2023

Radon is a naturally occurring carcinogenic agent, poses a serious health hazard when inhaled or ingested in significant amounts. The water of the Padma river will be used as a tertiary coolant for the soon-to-be-commissioned 'Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant'. Hence, it is important to assess the radiological status of the river prior to the commission of this power plant. Therefore, for the first time, 25 samples of water were collected from various locations of the Padma River and analyzed for radon concentration using the RAD H₂O (DURRIDGE) radon monitoring device. The radon concentrations were found in the range from 0.077 ± 0.036 to 0.494 ± 0.211 Bq/L with a mean of 0.250 ± 0.093 Bq/L. All the concentrations were found to be below the recommended limits of WHO (100 Bq/L) and USEPA (11.1 Bq/L). The mean annual effective dose due to the radon exposure via inhalation and ingestion pathways were 0.638 µSv/y and 0.629 µSv/y, respectively, which were all well below the annual effective dose recommended by WHO (0.1 mSv/y). Since Bangladesh lacks a national safety limit of radon in water, this pioneering study provides baseline data on radon levels for the environment around Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권8호
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• pp.2997-3009
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• 2023

The Passive containment Air-cooling System (PAS) can effectively remove the decay heat of the modular small nuclear reactor after an accident. The details of natural convection around the dome, which is a key part of PAS, were investigated numerically in the present study. The thermal dynamics around the dome were studied through the temperature, pressure and velocity contours and the streamlines. Additionally, the formation of the buoyant plume at the top of the dome was investigated. The results show that with the increase of Ra, the lift-off point moves toward the bottom of the dome, and the eddy under the buoyant plume grows larger gradually, which enhances the heat transfer. And the heat transfer along the dome surface with different truncation angles was investigated. As the angle increases, the heat transfer coefficient becomes stronger as well. Consequently, a newly developed heat transfer correlation considering the influence of truncation angle for the dome is proposed based on the simulated results. This study could provide a better understanding of natural convection around the dome of PAS and the proposed correlation could also offer more predictive value in the improvement of nuclear safety.