• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권8호
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• pp.3006-3016
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• 2022

In this study, the images of specific prompt gamma (PG)-rays of 719 keV emitted from proton-boron reactions were analyzed using single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). Quantitative evaluation of the images verified the detection of anatomical changes in tumors, one of the important factors in daily adaptive proton therapy (DAPT) and verified the possibility of application of the PG-ray images to DAPT. Six scenarios were considered based on various sizes and locations compared to the reference virtual tumor to observe the anatomical alterations in the virtual tumor. Subsequently, PG-rays SPECT images were acquired using the modified ordered subset expectation-maximization algorithm, and these were evaluated using quantitative analysis methods. The results confirmed that the pixel range and location of the highest value of the normalized pixel in the PG-rays SPECT image profile changed according to the size and location of the virtual tumor. Moreover, the alterations in the virtual tumor size and location in the PG-rays SPECT images were similar to the true size and location alterations set in the phantom. Based on the above results, the tumor anatomical alterations in DAPT could be adequately detected and verified through SPECT imaging using the 719 keV PG-rays acquired during treatment.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권10호
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• pp.3604-3613
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• 2022

The Physical Protection System (PPS) plays an important role and must effectively deal with various adversary attacks in nuclear security. In specific single adversary path scenarios, we can calculate the PPS effectiveness by EASI (Estimated Adversary Sequence Interruption) through Probability of Interruption (P_I) calculation. EASI uses a single value of the probability of detection (P_D) and the probability of alarm communications (P_C) in the PPS. In this study, we develop a multi-path analysis code based on EASI to evaluate the effectiveness of PPS. Our quantification method for P_I considers the variability and uncertainty of P_D and P_C value by Monte Carlo simulation. We converted the 2-D scheme of the nuclear facility into an Adversary Sequence Diagram (ASD). We used ASD to find the adversary path with the lowest probability of interruption as the most vulnerable paths (MVP). We examined a hypothetical facility (Hypothetical National Nuclear Research Facility - HNNRF) to confirm our code compared with EASI. The results show that implementing the variability extension can estimate the P_I value and its associated uncertainty. The multi-path analysis code allows the analyst to make it easier to assess PPS with more extensive facilities with more complex adversary paths. However, the variability of the P_D value in each protection element allows a significant decrease in the PI value. The possibility of this decrease needs to be an important concern for PPS designers to determine the P_D value correctly or set a higher standard for PPS performance that remains reliable.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권7호
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• pp.2184-2194
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• 2021

The Free-Piston Stirling engine (FPSE) is of interest for many research in aerospace due to its advantages of long operating life, higher efficiency, and zero maintenance. In this study, a 1-kW FPSE was proposed by analyzing the requirements of Space Reactor Power Systems (SRPS), of which performance was evaluated by developing a code through the Simple Analysis Method. The results of SAM showed that the critical parameters of FPSE could satisfy the designed requirements. The heater of the FPSE was designed with the copper rectangular fins to enhance heat transfer, and the parametric study of the heater was performed with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software STAR-CCM⁺. The Performance Evaluation Criteria (PEC) was used to evaluate the heat transfer enhancement of the fins in the heater. The numerical results of the CFD program showed that pressure drop and Nusselt number ratio had a linear growth with the height of fins, and PEC number decreased as the height of fins increased, and the optimum height of the fin was set as 4 mm according to the minimum heat exchange surface area. This paper can provide theoretical supports for the design and numerical analysis of an FPSE for SRPSs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권8호
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• pp.2582-2590
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• 2021

The high-energy milling is one of the most extended techniques to produce Oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) powder steels for nuclear applications. The consequences of the high energy mill process on the final powders can be measured by means of deformation level, size, morphology and alloying degree. In this work, an ODS ferritic steel, Fe-14Cr-5Al-3W-0.4Ti-0.25Y₂O₃-0.6Zr, was fabricated using two different mechanical alloying (MA) conditions (M_std and M_act) and subsequently consolidated by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS). Milling conditions were set to evidence the effectivity of milling by changing the revolutions per minute (rpm) and dwell milling time. Differences on the particle size distribution as well as on the stored plastic deformation were observed, determining the consolidation ability of the material and the achieved microstructure. Since recrystallization depends on the plastic deformation degree, the composition of each particle and the promoted oxide dispersion, a dual grain size distribution was attained after SPS consolidation. M_act showed the highest areas of ultrafine regions when the material is consolidated at 1100 ℃. Microhardness and small punch tests were used to evaluate the material under room temperature and up to 500 ℃. The produced materials have attained remarkable mechanical properties under high temperature conditions.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제19권1호
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• pp.10.1-10.7
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• 2021

Although many models have been proposed to accurately predict the response of drugs in cell lines recent years, understanding the genome related to drug response is also the key for completing oncology precision medicine. In this paper, based on the cancer cell line gene expression and the drug response data, we established a reliable and accurate drug response prediction model and found predictor genes for some drugs of interest. To this end, we first performed pre-selection of genes based on the Pearson correlation coefficient and then used ElasticNet regression model for drug response prediction and fine gene selection. To find more reliable set of predictor genes, we performed regression twice for each drug, one with IC₅₀ and the other with area under the curve (AUC) (or activity area). For the 12 drugs we tested, the predictive performance in terms of Pearson correlation coefficient exceeded 0.6 and the highest one was 17-AAG for which Pearson correlation coefficient was 0.811 for IC₅₀ and 0.81 for AUC. We identify common predictor genes for IC₅₀ and AUC, with which the performance was similar to those with genes separately found for IC₅₀ and AUC, but with much smaller number of predictor genes. By using only common predictor genes, the highest performance was AZD6244 (0.8016 for IC₅₀, 0.7945 for AUC) with 321 predictor genes.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권12호
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• pp.2733-2742
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• 2020

This paper presents an assessment of applicability of the multigroup cross sections generated with Monte Carlo tools to the fast reactor analysis based on transport calculations. 33-group cross section sets were generated for simple one- (1-D) and two-dimensional (2-D) sodium-cooled fast reactor problems using the SERPENT code and applied to deterministic steady-state and depletion calculations. Relative to the reference continuous-energy SERPENT results, with the transport corrected P₀ scattering cross section, the k-eff value was overestimated by 506 and 588 pcm for 1-D and 2-D problems, respectively, since anisotropic scattering is important in fast reactors. When the scattering order was increased to P₅, the 1-D and 2-D problem errors were increased to 577 and 643 pcm, respectively. A sensitivity and uncertainty analysis with the PERSENT code indicated that these large k-eff errors cannot be attributed to the statistical uncertainties of cross sections and they are likely due to the approximate anisotropic scattering matrices determined by scalar flux weighting. The anisotropic scattering cross sections were alternatively generated using the MC²-3 code and merged with the SERPENT cross sections. The mixed cross section set consistently reduced the errors in k-eff, assembly powers, and nuclide densities. For example, in the 2-D calculation with P3 scattering order, the k-eff error was reduced from 634 pcm to -223 pcm. The maximum error in assembly power was reduced from 2.8% to 0.8% and the RMS error was reduced from 1.4% to 0.4%. The maximum error in the nuclide densities at the end of 12-month depletion that occurred in ²³⁷Np was reduced from 3.4% to 1.5%. The errors of the other nuclides are also reduced consistently, for example, from 1.1% to 0.1% for ²³⁵U, from 2.2% to 0.7% for ²³⁸Pu, and from 1.6% to 0.2% for ²⁴¹Pu. These results indicate that the scalar flux weighted anisotropic scattering cross sections of SERPENT may not be adequate for application to fast reactors where anisotropic scattering is important.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권3호
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• pp.860-866
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• 2022

An accurate prediction of the pressure drop along the flow paths is crucial in the design of advanced passive systems cooled by heavy liquid metal coolants. To date, a generic pressure drop correlation over spacer grids by Rehme has been applied extensively, which was obtained from substantial experimental data with multiple types of components. However, a few experimental studies have reported that the correlation may give large discrepancies. To provide a more reliable correlation for ring-type spacer grids, the current numerical study aims at figuring out the most critical factor among four hypothetical parameters, namely the flow area blockage ratio, number of fuel rods, type of fluid, and thickness of the spacer grid in the flow direction. Through a set of computational fluid dynamics simulations, we observed that the flow area blockage ratio dominantly influences the pressure loss characteristics, and thus its dependence should be more emphasized, whereas the other parameters have little impact. Hence, we suggest a new correlation for the drag coefficient as C_B = C_ν,m/ε^2.7, where C_ν,m is formulated by a nonlinear fit of simulation data such that C_ν,m = -11.33 ln(0.02 ln(Re_b)).

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.195-206
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• 2022

Crack detection is essential for inspection of existing structures and crack segmentation based on deep learning is a significant solution. However, datasets are usually one of the key issues. When building a new dataset for deep learning, laborious and time-consuming annotation of a large number of crack images is an obstacle. The aim of this study is to develop an approach that can automatically select a small portion of the most informative crack images from a large pool in order to annotate them, not to label all crack images. An active learning method with difficulty learning mechanism for crack segmentation tasks is proposed. Experiments are carried out on a crack image dataset of a steel box girder, which contains 500 images of 320×320 size for training, 100 for validation, and 190 for testing. In active learning experiments, the 500 images for training are acted as unlabeled image. The acquisition function in our method is compared with traditional acquisition functions, i.e., Query-By-Committee (QBC), Entropy, and Core-set. Further, comparisons are made on four common segmentation networks: U-Net, DeepLabV3, Feature Pyramid Network (FPN), and PSPNet. The results show that when training occurs with 200 (40%) of the most informative crack images that are selected by our method, the four segmentation networks can achieve 92%-95% of the obtained performance when training takes place with 500 (100%) crack images. The acquisition function in our method shows more accurate measurements of informativeness for unlabeled crack images compared to the four traditional acquisition functions at most active learning stages. Our method can select the most informative images for annotation from many unlabeled crack images automatically and accurately. Additionally, the dataset built after selecting 40% of all crack images can support crack segmentation networks that perform more than 92% when all the images are used.

• 사회복지연구
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• 제40권1호
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• pp.115-138
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• 2009

본 연구의 목적은 자산빈곤층의 특성을 이해하고 자산빈곤이행(移行) 가능성에 영향을 미치는 요인을 실증적으로 알아보는 것이다. 이를 위해 본 연구에서는 한국노동패널자료를 분석자료로 이용하여 생존분석을 실시하였다. 자료분석 결과, 자산빈곤가구는 소득빈곤가구에 비해 빈곤지속기간이 길고, 빈곤탈피율이 낮으며 빈곤에 더 오래 머물러 있을 가능성이 높은 것으로 나타났다. 또한 시간의존 콕스회귀분석 결과, 가구주의 교육수준이 높고 소득 수준이 높으며, 비정규직에 비해 정규직일수록 자산빈곤을 조기에 탈피할 확률이 높은 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 연구결과를 바탕으로 기존의 빈곤정책과 함께 자산빈곤층의 자산을 형성하기 위한 제도적 지원이 필요하며, 국내에서 자산형성 지원사업이 시행이 된다면 좀 더 높은 수준의 교육을 받거나, 직무 능력 향상을 통해 안정적인 일자리(decent job)를 얻는 능력을 갖추는데 정책의 초점이 맞추어져야 할 것임을 제안한다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권4호
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• pp.1485-1494
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• 2023

The bow of the nuclear fuel assembly is a well-known phenomenon. One of the vital criteria during the history of nuclear fuel development has been fuel assembly's mechanical stability. Once present, the fuel assembly bow can lead to safety issues like excessive water gap and power redistribution or even incomplete rod insertion (IRI). The extensive bow can result in assembly handling and loading problems. This is why the fuel assembly's bow is one of the most often controlled geometrical factors during periodic fuel inspections for VVER when compared e.g. to on-site fuel rod gap measurements or other instrumental measurements performed on-site. Our proposed screening method uses existing video records for fuel inspection. We establish video frames normalization and aggregation for the purposes of bow measurement. The whole process is done by digital image processing algorithms which analyze rotations of video frames, extract angles whose source is the fuel set torsion, and reconstruct torsion schema. This approach provides results comparable to the commonly utilized method. We tested this new approach in real operation on 19 fuel assemblies with different campaign numbers and designs, where the average deviation from other methods was less than 2 % on average. Due to the fact, that the method has not yet been validated during full scale measurements of the fuel inspection, the preliminary results stand for that we recommend this method as a complementary part of standard bow measurement procedures to increase measurement robustness, lower time consumption and preserve or increase accuracy. After completed validation it is expected that the proposed method allows standalone fuel assembly bow measurements.