• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.128-135
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• 2013

The nuclear fuel cycle plant is composed of various subsystems such as a fuel storage and delivery system (SDS), a tokamak exhaust processing system, a hydrogen isotope separation system, and a tritium plant analytical system. Korea is sharing in the construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) fuel cycle plant with the EU, Japan, and the US, and is responsible for the development and supply of the SDS. Hydrogen isotopes are the main fuel for nuclear fusion reactors. Metal hydrides offer a safe and convenient method for hydrogen isotope storage. The storage of hydrogen isotopes is carried out by absorption and desorption in a metal hydride bed. These reactions require heat removal and supply respectively. Accordingly, the rapid storage and delivery of hydrogen isotopes are enabled by a rapid cooling and heating of the metal hydride bed. In this study, we designed and manufactured a vertical-type hydrogen isotope storage bed, which is used to enhance the cooling performance. We present the experimental details of the cooling performances of the bed using various cooling parameters. We also present the modeling results to estimate the heat transport phenomena. We compared the cooling performance of the bed by testing different cooling modes, such as an isolation mode, a natural convection mode, and an outer jacket helium circulation mode. We found that helium circulation mode is the most effective which was confirmed in our model calculations. Thus we can expect a more efficient bed design by employing a forced helium circulation method for new beds.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.24-27
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• 2012

The superconducting coil system is one of the most important components in Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR), which has been operated since 2008. $Nb_3Sn$ and NbTi superconductors are being used for cable-in-conduit conductors (CICCs) of the KSTAR toroidal field (TF) and poloidal field (PF) coils. The CICCs are cooled by forced-flow supercritical helium about 4.5 K. The temperature, pressure and mass flow rate of the supercritical helium in the CICCs are interacting with each other during the operation of the coils. The complicate behaviors of the supercritical helium have an effect on the operation and the efficiency of the helium refrigeration system (HRS) by means of, for instance, pressure drop. The hydraulic characteristics of the supercritical helium have been monitored while the TF coils have stably achieved the full current of 35 kA. In other hands, the PF coils have been operated with various pulsed or bipolar mode, so the drastic changes happen in view of hydraulics. The heat load including AC loss on the coils has been analyzed according to the measurement. These activities are important to estimate the temperature margin in various PF operation conditions. In this paper, the latest hydraulic behaviors of PF coils during KSTAR operation are presented.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.53-58
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• 2013

KSTAR in-vessel cryo-pump has been installed in the vacuum vessel top and bottom side with up-down symmetry for the better plasma density control in the D-shape H-mode. The cryogenic helium lines of the in-vessel cryo-pump are located at the vertical positions from the vacuum vessel torus center 2,000 mm. The inductive electrical potential has been optimized to reduce risk of electrical breakdown during plasma disruption. In-vessel cryo-pump consists of three parts of coaxial circular shape components; cryo-panel, thermal shield and particle shield. The cryo-panel is cooled down to below 4.5 K. The cryo-panel and thermal shields were made by Inconel 625 tube for higher mechanical strength. The thermal shields and their cooling tubes were annealed in air environment to improve the thermal radiation emissivity on the surface. Surface of cryo-panel was electro-polished to minimize the thermal radiation heat load. The in-vessel cryo-pump was pre-assembled on a test bed in 180 degree segment base. The leak test was carried out after the thermal shock between room temperature to $LN_2$ one before installing them into vacuum vessel. Two segments were welded together in the vacuum vessel and final leak test was performed after the thermal shock. Commissioning of the in-vessel cryo-pump was carried out using a temporary liquid helium supply system.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.413-418
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• 2001

Fundamental failure mode in a laminated composite pinned-joint is proposed to assess damage resulting from stress concentration in the plate. The joint area is a region with stress concentrations thus a complicated stress state exists. The modeling of damage in a laminated composite pinned-joint presents many difficulties because of the complexity of the failure process. In order to model progressive from initial to final, finite element methods are used rather than closed form stress analyses. Failure analysis must be a logical combination of suitable failure criteria and appropriate material properties degradation rules. In this study, the material properties which were obtained in previous study, the preparing process of the bearing strength test for a pinned joint CFRP composite plate subjected to in-plane loading at low temperature, and the FEM result of progressive damage model using ANSYS program are summarized to assess the structural safety of CFRP plate used in the magnetic supporting post of KSTAR(Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research).

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.241.1-241.1
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• 2014

The large-area high-power radio-frequency (RF) driven ion sources based on the negative hydrogen (deuterium) ion beam extraction are the major components of neutral beam injection (NBI) systems in future large-scale fusion devices such as an ITER and DEMO. Positive hydrogen (deuterium) RF ion sources were the major components of the second NBI system on ASDEX-U tokamak. A test large-area high-power RF ion source (LAHP-RaFIS) has been developed for steady-state operation at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) to extract the positive ions, which can be used for the NBI heating and current drive systems in the present fusion devices, and to extract the negative ions for negative ion-based plasma heating and for future fusion devices such as a Fusion Neutron Source and Korea-DEMO. The test RF ion source consists of a driver region, including a helical antenna and a discharge chamber, and an expansion region. RF power can be transferred at up to 10 kW with a fixed frequency of 2 MHz through an optimized RF matching system. An actively water-cooled Faraday shield is located inside the driver region of the ion source for the stable and steady-state operations of RF discharge. The characteristics and uniformities of the plasma parameter in the RF ion source were measured at the lowest area of the expansion bucket using two RF-compensated electrostatic probes along the direction of the short- and long-dimensions of the expansion region. The plasma parameters in the expansion region were characterized by the variation of loaded RF power (voltage) and filling gas pressure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.30-30
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• 2011

The wave-cutoff tool is a new diagnostic method to measure electron density and electron temperature. Most of the plasma diagnostic tools have the disadvantage that their application to processing plasma where toxic and reactive gases are used gives rise to many problems such as contamination, perturbation, precision of measurement, and so on. We can minimize these problems by using the wave-cutoff method. Here, we will present the results obtained through the development of the wave-cutoff diagnostic method. The frequency spectrum characteristics of the wave-cutoff probe will be obtained experimentally and analyzed through the microwave field simulation by using the CST-MW studio simulator. The plasma parameters are measured with the wave-cutoff method in various discharge conditions and its results will be compared with the results of Langmuir probe. Another disadvantage is that other diagnostic methods spend a long time (~ a few seconds) to measure plasma parameters. In this presentation, a fast measurement method will be also introduced. The wave-cutoff probe system consists of two antennas and a network analyzer. The network analyzer provides the transmission spectrum and the reflection spectrum by frequency sweeping. The plasma parameters such as electron density and electron temperature are obtained through these spectra. The frequency sweeping time, the time resolution of the wave-cutoff method, is about 1 second. A short pulse with a broad band spectrum of a few GHz is used with an oscilloscope to acquire the spectra data in a short time. The data acquisition time can be reduced with this method. Here, the plasma parameter measurement methods, Langmuir probe, pulsed wave-cutoff method and frequency sweeping wave-cutoff method, are compared. The measurement results are well matched. The real time resolution is less than 1 ?sec. The pulsed wave-cutoff technique is found to be very useful in the transient plasmas such as pulsed plasma and tokamak edge plasma.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.357-363
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• 2004

A prototype long pulse ion source was developed, and the beam extraction experiments of the ion source were carried out at the Neutral Beam Test Stand (NBTS) of the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR). The ion source consists of a magnetic bucket plasma generator, with multi-pole cusp fields, and a set of tetrode accelerators with circular apertures. Design requirements for the ion source were a 120kV/65A deuterium beam and a 300 s pulse length. Arc discharges of the plasma generator were controlled by using the emission-limited mode, in turn controlled by the applied heating voltage of the cathode filaments. Stable and efficient arc plasmas with a maximum arc power of 100 kW were produced using the constant power mode operation of an arc power supply. A maximum ion density of $8.3{\times}10^{11}\;cm^{-3}$ was obtained by using electrostatic probes, and an optimum arc efficiency of 0.46 A/kW was estimated. The accelerating and decelerating voltages were applied repeatedly, using the re-triggering mode operation of the high voltage switches during a beam pulse, when beam disruptions occurred. The decelerating voltage was always applied prior to the accelerating voltage, to suppress effectively the back-streaming electrons produced at the time of an initial beam formation, by the pre-programmed fast-switch control system. A maximum beam power of 0.9 MW (i.e. $70\;kV{\times}12.5\;A$) with hydrogen was measured for a pulse duration of 0.8 s. Optimum beam perveance, deduced from the ratio of the gradient grid current to the total beam current, was $0.7\;{\mu}perv$. Stable beams for a long pulse duration of $5{\sim}10\;s$ were tested at low accelerating voltages.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.459-466
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• 2008

The KSTAR Magnet Power Supply (MPS) was dedicated to the SC coil commissioning and $1^{st}$ plasma experiment as a part of the system commissioning. Although many efforts to develop large-current power supplies that are useful for high power electronic devices have been made in various application fields, such as for large metal-plating devices, there were clear discrepancies between conventional power supply technologies and that for the SC coils due to the special SC coil load conditions. Therefore, most of the power supply technologies for the SC coils were a challenge in the domestic research area due to their limited application. However, the MPS commissioning result showed that all of the hardware and controlling software operated well, and this result finally led to the success of SC coil commissioning and the KSTAR $1^{st}$ plasma experiment. This paper will describe key features of KSTAR MPS for the $1^{st}$ plasma experiment, and will also report the commissioning results of the magnet power supplies.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.455-476
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• 2009

The history of nuclear fusion research in Korea is rather short compared to that of advanced countries. However, since the mid-1990s, at which time the construction of KSTAR was about to commence, fusion research in Korea has been actively carried out in a wide range of areas, from basic plasma physics to fusion reactor design. The flourishing of fusion research partly owes to the fact that industrial technologies in Korea including those related to the nuclear field have been fully matured, with their quality being highly ranked in the world. Successive pivotal programs such as KSTAR and ITER have provided diverse opportunities to address new scientific and technological problems in fusion as well as to draw young researchers into related fields. The frame of the Korean nuclear fusion program is now changing from a small laboratory scale to a large national agenda. Coordinated strategies from different views and a holistic approach are necessary in order to achieve optimal efficiency and effectiveness. Upon this background, the present paper reflects upon the road taken to arrive at this point and looks ahead at the coming future in nuclear fusion research activities in Korea.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.219-226
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• 2012

A nuclear fusion fuel cycle plant is composed of various subsystems such as a hydrogen isotope storage and delivery system, a tokamak exhaust processing system, and a hydrogen isotope separation system. Korea shares in the construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor fuel cycle plant with the EU, Japan and US, and is responsible for the development and supply of the storage and delivery system. We thus present details on the hydrogen isotope process safety. The main safety analysis procedure is to use a hazard and operability study. Nine segments were studied how the plant might deviate from its design purpose. We present a detailed description of the process, examine every part of it to determine how deviations from the design intent can occur and decide whether these deviations can give rise to hazards. We determine possible causes and note protective systems, evaluate the consequences of the deviation, and recommend actions to achieve our safety goal.