• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.803-811
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• 2024

Nuclear accidents such as Fukushima Daiichi have highlighted the potential of passive safety systems to replace or complement active safety systems as part of the overall prevention and/or mitigation strategies. In addition, passive systems are key features of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), for which they are becoming almost unavoidable and are part of the basic design of many reactors available in today's nuclear market. Nevertheless, their potential to significantly increase the safety of nuclear power plants still needs to be strengthened, in particular the ability of computer codes to determine their performance and reliability in industrial applications and support the safety demonstration. The PASTELS project (September 2020-February 2024), funded by the European Commission "Euratom H2020" programme, is devoted to the study of passive systems relying on natural circulation. The project focuses on two types, namely the SAfety COndenser (SACO) for the evacuation of the core residual power and the Containment Wall Condenser (CWC) for the reduction of heat and pressure in the containment vessel in case of accident. A specific design for each of these systems is being investigated in the project. Firstly, a straight vertical pool type of SACO has been implemented on the Framatome's PKL loop at Erlangen. It represents a tube bundle type heat exchanger that transfers heat from the secondary circuit to the water pool in which it is immersed by condensing the vapour generated in the steam generator. Secondly, the project relies on the CWC installed on the PASI test loop at LUT University in Finland. This facility reproduces the thermal-hydraulic behaviour of a Passive Containment Cooling System (PCCS) mainly composed of a CWC, a heat exchanger in the containment vessel connected to a water tank at atmospheric pressure outside the vessel which represents the ultimate heat sink. Several activities are carried out within the framework of the project. Different tests are conducted on these integral test facilities to produce new and relevant experimental data allowing to better characterize the physical behaviours and the performances of these systems for various thermo-hydraulic conditions. These test programmes are simulated by different codes acting at different scales, mainly system and CFD codes. New "system/CFD" coupling approaches are also considered to evaluate their potential to benefit both from the accuracy of CFD in regions where local 3D effects are dominant and system codes whose computational speed, robustness and general level of physical validation are particularly appreciated in industrial studies. In parallel, the project includes the study of single and two-phase natural circulation loops through a bibliographical study and the simulations of the PERSEO and HERO-2 experimental facilities. After a synthetic presentation of the project and its objectives, this article provides the reader with findings related to the physical analysis of the test results obtained on the PKL and PASI installations as well an overall evaluation of the capability of the different numerical tools to simulate passive systems.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.39-55
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• 2024

Recently, the 2022 revised mathematics curriculum has established achievement standards for equal sign and equality, and efforts have been made to examine teaching methods and student understanding of relational understanding of equal sign. In this context, this study conducted a lesson that emphasized relational understanding in an introduction to equal sign, and compared and analyzed the understanding of equal sign between the experimental group, which participated in the lesson emphasizing relational understanding and the control group, which participated in the standard lesson. For this purpose, two classes of students participated in this study, and the results were analyzed by administering pre- and post-tests on the understanding of equal sign. The results showed that students in the experimental group had significantly higher average scores than students in the control group in all areas of equation-structure, equal sign-definition, and equation-solving. In addition, when comparing the means of students by item, we found that there was a significant difference between the means of the control group and the experimental group in the items dealing with equal sign in the structure of 'a=b' and 'a+b=c+d', and that most of the students in the experimental group correctly answered 'sameness' as the meaning of equal sign, but there were still many responses that interpreted the equal sign as 'answer'. Based on these results, we discussed the implications for instruction that emphasizes relational understanding in equal sign introduction lessons.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.833-838
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• 2024

The urban railway sleeper floating track(STEDEF) is a structure that structurally separates the sleepers and the concrete bed using sleeper boots and resilience pads to reduce vibration transmitted to the concrete bed. Recently, the resilience pads of sleeper floating tracks that have been in use for more than 20 years are deteriorating. Accordingly, in order to evaluate the performance of the resilience pad, a static spring stiffness test is being performed after extracting the resilience pad. This evaluation technique is performed after replacing the resilience pad in use. However, the track natural frequency can change depending on the resilience pad spring stiffness and the uplift and subsidence of the concrete bed. In this study, modal testing technique was used to evaluate the track natural frequency. For this purpose, the sleeper boots material, resilience pad spring stiffness, and track natural frequency according to concrete bed uplift and subsidence were measured using modal tests at a laboratory scale. It was analyzed that the natural frequency of the sleeper floating track was directly affected by changes in the spring stiffness of the resilience pad. In addition, the change in natural frequency due to the uplift and subsidence of the concrete bed was also found to be large. Therefore, it is believed that the modal test technique presented in this study can be used to evaluate the resilience pad deterioration and voided sleepers.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.209-222
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• 2024

The Earth Pressure Balance (EPB) shield Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) is widely used for underground tunnel construction for its advantages, such as eliminating the need for additional facilities compared to the slurry shield TBM, which requires Slurry Treatment Plant (STP). During EPB shield TBM excavation, a soil conditioning technique is employed to enhance the physical properties of the excavated soil by injecting additives, thus broadening the range of applicable ground conditions to EPB shield TBMs. This study explored the use of xanthan gum, a type of biopolymer, as an alternative to the commonly used polymer additive. Biopolymers, derived from biological sources, are fully biodegradable. In contrast to traditional polymers such as polyacrylic acid, which contain environmentally harmful components, xanthan gum is gaining attention as an eco-friendly material due to its minimal toxicity and environmental impact. Test conditions with similar workability were established through slump tests, and the rheological characteristics were assessed using a laboratory pressurized vane shear test apparatus. The experiments demonstrated that, despite exhibiting similar workability, the peak strength in the flow curve decreased with increasing the content of xanthan gum. Consequently, a correlation between the xanthan gum content and peak strength was established. Replacing the traditional polymers with xanthan gum could enable stable EPB shield TBM operation by reducing equipment load, in addition to offering environmental benefits.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.194-199
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• 2024

Accidents due to aircraft fuel defects rank in the top 13 of the 34 accident types described by CAST-ICAO Common Taxonomy Team(CICTT). Aircraft accidents occur because of the inflow of moisture or pollutants depending on the distribution process and storage environment. To confirm the change in physical properties of the aircraft oil stored for a long time, we stored JET A-1 aircraft oil in a metal can to observe the change after six months. We confirmed that the aircraft oil stored for a long time satisfied the quality standards, and the stability of the fuel oil was high. However, in scenarios in which aircraft oil is stored separately on ships, onshore storage facilities, oil fields, etc., owing to the nature of missions, such as in marine police aircraft, the inflow of moisture or pollutants may likely occur due to changes in the internal and external environment. In addition, pollutants can be analyzed using existing tests and distillation properties, but for moisture, domestic and international standards and domestic laws determine the moisture separation ability of aircraft oil through the water separation index, but the moisture content is not analyzed. Therefore, aviation safety must be secured by adding quality control standards for moisture content and performing revisions to uniformize domestic and international standards and laws.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.97-102
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• 2024

In this study, the properties of Zr-14Cu-7.5Ni-2.6Al wide ribbon with amorphous structure and properties were analyzed using Hall effect, SEM-EDX, and XRD. Made by melt spinning method, this Zr-14Cu-7.5Ni-2.6Al based alloy ribbon is not more than 96 ㎛ thick and 100 mm wide. This amorphous alloy exhibited tensile strength of 1,641 MPa, yield strength of 1,541 MPa, elongation of 1% and elastic modulus of 98GPa. The bulk concentration, resistivity, and mobility values are midway between general heavy doping ceramics and metals, and they are about 100 times weaker than ordinary metals, so they are close to Si and have good electrical conductivity. In addition, folding tests were conducted at extreme temperatures, withstanding 150,000 times at -20℃, 300,000 times at 24℃, and 150,000 times at 60℃, with no folding defects observed. These results demonstrate the excellent durability and reliability of the Zr-14Cu-7.5Ni-2.6Al wide ribbon alloy and suggest the possibility of developing electronic products using this alloy.

• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.257-268
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• 2024

The Korea Augmentation Satellite System (KASS) satellite was successfully launched and service is being started. By receiving messages transmitted from the KASS satellite, users can employ the messages to improve positioning accuracy or to verify the integrity of Global Positioning System (GPS). In this paper, we propose a test method for a beam-formed GPS receiver developed to improve the survivability of KASS augmented messages that can enhance positioning accuracy even in an environment with jamming or interfering signals. Through the test method proposed in this paper, quantitative verification is performed for a beam-formed GPS receiver aimed at maintaining the augmented navigation solution to which KASS augmented messages are applied by tracking the KASS signal as much as possible under conditions where the jamming signal strength is gradually increasing. In addition, the proposed test method includes three conditions; first, a static lab test method for repeated verification of functions under the same conditions; second, a static outdoor test method for performance verification in an operating environment of a platform equipped with the beam-formed GPS receiver; and finally, a dynamic lab test method for performance verification of a moving platform equipped with the beam-formed GPS receiver toward a jammer. In this paper, we propose a method for simulating the jamming signal incident direction through the phase delay of an RF cable designed to prevent unintentional jamming signal emission in both lab and outdoor tests, and a method of applying test software for injecting a jamming signal to compare the survivability performance consistently according to the presence or absence of beamforming signal processing. Through the proposed test method, it was verified that the augmented navigation solution could be output for a longer time period when the beamforming signal processing was applied to the KASS satellite signal in the beam-formed GPS receiver.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.7-18
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• 2024

Because of their mineral composition, tire chips have very low thermal conductivity compared with natural geomaterials, leading to the use of sand-tire rubber mixtures in thermally insulating applications. However, systematic studies evaluating factors affecting the thermal conductivity of sand-tire rubber mixtures have been very limited. Thus, this study investigated the thermal conductivity of sand-tire rubber mixtures with varying size ratios and tire chip fractions according to the degree of saturation (S). Specimens were prepared in insulated cells, and thermal needle probe tests were performed. In addition, the contact angle and solid surface free energy of sand-tire rubber mixtures were investigated. The results of this study revealed that the thermal conductivity decreased with increasing tire chip fraction but increased with increasing water content (or S). However, the trend of increasing thermal conductivity with S varied with the tire chip fraction, and the specimens with tire chip fraction > 0.4 clearly showed a delayed increase in thermal conductivity with increasing S. This reflected that hydrophobic particles (tire chip) affected the dependency of thermal conductivity on S because of the delayed formation of capillary water bridges, which served as additional thermal conduction paths with increased moisture content.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.423-433
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• 2023

As aerial application increasing, with social concerning in pesticide drift rises, so this study attempts to establish a test bench that can repeatedly and continuously evaluate this. To this end, this study first analyze ISO 22866 and ASABE S561.1 among the international standard test methods related to pesticide fugitive evaluation. A test bench was established at the Naju practice field of Chonnam National University in accordance with international standards, and field tests were carried out (ISO 22866, ASABE S561.1) to verify effectiveness. A test bench that established in this study and a pesticide drift recovery protocol by aerial application can improve the experimental environment where field experiments were complex and it was difficult to achieve the same conditions. In addition, it will be possible to construct a database of pesticide drift that takes into account various factors that affect pesticide drift substances, which is expected to improve the reliability of the data, as well as quantitative evaluation of pesticide drift in the air.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.312-329
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• 2024

In various underground research projects such as energy storage and development and radioactive waste disposal targeting deep underground, the characteristics of permeable rock fractures that serve as major pathway of groundwater flow in deep rock aquifer are considered as an important evaluation factor in the design, construction, and operation of research facilities. In Korea, there is little research and database on the location and hydraulic characteristics of permeable rock fractures and the pattern of groundwater flow patterns that may occur between fractures in deep rock boreholes. In this paper, the hydraulic characteristics of permeable rock fractures in deep rock aquifer were evaluated through the analysis of geothermal gradient and pumping test data. First, the deep geothermal distribution was identified through temperature logging, and the geothermal gradient was obtained through linear regression analysis using temperature data by depth. In addition, the hydraulic characteristics of the fractured rock were analyzed using outflow temperature obtained from pumping tests. Ultimately, the potential location and hydraulic characteristics of permeable rock fractures, as well as groundwater flow within the boreholes, were evaluated by integrating and analyzing the geophysical logging and hydraulic testing data. The process and results of the evaluation of deep permeable rock fractures proposed in this study are expected to serve as foundational data for the successful implementation of underground research projects targeting deep rock aquifers.