• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.911-919
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• 2021

In this paper, the design stress intensity values for the plate-type fuel assembly for research reactor are presented. Through a tensile test, the material properties of the cladding (aluminum alloy 6061) and structural material (aluminum alloy 6061-T6), in this case the yield and ultimate tensile strengths, Young's modulus and the elongation, are measured with the temperatures. The empirical equations of the material properties with respect to the temperature are presented. The cladding undergoes several heat treatments and hardening processes during the fabrication process. Cladding strengths are reduced compared to those of the raw material during annealing. Up to a temperature of 150 ℃, the strengths of the cladding do not significantly decrease due to the dislocations generated from the cold work. However, over 150 ℃, the mechanical strengths begin to decrease, mainly due to recrystallization, dislocation recovery and precipitate growth. Taking into account the uncertainty of the 95% probability and 95% confidence level, the design stress intensities of the cladding and structural materials are established. The presented design stress intensity values become the basis of the stress design criteria for a safety analysis of plate-type fuels.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.486-492
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• 2022

Nitrogen oxides (NO_x; NO and NO₂) are major air pollutants and can cause harmful effects on the human body. Electron Beam Flue Gas Treatment (EBFGT) is a technology that generates electrons with an energy of 0.5-1 MeV using electron accelerators and effectively processes exhaust gases. In this study, NO_x was removed using an electron beam accelerator with spraying additives (NaOH and NH₄OH). NO and NO₂ were 100% and more than 94% removed, respectively, at an electron beam absorbed dose of 20 kGy and an additive concentration of 0.02 M (mol/L). In most cases, NO_x was removed better with lower initial NOx concentrations and higher electron beam absorbed doses. As the irradiation strength (mA) of the electron beam increases, the probability of electron impact on the material accordingly rises, which may lead to increase removal efficiency. The results of the present study show that the continuous electron beam process using additives achieved more effective removal efficiency than either individual process (wet-scrubbing or EB irradiation only).

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.175-182
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• 2023

APro, a modularized process-based total system performance assessment framework, was developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) to simulate radionuclide transport considering coupled thermal-hydraulic-mechanical-chemical processes occurring in a geological disposal system. For reactive transport simulation considering geochemical reactions, COMSOL and PHREEQC are coupled with MATLAB in APro using an operator splitting scheme. Conventionally, coupling is performed within a MATLAB interface so that COMSOL stops the calculation to deliver the solution to PHREEQC and restarts to continue the simulation after receiving the solution from PHREEQC at every time step. This is inefficient when the solution is frequently interchanged because restarting the simulation in COMSOL requires an unnecessary setup process. To overcome this issue, a coupling scheme that calls PHREEQC inside COMSOL was developed. In this technique, PHREEQC is called through the "MATLAB function" feature, and PHREEQC results are updated using the COMSOL "Pointwise Constraint" feature. For the one-dimensional advection-reaction-dispersion problem, the proposed coupling technique was verified by comparison with the conventional coupling technique, and it improved the computation time for all test cases. Specifically, the more frequent the link between COMSOL and PHREEQC, the more pronounced was the performance improvement using the proposed technique.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.325-332
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• 2013

Pyroporcessing of spent nuclear fuel generates a considerable amount of LiCl-KCl eutectic waste salt containing radioactive rare earth (RE) chlorides. In this study, a series of processes, which consist of a phosphorylation/distillation process and a solidification process, were performed to minimize volume of the LiCl-KCl eutectic waste salt and solidify a residual waste into a stable form at a relatively low temperature. Over 99wt% of RE chlorides in LiCl-KCl eutectic salt was converted and separated into $REPO_4$ in the phosphorylation/distillation process using a mixture of $Li_3PO_4-K_3PO_4$. The separated $REPO_4$ was solidified into a homogeneous and fine-grained form at $1,050^{\circ}C$ using LIP(Lead Iron Phosphate) as a solidification agent. The final waste volume was reduced below about 10% through the series of the processes.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.237-244
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• 2016

Background: Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute is developing a fission product transport module for predicting the behavior of radioactive materials in the primary cooling system of a nuclear power plant as a separate module, which will be connected to a severe accident analysis code, Core Meltdown Progression Accident Simulation Software (COMPASS). Materials and Methods: This fission product transport (COMPASS-FP) module consists of a fission product release model, an aerosol generation model, and an aerosol transport model. In the fission product release model there are three submodels based on empirical correlations, and they are used to simulate the fission product gases release from the reactor core. In the aerosol generation model, the mass conservation law and Raoult's law are applied to the mixture of vapors and droplets of the fission products in a specified control volume to find the generation of the aerosol droplet. In the aerosol transport model, empirical correlations available from the open literature are used to simulate the aerosol removal processes owing to the gravitational settling, inertia impaction, diffusiophoresis, and thermophoresis. Results and Discussion: The COMPASS-FP module was validated against Aerosol Behavior Code Validation and Evaluation (ABCOVE-5) test performed by Hanford Engineering Development Laboratory for comparing the prediction and test data. The comparison results assuming a non-spherical aerosol shape for the suspended aerosol mass concentration showed a good agreement with an error range of about ${\pm}6%$. Conclusion: It was found that the COMPASS-FP module produced the reasonable results of the fission product gases release, the aerosol generation, and the gravitational settling in the aerosol removal processes for ABCOVE-5. However, more validation for other aerosol removal models needs to be performed.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.233-238
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• 2007

Due to the occasional occurrence of a localizedcorrosion such as a SCC and pitting in steam generator tubing(Alloy 600), leading to a significant economical loss, an effective repair technology is needed. For a successful electrodeposition inside a tube, many processes should be developed. Among these processes, an anode to be installed inside a tube, a degreasing condition to remove any dirt and grease, an activation condition for a surface oxide elimination, a strike layer forming condition which needs to be adhered tightly between an electroforming layer and a parent tube and a condition for an electroforming layer should be established. Through a combination of these various process condition parameters, the desired material properties can be acquired. Among these process parameters, various material properties including a mechanical property and its variation along with the height of the electrodeposit inside a tube as well as its thermal stability and SCC resistance should be assessed for an application in a plant. This work deals with the material properties of the Ni electrodeposits formed inside a tube by using the anode developed in this study such as the current efficiency, hardness, tensile property, thermal stability and SCC behavior of the electrodeposit in a 40wt% NaOH solution at $315^{\circ}C$. It was found that a variation of the material properties within the entire length of the electrodeposit was quite acceptable and the Ni electrodeposit showed an excellent SCC resistance.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.7 no.2_3
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• pp.115-119
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• 2013

The density profile measurement technology by gamma transmission has been widely used to diagnose processes in the field of refinery and petrochemical industry. This technology can reveal a clue and position of abnormal phenomenon of industrial processes during their operation. In this paper, the feasibility of the gamma transmission technology for detecting changes in the amount of fluid in a distillation column was evaluated by using Monte Carlo simulations. The simulations assumed that $^{60}Co$ (1.17, 1.33 MeV) sources and NaI (Tl) detectors (${\Phi}5{\times}5cm$) are located in opposite sides of a column and it concurrently moves in vertical direction. To determine the dependency of a spatial resolution on aperture size of a collimator, the simulation model for a tray in a column were simulated with the aperture sizes of 1 and 2 cm. The thickness of the high density area including a tray and fluid was 7.6 cm in the simulation. The spatial resolution of the tray was 8.2 and 8.5 cm, respectively. As a result, it was revealed that the conventional density profile measurement technique is not able to show the deviation of liquid level on a tray in a column.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.53-64
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• 2023

Atomic layer etching (ALE) is a promising technique with atomic-level thickness controllability and high selectivity based on self-limiting surface reactions. ALE is performed by sequential exposure of the film surface to reactants, which results in surface modification and release of volatile species. Among the various ALE methods, thermal ALE involves a thermally activated reaction by employing gas species to release the modified surface without using energetic species, such as accelerated ions and neutral beams. In this study, the basic principle and surface reaction mechanisms of thermal ALE?processes, including "fluorination-ligand exchange reaction", "conversion-etch reaction", "conversion-fluorination reaction", "oxidation-fluorination reaction", "oxidation-ligand exchange reaction", and "oxidation-conversion-fluorination reaction" are described. In addition, the reported thermal ALE processes for the removal of various oxides, metals, and nitrides are presented.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.109-122
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• 2016

[Fe II] emission lines are prominent in the infrared (IR) and important as diagnostic tools for radiative atomic shocks. We investigate the emission characteristics of [Fe II] lines using a shock code developed by Raymond (1979) with updated atomic parameters. We first review general characteristics of the IR [Fe II] emission lines from shocked gas, and derive their fluxes as a function of shock speed and ambient density. We have compiled available IR [Fe II] line observations of interstellar shocks and compare them to the ratios predicted from our model. The sample includes both young and old supernova remnants in the Galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud and several Herbig-Haro objects. We find that the observed ratios of the IR [Fe II] lines generally fall on our grid of shock models, but the ratios of some mid-IR lines, e.g., [Fe II] 35.35 µm/[Fe II] 25.99 µm, [Fe II] 5.340 µm/[Fe II] 25.99 µm, and [Fe II] 5.340 µm/[Fe II] 17.94 µm, are significantly offset from our model grid. We discuss possible explanations and conclude that while uncertainties in the shock modeling and the observations certainly exist, the uncertainty in atomic rates appears to be the major source of discrepancy.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.2329-2333
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• 2022

Base metal corrosion forms a significant issue during the chemical decontamination of the primary coolant loop in nuclear power plants as it is directly related to the economic and safety viability of decommissioning. In this technical note, potentiodynamic evaluations of several base metals (304 stainless steel, SA106 Grade B carbon steel, and alloy 600) were performed to determine their corrosion behavior during the hydrazine (N₂H₄)-based reductive ion decontamination (HyBRID) process. The results suggested that N₂H₄ protected the surface of the base metals in the HyBRID solution, which is primarily composed of H₂SO₄. The corrosion resistance of the carbon steel was further improved through the addition of CuSO₄ to the solution. The corrosion rate of carbon steel in the H₂SO₄-N₂H₄-CuSO₄ solution was lower than that exhibited in an oxalic acid solution, a commonly used reaction medium during commercial decontamination processes. These results indicate the superiority of the HyBRID process with respect to the base metal stability.