• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.139-165
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• 2019

The current status and prospect of decommissioning technology development at KAERI are reviewed here. Specifically, this review focuses on four key technologies: decontamination, remote dismantling, decommissioning waste treatments, and site remediation. The decontamination technologies described are component decontamination and system decontamination. A cutting method and a remote handling method together with a decommissioning simulation are described as remote dismantling technologies. Although there are various types of radioactive waste generated by decommissioning activities, this review focuses on the major types of waste, such as metal waste, concrete waste, and soil waste together with certain special types, such as high-level and high-salt liquid waste, organic mixed waste, and uranium complex waste, which are known to be difficult to treat. Finally, in a site remediation technology review, a measurement and safety evaluation related to site reuse and a site remediation technique are described.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.62-80
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• 2021

The requirements for the next-generation propulsion system and for a good propellant have been summarized. The characteristics and effectiveness of kerosene, hydrogen, and methane, which are the fuels that are mainly attracting attention in Korea and abroad, were compared with each other. As a result of the comparison, methane was evaluated to be more advantageous than other fuels in reliability, cost, reusability, maintenance, eco-friendliness, safety, lifespan, technical difficulties, engine cycle selection, application of common bulkhead, and non-disassembly/reassembly delivery. And in terms of performance, the specific impulse of methane is higher than that of kerosene, so the efficiency of the launch vehicle can be increased. Methane's properties incluidng eco-friendliness, low-temperature combustion, long life, and maintenability make it beneficial for reuse and for the development of multi-purpose engines.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.189-194
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• 2021

A straightforward, yet effective surface modification method of stainless steel mesh and its interesting anti-wetting characteristics are reported in this study. The stainless steel mesh is electrochemically etched, and the specimen has both micro and nano-scale structures on its surface. This process transforms the two types of mesh specimens known as the regular and dense specimens into hydrophobic specimens without applying any hydrophobic chemical coating process. The fundamental wettability of the modified mesh is analyzed through a dedicatedly designed experiment to investigate the waterproof characteristics, for instance, the penetration threshold. The waterproof characteristics are evaluated in a manner that the modified mesh resists as high as approximately 2.7 times the pressure compared with the bare mesh, i.e., the non-modified mesh. The results show that the penetration threshold depends primarily on the advancing contact angles, and the penetration stop behaviors are affected by the contact angle hysteresis on the surfaces. The findings further confirm that the inexpensive waterproof meshes created using the proposed straightforward electrochemical etching process are effective and can be adapted along with appropriate designs for various practical applications, such as underwater devices, passive valves, and transducers. In general, , additional chemical coatings are applied using hydrophobic materials on the surfaces for the applications that require water-repelling capabilities. Although these chemical coatings can often cause aging, the process proposed in this study is not only cost-effective, but also durable implying that it does not lose its waterproof properties over time.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.23-34
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• 2020

Two-phase flow and heat transfer characteristics during the reflood phase of a single heated rod in the KHU reflood experimental facility were examined. Two-phase flow behavior during the reflooding experiment was carefully visualized along with transient temperature measurement at a point inside the heated rod. By numerically solving one-dimensional inverse heat conduction equation using the measured temperature data, time-resolved wall heat flux and temperature histories at the interface of the heated rod and coolant were obtained. Once water coolant was injected into the test section from the bottom to reflood the heated rod of >700℃, vast vapor bubbles and droplets were generated near the reflood front and dispersed flow film boiling consisted of continuous vapor flow and tiny liquid droplets appeared in the upper part. Following the dispersed flow film boiling, inverted annular/slug/churn flow film boiling regimes were sequentially observed and the wall temperature gradually decreased. When so-called minimum film boiling temperature reached, the stable vapor film between the heated rod and coolant was suddenly collapsed, resulting in the quenching transition from film boiling into nucleate boiling. The moving speed of the quench front measured in the present study showed a good agreement with prediction by a correlation in literature. The obtained results revealed that typical two-phase flow and heat transfer behaviors during the reflood phase of overheated fuel rods in light water nuclear reactors are well reproduced in the KHU facility. Thus, the verified reflood experimental facility can be used to explore the effects of other affecting parameters, such as CRUD, on the reflood heat transfer behaviors in practical nuclear reactors.

• Composites Research
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.257-263
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• 2021

Composite materials have been widely applied for fabricating pressure vessels used for storing gaseous and liquid fuel because of their high specific stiffness and specific strength. Accordingly, the accurate measurement of their mechanical property, particularly the burst pressure or fracture strain, is essential prior to the commercial release. However, verification of the safety of composite pressure vessels using conventional test methods poses some limitations because it may lead to the deformation of the load transferring media or provoke an additional energy loss that cannot be ignored. Therefore, in this study, the segment-type ring burst test device was designed considering the theoretical load transferring ratio and applicable displacement of the vertical column. Moreover, to verifying the uniform distribution of pressure of the segment type ring burst test device, the hoop stress and strain distribution of ring specimens were compared with that of the hydraulic pressure test method via FEM. To conduct a simulation of the fracture behavior of the composite pressure vessel, a Hashin failure criterion was applied to the ring specimen. Furthermore, the fracture strain was also measured from the experiment and compared with that of the result from the FEM.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.162-169
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• 2020

The worldwide focus on reducing the emissions, fuel and lubricant consumption in T-GDI engines is leading engineers to consider the crankcase ventilation and oil mist separation system as an important means of control. In today's passenger cars, the oil mist separation systems mainly use the inertia effect (e.g. labyrinth, cyclone etc.). Therefore, this study has investigated high efficiency cylinder head-integrated oil-mist separator by using a compact multi-impactor type oil mist separator system to ensure adequate oil mist separation performance. For this purpose, engine dynamometer testing with oil particle efficiency measurement equipment and 3D two-phase flow simulation have been performed for various engine operating conditions. Tests with an actual engine on a dynamometer showed oil aerosol particle size distributions varied depending on operating conditions. For instance, high rpm and load increases bot only blow-by gases but the amount of small size oil droplets. Submicron-sized particles (less than 0.5 ㎛) were also observed. It is also found that the impactor type separator is able to separate nearly no droplets of diameter lower than 3 ㎛. CFD results showed that the complex aerodynamics processes that lead to strong impingement and break-up can strip out large droplets and generate more small size droplets.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.57-65
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to use machine learning to build a model capable of predicting the flash boiling spray characteristics. In this study, the flash boiling spray was visualized using Shadowgraph visualization technology, and then the spray image was processed with MATLAB to obtain quantitative data of spray characteristics. The experimental conditions were used as input, and the spray characteristics were used as output to train the machine learning model. For the machine learning model, the XGB (extreme gradient boosting) algorithm was used. Finally, the performance of machine learning model was evaluated using R² and RMSE (root mean square error). In order to have enough data to train the machine learning model, this study used 12 injectors with different design parameters, and set various fuel temperatures and ambient pressures, resulting in about 12,000 data. By comparing the performance of the model with different amounts of training data, it was found that the number of training data must reach at least 7,000 before the model can show optimal performance. The model showed different prediction performances for different spray characteristics. Compared with the upstream spray angle and the downstream spray angle, the model had the best prediction performance for the spray tip penetration. In addition, the prediction performance of the model showed a relatively poor trend in the initial stage of injection and the final stage of injection. The model performance is expired to be further enhanced by optimizing the hyper-parameters input into the model.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.24 no.6_2
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• pp.773-779
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• 2021

CNG, which has recently been attracting attention as an alternative fuel in the transportation field to reduce emissions caused by global warming, is natural gas with abundant reserves and mainly composed of methane. Being in a gaseous state, natural gas requires the compression and liquefaction processes for transportation. Until now, general shut-off valves for liquid and gas piping have been developed in Korea, but there are few studies on shut-off valves for high pressures of about 200 bar. Currently, research on the flow analysis of valves is being actively conducted around the world. However, there are relatively many studies on large valves such as low-pressure valves or shipbuilding and marine, and the safety factor through structural analysis to check the structural integrity of the valve is checked at the design stage. Since it is necessary to have a fast response speed while minimizing pressure and speed loss due to flow change, basic research was conducted on the flow analysis of the valve to secure design data, and the numerical analysis was performed on high-pressure automatic shut-off valves applied to CNG refueling stations. After securing the basic valve shape through reverse engineering for advanced products, we compared the valve flow coefficient Cv coefficient with advanced products. As a result, it was found that the reverse engineering model was at the level of about 60%. However, we compared the Cv coefficient by modifying the reverse engineering model, and the result showed that it was improved to about 96%.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.3
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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)).

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.84-93
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• 2022

To implement carbon-neutrality in transportation sectors until 2050, hydrogen is considered a promising fuel for internal combustion engines because hydrogen does not contain carbon itself. Although hydrogen does not emit CO₂ emission from its combustion process, the low energy density in a volume unit hinders the adoption of hydrogen. Therefore, the understanding of hydrogen jet behavior and measurement of equivalence ratio must be conducted to completely implement the high-pressure hydrogen direct injection. The main objective of this research is feasibility test of hydrogen local equivalence ratio measurement by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBs). To visualize the macroscopic structure of hydrogen jet, high-speed schlieren imaging was conducted. Moreover, LIBs has been adopted to validate the feasibility of hydrogen local equivalence ratio measurement. The hydrogen injection pressure was varied from 4 MPa to 8 MPa and injected in a constant volume chamber where the ambient pressure was 0.5 MPa. The increased injection pressure extends the vertical penetration of hydrogen jet. Due to the higher momentum supply when the injection pressure is high, the hydrogen has easily diffused in all directions. As the laser trigger timing has delayed, the low hydrogen atomic emission was detected due to the longer mixture formation time. Based on equivalence ratio measurement results, LIBs could be applied as a methodology for hydrogen local equivalence ratio measurement.