• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.26-35
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• 2021

In this study, CFD analysis was conducted to compare the aerodynamic performance of the isolated propeller and pusher propeller, which is affected by the wake of wide fuselage. The moving reference frame (MRF) method was used for isolated propeller analysis, while the MRF and sliding mesh method were used sequentially for the pusher propeller to analyze the change in the aerodynamic characteristics based on the azimuth angle. Under the same torque condition, the thrust of the pusher propeller was greater than that of the isolated propeller. Thrust increment of the pusher propeller was mainly generated near the root of the blade where the fuselage wake was concentrated. The net efficiency of the pusher propeller was greater than or equal to that of the isolated propeller. Because of the flat fuselage shape, thrust and torque of the pusher propeller periodically changed with the rotation of the propeller.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.10
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• pp.3803-3810
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• 2022

OpenMC is a community-driven open-source Monte Carlo neutron and photon transport simulation code. The Weight Window Mesh (WWM) function and an automatic Global Variance Reduction (GVR) method was recently developed and implemented in a developmental branch of OpenMC. This WWM function and GVR method broaden OpenMC's usage in general purposes deep penetration shielding calculations. However, the Local Variance Reduction (LVR) method, which suits the source-detector problem, is still missing in OpenMC. In this work, the Weight Window Generator (WWG) function has been developed and benchmarked for the same branch. This WWG function allows OpenMC to generate the WWM for the source-detector problem on its own. Single-material cases with varying shielding and sources were used to benchmark the WWG function and investigate how to set up the particle histories utilized in WWG-run and WWM-run. Results show that there is a maximum improvement of WWM generated by WWG. Based on the above results, instructions on determining the particle histories utilized in WWG-run and WWM-run for optimal computation efficiency are given and tested with a few multi-material cases. These benchmarks demonstrate the ability of the OpenMC WWG function and the above instructions for the source-detector problem. This developmental branch will be released and merged into the main distribution in the future.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.1391-1402
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• 2021

The aim of this work is to prepare a neutron noise calculator based on the second order of average current nodal expansion method (ACNEM). Generally, nodal methods have the ability to fulfill the neutronic analysis with adequate precision using coarse meshes as large as a fuel assembly size. But, for the zeroth order of ACNEM, the accuracy of neutronic simulations may not be sufficient when coarse meshes are employed in the reactor core modeling. In this work, the capability of second order ACNEM is extended for solving the neutron diffusion equation in the frequency domain using coarse meshes. For this purpose, two problems are modeled and checked including a slab reactor and 2D BIBLIS PWR. For validating of results, a semi-analytical solution is utilized for 1D test case, and for 2D problem, the results of both forward and adjoint neutron noise calculations are exploited. Numerical results indicate that by increasing the order of method, the errors of frequency dependent coarse mesh solutions are considerably decreased in comparison to the reference. Accordingly, the accuracy of second order ACNEM can be acceptable for the neutron noise calculations by using coarse meshes in the nuclear reactor core.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.1483-1490
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• 2021

Many studies are undertaken into nuclear power plants (NPPs) in preparation for accidents exceeding design standards. In this paper, we analyze the applicability of various wireless communication technologies as accident countermeasures in different NPP environments. In particular, a commercial wireless communication module (WCM) is investigated by measuring leakage current and packet error rate (PER), which vary depending on the intensity of incident radiation on the module, by testing at a Co-60 gamma-ray irradiation facility. The experimental results show that the WCMs continued to operate after total doses of 940 and 1097 Gy, with PERs of 3.6% and 0.8%, when exposed to irradiation dose rates of 185 and 486 Gy/h, respectively. In short, the lower irradiation dose rate decreased the performance of WCMs more than the higher dose rate. In experiments comparing the two communication protocols of request/response and one-way, the WCMs survived up to 997 and 1177 Gy, with PERs of 2% and 0%, respectively. Since the request/response protocol uses both the transmitter and the receiver, while the one-way protocol uses only the transmitter, then the electronic system on the side of the receiver is more vulnerable to radiation effects. From our experiments, the tested module is expected to be used for design-based accidents (DBAs) of "Category A" type, and has confirmed the possibility of using wireless communication systems in NPPs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.752-762
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• 2021

The Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics is one of the most widely used mesh-free numerical method for thermo-fluid dynamics. Due to its Lagrangian nature and simplicity, it is recently gaining popularity in simulating complex physics with large deformations. In this study, the 3D single/two-phase numerical simulations are performed on the Liquid Metal Reactor (LMR) centralized sloshing benchmark experiment using the SPH parallelized using a GPU. In order to capture multi-phase flows with a large density ratio more effectively, the original SPH density and continuity equations are re-formulated in terms of the normalized-density. Based upon this approach, maximum sloshing height and arrival time in various experimental cases are calculated by using both single-phase and multi-phase SPH framework and the results are compared with the benchmark results. Overall, the results of SPH simulations show excellent agreement with all the benchmark experiments both in qualitative and quantitative manners. According to the sensitivity study of the particle-size, the prediction accuracy is gradually increasing with decreasing the particle-size leading to a higher resolution. In addition, it is found that the multi-phase SPH model considering both liquid and air provides a better prediction on the experimental results and the reality.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.146-150
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• 2020

In general, hot metal castings contract and molds expand during the cooling step of a casting process. Therefore, it is important to consider both the casting and mold at the same time in a casting process analysis. For a more accurate analysis that includes the contact characteristics, matching each node of the casting and mold in the contact area is recommended. However, it is very difficult to match the nodes of the casting and the mold when generating elements due to the geometric problem of CAD model data. The present study proposes a mesh generation technique that considers mechanical contact between the casting and the mold in a casting analysis (finite element analysis). The technique focuses on the fact that the mold surrounds the casting. After generating the 3D elements for the casting, the surface elements of the casting in contact with the mold are projected inside the mold to create contact elements that coincide with the contact surface of the casting. It was confirmed that high-quality contact element information and a 3D element net can be automatically generated by the method proposed in this study.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.9
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• pp.3213-3228
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• 2023

As an important part of the digital reactor, the pin-by-pin wise fine coupling calculation is a research hotspot in the field of nuclear engineering in recent years. It provides more precise and realistic simulation results for reactor design, operation and safety evaluation. CORCA-K a nodal code is redeveloped as a robust pin-by-pin wise neutronics and thermal-hydraulic coupled calculation code for pressurized water reactor (PWR) core. The nodal green's function method (NGFM) is used to solve the three-dimensional space-time neutron dynamics equation, and the single-phase single channel model and one-dimensional heat conduction model are used to solve the fluid field and fuel temperature field. The mesh scale of reactor core simulation is raised from the nodal-wise to the pin-wise. It is verified by two benchmarks: NEACRP 3D PWR and PWR MOX/UO₂. The results show that: 1) the pin-by-pin wise coupling calculation system has good accuracy and can accurately simulate the key parameters in steady-state and transient coupling conditions, which is in good agreement with the reference results; 2) Compared with the nodal-wise coupling calculation, the pin-by-pin wise coupling calculation improves the fuel peak temperature, the range of power distribution is expanded, and the lower limit is reduced more.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.9
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• pp.3301-3312
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• 2023

This study incorporates a high-fidelity transient analysis solver based on multigroup CMFD in the MOC code STREAM. Transport modeling with heterogeneous geometries of the reactor core increases computational cost in terms of memory and time, whereas the multigroup CMFD reduces the computational cost. The reactor condition does not change at every time step, which is a vital point for the utilization of CMFD. CMFD correction factors are updated from the transport solution whenever the reactor core condition changes, and the simulation continues until the end. The transport solution is adjusted once CMFD achieves the solution. The flux-weighted method is used for rod decusping to update the partially inserted control rod cell material, which maintains the solution's stability. A smaller time-step size is needed to obtain an accurate solution, which increases the computational cost. The adaptive step-size control algorithm is robust for controlling the time step size. This algorithm is based on local errors and has the potential capability to accept or reject the solution. Several numerical problems are selected to analyze the performance and numerical accuracy of parallel computing, rod decusping, and adaptive time step control. Lastly, a typical pressurized LWR was chosen to study the rod-ejection accident.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.11
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• pp.4338-4347
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• 2022

The CUPID code was developed and is continuously updated in KAERI. Verification and validation (V&V) is mainly done for light water reactors (LWRs). This paper describes a benchmarking of the detailed mesh level compared with sub-channel level for application to pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs), even though component scale comparison for the PHWR moderator system was done once before. We completed a sub-channel level comparison between the CUPID code and the ASSERT code and a CUPID code analysis. Because the ASSERT code has already been validated with numerous experiments, benchmarking with the ASSERT code will offer us more trust on the CUPID code. The target channel has high power and thus high pressure deformation. The high power channel tends to have a high possibility of critical heat flux (CHF), because a high void fraction and quality in channel exit region appear. In this research, after determining the reference grid and T/H model, we compared the sub-channel level results of the CUPID code with those of the ASSERT code.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.215-222
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• 2023

Zooplankton are primary consumers in the food web connecting primary producers and predators such as small fish, playing an important role in energy transfer in aquatic ecosystems. Therefore, it is essential to understand the zooplankton community structure in material cycle and energy flow in aquatic ecosystems. Zooplankton in large rivers with a low flow rate would distribute vertically as in lakes. In this study, we collected zooplankton by surface water filtration and vertical haul method with 64 ㎛-mesh plankton net at three stations (ND-1, ND-2, ND-3) in Nakdong River fortnightly from June 2018 to December 2019. Species composition and individual densities were analyzed. All three stations showed differences in relative abundance of zooplankton groups between surface water and vertical integrated water, with the largest difference shown in the deepest station, ND-2. In vertically integrated water at ND-2, the relative abundance of rotifera was low by a maximum of 25% and that of cladocera was high by a maximum of 22% compared to surface water samples. These results indicate that surface water filtration method is not enough to represent the community structure of zooplankton compared to the vertical haul method in large rivers.