• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제40권1호
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• pp.93-98
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• 2008

Several adhesive tapes have been studied in terms of their suitability for securing gold wires into positions for neutron flux measurements in the reactor core and irradiation facilities surrounding the core of the Open Pool Australian Light water (OPAL) reactor. Gamma ray spectrometry has been performed on each irradiated tape in order to identify and quantify activated components. Numerous metallic impurities have been identified in all tapes. Calculations relating to both the effective neutron shielding properties of the tapes and the error in measurement of the $^{198}Au$ activity caused by superfluous activity due to residual tape have been made. The most important identified effects were the prolonged cooling times required before safe enough levels of radioactivity to allow handling were reached, and extra activity caused by residual tape when measured with an ionisation chamber. Knowledge of the most suitable tape can allow a minimal contribution due to these effects, and the use of gamma spectrometry in preference to ionisation chamber measurements of the flux wires is shown to make all systematic errors due to the tape completely negligible.

• 한국표면공학회지
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• 제56권1호
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• pp.84-93
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• 2023

The spent nuclear fuel is burned during the planned cycle in the plant and then generates elements such as actinide series, fission products, and plutonium with a long half-life. An 'interim storage' step is needed to manage the high radioactivity and heat emitted by nuclides until permanent-disposal. In the case of Korea, there is no space to dispose of high-level radioactive waste after use, so there is a need for a period of time using interim storage. Therefore, the intensity of neutrons and gamma-ray must be determined to ensure the integrity of spent nuclear fuel during interim storage. In particular, the most important thing in spent nuclear fuel is burnup evaluation, estimation of the source term of neutrons and gamma-ray is regarded as a reference measurement of the burnup evaluation. In this study, an analysis of spent nuclear fuel was conducted by setting up a virtual fuel burnup case based on CE16×16 fuel to check the total amount and spectrum of neutron, gamma radiation produced. The correlation between BU (burnup), IE (enrichment), and CT (cooling time) will be identified through spent nuclear fuel burnup calculation. In addition, the composition of nuclide inventory, actinide and fission products can be identified.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권2호
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• pp.753-761
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• 2024

Introduction: In this study, TLD 600 and TLD 700 pairs were used to measure the neutron dose of Elekta Precise medical linac. To this end, the optimum moderate thickness for the conversion of fast to thermal neutrons were evaluated. Materials and methods: ²⁴¹Am-Be and ²⁵²Cf sources were simulated to calculate the optimum thicknesses of the moderator for the conversion of maximum fast neutrons (FN) into thermal neutrons (TN). Pair TLDs were used to measure F&TN doses for three different field sizes at four depths of the medical linac. Results: The maximum thickness of the moderator was optimized at 6 cm. The measurement results demonstrated that the TN dose increased with the expansion of field size and depth. The FN dose, which was converted TN, exhibits behaviors comparable to the TN due to its nature. Conclusion: This study presents the optimum thickness for the moderator to convert FN into TN and measure F&TN using TLDs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권2호
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• pp.617-626
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• 2022

To effectively monitor the variety of distributions of neutron flux, fuel power or temperatures in the reactor core, usually the ex-core and in-core neutron detectors are employed. The thermocouples for temperature measurement are installed in the coolant inlet or outlet of the respective fuel assemblies. It is necessary to reconstruct the measurement information of the whole reactor position. However, the reading of different types of detector in the core reflects different aspects of the 3D power distribution. The feasibility of reconstruction the core three-dimension power distribution by using different combinations of in-core, ex-core and thermocouples detectors is analyzed in this paper to synthesize the useful information of various detectors. A comparison of multilayer perceptron (MLP) network and radial basis function (RBF) network is performed. RBF results are more extreme precision but also more sensitivity to detector failure and uncertainty, compare to MLP networks. This is because that localized neural network could offer conservative regression in RBF. Adding random disturbance in training dataset is helpful to reduce the influence of detector failure and uncertainty. Some convolution neural networks seem to be helpful to get more accurate results by use more spatial layout information, though relative researches are still under way.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권10호
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• pp.3824-3832
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• 2022

Prompt capture gammas are an important part of the fission reactor gamma field. Because some of the structural materials after neutron capture can emit photons with high energies forming the dominant component of the gamma spectrum in the high energy region, the following study of the high energy capture gamma was carried out. High energy gamma radiation may play a major role in areas of the radiation sciences as reactor dosimetry. The HPGe measurements and calculations of the high-energy aluminum capture gamma were performed at two moderator levels in the VR-1 pool-type reactor. The result comparison for nominal levels was within two sigma uncertainties for the major 7.724 MeV peak. A larger discrepancy of 60% was found for the 7.693 MeV peak. The spectra were also measured using a stilbene detector, and a good agreement between HPGe and stilbene was observed. This confirms the validity of stilbene measurements of gamma flux. Additionally, agreement of the wide peak measurement in 7-9.2 MeV by stilbene detector shows the possibility of using the organic scintillators as an independent power monitor. This fact is valid in these reactor types because power is proportional to the thermal neutron flux, which is also proportional to the production of capture gammas forming the wide peak.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권12호
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• pp.2717-2724
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• 2020

Silicon, especially silicon in the form of SiO₂, is a major component of rocks. Final spent fuel storages, which are being designed, are located in suitable rock formations in the Earth's crust. Reduction of the uncertainty of silicon neutron scattering and capture is needed; improved silicon evaluations have been recently produced by the ORNL/IAEA collaboration within the INDEN project. This paper deals with the nuclear data validation of that evaluation performed at the LR-0 reactor by means of critical experiments and measurement of reaction rates. Large amounts of silicon were used both as pure crystalline silicon and SiO₂ sand. The critical moderator level was measured for various core configurations. Reaction rates were determined in the largest core configuration. Simulations of the experimental setup were performed using the MCNP6.2 code. The obtained results show the improvement in silicon cross-sections in the INDEN evaluations compared to existing evaluations in major libraries. The new Thermal Scattering Law for SiO₂ published in ENDF/B-VIII.0 additionally reduces the discrepancy between calculation and experiments. However, an unphysical peak is visible in the neutron spectrum in SiO₂ obtained by calculation with the new Thermal Scattering Law.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권12호
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• pp.4491-4503
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• 2023

This study aimed to verify and validate the transient simulation capability of the hybrid code system RAST-F for fast reactor analysis. For this purpose, control rod (CR) drop experiments involving eight separate CRs and six CR groups in the China Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) start-up tests were utilized to simulate the CR drop transient. The RAST-F numerical solution, including the neutron population, time-dependent reactivity, and CR worth, was compared against the measurement values obtained from two out-of-core detectors. Moreover, the time-dependent reactivity and CR worth from RAST-F were verified against the results obtained by the Monte Carlo code Serpent using continuous energy nuclear data. A code-to-code comparison between Serpent and RAST-F showed good agreement in terms of time-dependent reactivity and CR worth. The discrepancy was less than 160 pcm for reactivity and less than 110 pcm for CR worth. RAST-F solution was almost identical to the measurement data in terms of neutron population and reactivity. All the calculated CR worth results agreed with experimental results within two standard deviations of experimental uncertainty for all CRs and CR groups. This work demonstrates that the RAST-F code system can be a potential tool for analyzing time-dependent phenomena in fast reactors.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제32권4호
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• pp.178-183
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• 2007

중성자선은 고 LET (linear energy transfer) 방사선으로 X선이나 감마선 등의 저 LET 방사선보다 세포에 더욱 큰 손상을 입힌다. 중성자에 의한 손상은 일반적으로 세포에 있어서 치명적이며, 중성자선은 X선이나 감마선에 비하여 직접작용을 통하여 세포사를 일으키는 경향이 있다. 본 연구에서는 고속중성자선의 성장지연비 및 산소증강비를 동물실험을 통하여 측정하고자 하였다. BALB-c 마우스의 우측 하지에 EMT-6 세포주를 이식한 후 종양의 평균용적이 $200-300mm^3$가 되었을 때 X선 및 고속중성자선을 조사하였다. 정상산소환경 및 저산소환경의 종양에 대하여 X선은 0, 11, 15.4 Gy를 조사하였고 고속중성자선은 0, 5, 7, Gy를 조사하였다. 방사선조사 후에는 종양의 용적을 주 3회 측정하였다. 정상산소환경 실험군의 경우 저산소환경 실험군에 비하여 X선 11 Gy를 조사하였을 때 성장지연비가 1.34였고, 15.4 Gy를 조사하였을 때 1.33였다. 고속중성자선을 조사한 경우정상산소환경 실험군이 저산소환경 실험군에 비하여 고속중성자선 5 Gy를 조사하였을 때 성장지연비는 0.94였고, 고속중성자선 7 Gy를 조사하였을 때 0.98였다. 고속중성자선의 산소증강비는 0.97이었다. 고속중성자선은 X선에 비하여 저산소환경에 있는 종양의 성장억제에 있어서 보다 효과적이었다.

• Composites Research
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• 제36권6호
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• pp.435-440
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• 2023

본 연구에서는 기존 사용후핵연료(Spent nuclear fuel) 운반/저장 용기에 사용되는 중성자 흡수용 B₄C/Al 복합소재의 열전도도를 개선하기 위해 탄화붕소(B₄C)와 입방정 질화붕소(cBN)를 동시에 강화재로 사용한 알루미늄(Al) 기지 복합소재를 제조하고 평가를 진행하였다. 이를 위해서 교반주조 공정을 통해 복합재 잉곳을 제조하고 이를 압연하여 중성자 흡수용 소재를 성공적으로 제조하였다. 제조된 소재의 평가를 위해 cBN 첨가에 따른 열전도도와 중성자 흡수능 변화를 관찰하였다. 열전도도 측정 결과, B₄C 단일 입자만을 사용한 복합소재 대비 B₄C, cBN을 함께 사용한 복합소재가 동일 체적률 조건 하에서 약 3%의 열전도도 증가가 발생하는 것을 확인하였으며 중성자 흡수 단면적 계산을 통해 중성자 흡수능이 무시할 수 있는 수준으로 저하가 발생하는 것을 확인하였다. 본 연구의 결과를 바탕으로, 중성자 흡수 소재의 새로운 설계 방안을 제시하고 고성능 운반/저장 용기의 개발에 기여할 수 있을 것으로 기대된다.

• 한국의학물리학회지:의학물리
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• 제18권2호
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• pp.87-92
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• 2007

최대출력 30 MW, 하나로(HANARO) 다목적 연구용 원자로의 접선 중성자공에 붕소중성자포획치료(Boron Neutron Capture Therapy, BNCT)를 위한 열중성자 조사장치가 개발되었다. BNCT 조사장치에서는 서로 다른 물리적 특성과 생물학적 효과비를 가진 여러 성분의 방사선이 방출되기 때문에 정확한 투여선량을 결정하기 위해서는 각 성분의 정량적 분석이 필수적이다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 방사화 분석, 열형광선량계 및 이온전리함 등 여러 유형의 검출기를 사용하여 BNCT 조사장치에서 방출되는 열중성자 및 감마선 혼합장의 선량 성분을 분리, 측정하였다. 선량측정은 물 속에 함유된 불순물과 중성자의 이차반응을 최소화하기 위해 증류수를 채운 물팬텀을 이용하였다. 그리고 측정 결과는 MCNP4B 전산계산의 결과와 상호 비교하였다. 측정 결과 열중성자속은 물팬텀 10 mm와 20 mm 깊이에서 각각 $1.02E9n/cm^2{\cdot}s$과 $6.07E8n/cm^2{\cdot}s$이었고, 고속중성자선량율은 10 mm 깊이에서 0.11 Gy/hr로 미세하였다. 감마선량률은 물팬텀 20 mm 깊이에서 5.10 Gy/hr로 나타났다. 측정된 중성자와 감마선량값은 MCNP의 결과와 5% 이내로 잘 일치하였고, 열중성자속은 14%의 비교오차를 나타내었다. 이러한 결과들은 중성자 검출의 난이도를 고려할 때 충분히 신뢰할 수 있는 수준이라 판단되며, BNCT 임상 연구를 위한 선량평가 자료로 활용할 수 있을 것으로 사료된다.