• Proceedings of the Korean Reliability Society Conference
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• 2002.06a
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• pp.387-401
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• 2002

The Digital Engineered Safety Feature Actuation System (DESFAS) of nuclear power plants actuates safety systems to mitigate severe accidents occurred in nuclear power plants. The reliability of the system should be evaluated in order to meet the reliability criteria of nuclear power plants. In this work, we have calculated and evaluated the lifetime of DESFAS by using Reliability Block Diagram (RBD) and failure rates of digital control components. Surveillance test is assumed in the evaluation. The result shows that the digital control component can be used in DESFAS system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.269-276
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• 2008

Operational license of WWER-440/213 units at Paks NPP, Hungary is limited to the design lifetime of 30 years. Prolongation by additional 20 years of the operational lifetime is feasible. Moreover, enhancement of the reactor thermal power by 8% will increase both the net power output and the competitiveness of the plant. Paks NPP is a pioneer considering the power up-rate and preparation of long-term operation of WWER-440/213 design. Systematic preparatory work for long-term operation of Paks NPP has been started in 2000. A regulatory framework and a comprehensive engineering practice have been developed. According to the authors view, creation of a gapless engineering system via consequent application of best practices, and feed-back of experiences together with proper consideration of WWER-440/V213 features are the decisive elements of ensuring the safety of long-term operation. That systematic engineering approach is in the focus of recent paper. Key elements of justification and measures for ensuring the safety of long-term operation of Paks NPP WWER-440/213 units are identified and discussed. These are the assessment of plant condition and review of adequacy of ageing management programmes, also the review, validation and reconstitution of time limited ageing analyses as core tasks of licence renewal.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.7
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• pp.2756-2766
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• 2024

Small rod-controlled pressurized water reactors (PWR) are the ideal energy source for vessel propulsion, benefiting from their high reactivity control efficiency. Since the control rods (CRs) increase the complexity of reactivity control, this paper seeks to study the performance of CRs in small rod-controlled PWRs to extend the lifetime and reduce power offset due to CRs. This study investigates CR grouping, move-in/out strategies, and axially non-uniform design effects on core neutron physics metrics. These metrics include axial offset (AO), core lifetime (CL), fuel utilization (FU), and radial power peaking factor (R-PPF). To simulate the movement of the CRs, a "Critical-CR-burnup" function was developed in OpenMC. In CR designs, the CRs are grouped into three banks to study the simultaneous and prioritized move-in/out strategies. The results show CL extension from 590 effective full power days (EFPDs) to 638-698 EFPDs. A lower-worth prioritized strategy minimizes AO and the extremum values decrease from -0.69 and + 0.81 to -0.28 and + 0.51. Although an axially non-uniform CR design can improve AO at the beginning of cycle (BOC), considering the overall CR worth change is crucial, as a significant decrease can adversely impact axial power distribution during the middle of cycle (MOC).

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.327-327
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• 2001

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.1396-1398
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• 2003

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.731-737
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• 2019

In this study, a new measurement method based on voltage transients in CdZnTe detectors response to low energy photon irradiations is applied to measure the electron mobility (${\mu}_e$) and electron mobility-lifetime product $({\mu}{\tau})_e$ in a CdZnTe detector. In the proposed method, the pulse rise times are derived from low energy photon response to 59.5 keV($^{241}Am$), 88 keV($^{109}Cd$) and 122 keV($^{57}Co$) ${\gamma}-rays$ for the irradiation of the cathode surface at each detector for different bias voltages. The electron $({\mu}{\tau})_e$ product was then determined by measuring the variation in the photopeak amplitude as a function of bias voltage at a given photon energy using a pulse-height analyzer. The $({\mu}{\tau})_e$ values were found to be $(9.6{\pm}1.4){\times}10^{-3}cm^2V^{-1}$ for $1000mm^3$, $(8.4{\pm}1.6){\times}10^{-3}cm^2V^{-1}$ for $1687.5mm^3$ and $(7.6{\pm}1.1){\times}10^{-3}cm^2V^{-1}$ for $2250mm^3$ CdZnTe detectors. Those results were then compared with the literature $({\mu}{\tau})_e$ values for CdZnTe detectors. The present results indicate that, the electron mobility ${\mu}_e$ and electron $({\mu}{\tau})_e$ values in CdZnTe detectors can be measured easily by applying voltage transients response to low energy photons, utilizing a fast signal acquisition and data reduction and evaluation.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.43-49
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• 2010

In the present study, optimization of throttle margin for high pressure turbine to be retrofitted or partially modified for power uprating or life extension in nuclear power plant, has been performed to increase the electrical output. Throttle margin for high pressure turbine is required to maintain all the time the rated power by opening more of governor valves whenever inlet pressure is decreased due to the tube plugging of steam generator. If throttle margin of high pressure turbine is too much compared to remaining lifetime, loss of electrical output due to pressure drop of governor valves is inevitable. On the contrary, if it is too little, the rated power operation can not be accomplished when inlet pressure of high pressure turbine is dropped after many years operation. So, throttle margin for high pressure turbine in nuclear power plant is compromised considering for the degradation of steam generator, governor valve capacity, manufacturing tolerance of high pressure turbine, future plan of power uprating, and remaining lifetime of power plant.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.566-594
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• 2000

In most LMFBR(Liquid Metal Fast Breed Reactor) design, the operating temperature is very high and the time-dependent creep and stress-rupture effects become so important in reactor structural design. Therefore, unlike with conventional PWR, the normal operating conditions can be basically dominant design loading because the hold time at elevated temperature condition is so long and enough to result in severe total creep ratcheting strains during total service lifetime. In this paper, elevated temperature design of the conceptually designed baffle annulus regions of KALIMER(Korea Advanced Liquid MEtal Reactor) reactor internal strictures is carried out for normal operating conditions which have the operating temperature 53$0^{\circ}C$ and the total service lifetime of 30 years. For the elevated temperature design of reactor internal structures, the ASME Code Case N-201-4 is used. Using this code, the time-dependent stress limits, the accumulated total inelastic strain during service lifetime, and the creep-fatigue damages are evaluated with the calculation results by the elastic analysis under conservative assumptions. The application procedures of elevated temperature design of the reactor internal structures using ASME Code Case N-201-4 with the elastic analysis method are described step by step in detail. This paper will be useful guide for actual application of elevated temperature design of various reactor types accounting for creep and stress-rupture effects.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.05b
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• pp.691-698
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• 1996

This paper propose a procedure to estimate the system lifetime distribution using simulation method in a parametric framework and also develop the criterion for terminating the simulation. We assume that a system is composed of many components whose lifetime and repair time distributions are general, and repair of each component is imperfect or not. General simulation algorithms can not be adopted for this case, due to the dependency of successive operating times and the discontinuity in base line intensity function of failure process. Then we propose algorithms for generating failure times subject to imperfect repair. We develop the event time tracking logic for identifying the system failure time, and also develop the criterion for terminating the simulation. Our procedure is composed of two phases. The first phase of the procedure is to generate the system failure times from the inputs. The second phase is to estimate the lifetime distribution of the system. The best model is selected by a fully automated procedure among well-known parametric families, and the required parameters are estimated. We give examples to show the accuracy of our procedure and the effect of repair effect of components to system MTTF(Mean Time To Failure).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.2094-2106
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• 2022

The solid-state core of a heat pipe cooled reactor operates at high temperatures over 1000 K with thermal and irradiation-induced expansion during burnup. The expansion changes the gap thickness between the solid components and the material properties, and may even cause the gap closure, which then significantly influences the thermal and mechanical characteristics of the reactor core. This study developed an irradiation behavior model for HPRTRAN, a heat pipe reactor system analysis code, to introduce the irradiation effects such as swelling and creep. The megawatt heat pipe reactor MegaPower was chosen as an application case. The coupled irradiation-thermal-mechanical model was developed to simulate the irradiation effects on the heat transfer and stresses of the whole reactor core. The results show that the irradiation deformation effect is significant, with the irradiation-induced strains up to 2.82% for fuel and 0.30% for monolith at the end of the reactor lifetime. The peak temperatures during the lifetime are 1027:3 K for the fuel and 956:2 K for monolith. The gap closure enhances the heat transfer but caused high stresses exceeding the yield strength in the monolith.