• Title/Summary/Keyword: nuclear waste disposal

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Water Balance Evaluation of Final Closure Cover for Near- surface Radioactive Wastes Disposal Facility

  • Keunmoo Chang;Park, Joo-Wan;Yoon, Jeong-Hyoun;Park, Heui-Joo;Kim, Chang-Lak
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.32 no.3
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    • pp.274-282
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    • 2000
  • The simulation of water balance was conducted for suggested four alternative multi-layer cover design of near-surface radioactive waste disposal facility under domestic climate condition. The analysis was also conducted for the most favorable one out of four alternative cover design under conservative scenarios. Until 100 years after closure of disposal vault, the infiltration flux for the most favorable cover design was negligible even under doubling of the ambient precipitation condition. When the degradation of asphalt and geomembrane after 100 years of closure was considered, the infiltration flux significantly increased almost to the design criteria of cover system in I' Aube disposal facility. And it was found that the hydraulic conductivity of bentonite/sand as a bottom barrier should be no greater than 1$\times$10$^{-7}$ cm/sec recommended by U.S. EPA.

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Status of Czech Low and Intermediate Radioactive Waste Management in the Context of European Development

  • Trtilek, Radek;Havlova, Vaclava;Podlaha, Josef;Svoboda, Karel;Otcovsky, Tomas
    • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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    • v.19 no.1
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    • pp.29-38
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    • 2021
  • The article summarises the status and competence of UJV Rez, a. s. (up to 2012, the Nuclear Research Institute Rez, Czech Republic) in the field of radioactive waste (RAW) management as a company managing of 95% of institutional radioactive wastes in Czech Republic. UJV Rez a. s. has been one of the Czech Republic's key research and engineering institutions in the field of nuclear energy production since 1955. The company processes and conditions prior to storage 95% of so-called institutional RAW and is the principal partner of the state with respect to the research support of the Czech deep geological repository development project. UJV Rez a. s. boasts its own accredited radiochemical analytical test laboratory, unique of its kind in the Czech Republic. Of equal importance is UJV Rez's active participation in a range of international organisations and associations and its involvement in wide range of international projects, and so as European projects. One of them is EU funded project PREDIS: Pre-disposal management of radioactive wastes, that has started at September 2020, focused on the field of low level radioactive waste (LLW) and intermediate level radioactive waste (ILW) pre-disposal.

Lifespan assessment of piezoelectric sensors under disposal condition of high-level nuclear waste repository

  • Changhee Park;Hyun-Joong Hwang;Chang-Ho Hong;Jin-Seop Kim;Gye-Chun Cho
    • Geomechanics and Engineering
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    • v.38 no.5
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    • pp.529-539
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    • 2024
  • A high-level nuclear waste (HLW) repository is designed for the long-term disposal of high-level waste. Positioned at depths of 500-1000 meters, it offers an alternative to the insufficient storage space for spent fuels, providing a long-term solution. High-level waste emits heat and radiation, causing structural deterioration, including strength reduction and cracks. Therefore, the use of piezoelectric sensors for structural health monitoring is essential for evaluating the safety of the structure over time. Unlike other structures, the HLW repository restricts human access after the disposal of HLW, rendering sensor replacement impossible. Therefore, it is necessary to assess both the lifespan and suitability of sensors under the disposal conditions in the HLW repository. This study employed an accelerated life test (ALT) to assess the sensor's lifespan under disposal conditions. Failure modes, failure mechanisms, and operational limits were analyzed through accelerated stress test (AST). Additionally, the parameters of the Weibull life probability distribution and the Arrhenius accelerated life model were estimated through statistical methods, including the likelihood ratio test, maximum likelihood estimation, and hypothesis testing. Results confirmed that the sensor's lifespan decreases significantly with the increase in the temperature limit of the HLW repository. The findings of this study can be used for improving sensor lifespan through shielding, development of alternative sensors, or lifespan evaluation of alternative monitoring sensors.

RADIATION SHIELDING EVALUATION OF IP-2 PACKAGES FOR LOW- AND INTERMEDIATE-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE

  • Kim, Min-Chul;Choi, Jong-Rak;Chung, Sung-Hwan;Ko, Jae-Hoon
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.40 no.6
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    • pp.511-516
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    • 2008
  • Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., Ltd. (KHNP) developed new IP-2 packages to transport low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste (LILW) steel drums from nuclear power plants to a disposal facility in accordance with IAEA and Korean transport regulations of radioactive material. Radiation shielding evaluation of the packages was carried out to demonstrate compliance with the regulatory requirements for IP-2 packages of radioactive material. Dose rate limits of LILW drums contained in the packages were determined.

A Current Status of Natural Analogues Programs in Nations Considering High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal

  • HunSuk Im;Dawoon Jeong;Min-Hoon Baik;Ji-Hun Ryu
    • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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    • v.21 no.1
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    • pp.65-93
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    • 2023
  • Several countries have been operating radioactive waste disposal (RWD) programs to construct their own repositories and have used natural analogues (NA) studies directly or indirectly to ensure the reliability of the long-term safety of deep geological disposal (DGD) systems. A DGD system in Korea has been under development, and for this purpose a generic NA study is necessary. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has just launched the first national NA R&D program in Korea to identify the role of NA studies and to support the safety case in the RWD program. In this article, we review some cases of NA studies carried out in advanced countries considering crystalline rocks as candidate host rocks for high-level radioactive waste disposal. We examine the differences among these case studies and their roles in reflecting each country's disposal repository design. The legal basis and roadmap for NA studies in each country are also described. However because the results of this analysis depend upon different environmental conditions, they can be only used as important data for establishing various research strategies to strengthen the NA study environment for domestic disposal system research in Korea.

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO RISK-BASED POST-CLOSURE SAFETY EVALUATION OF COMPLEX RADIATION EXPOSURE SITUATIONS IN RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL

  • Seo, Eun-Jin;Jeong, Chan-Woo;Sato, Seichi
    • Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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    • v.35 no.1
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    • pp.6-11
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    • 2010
  • Embodying the safety of radioactive waste disposal requires the relevant safety criteria and the corresponding stylized methods to demonstrate its compliance with the criteria. This paper proposes a conceptual model of risk-based safety evaluation for integrating complex potential radiation exposure situations in radioactive waste disposal. For demonstrating compliance with a risk constraint, the approach deals with important exposure scenarios from the viewpoint of the receptor to estimate the resulting risk. For respective exposure situations, it considers the occurrence probabilities of the relevant exposure scenarios as their probability of giving rise to doses to estimate the total risk to a representative person by aggregating the respective risks. In this model, an exposure scenario is simply constructed with three components:radionuclide release, radionuclide migration and environment contamination, and interaction between the contaminated media and the receptor. A set of exposure scenarios and the representative person are established from reasonable combinations of the components, based on a balance of their occurrence probabilities and the consequences. In addition, the probability of an exposure scenario is estimated on the assumption that the initiating external factors influence release mechanisms and transport pathways, and its effect on the interaction between the environment and the receptor may be covered in terms of the representative person. This integrated approach enables a systematic risk assessment for complex exposure situations of radioactive waste disposal and facilitates the evaluation of compliance with risk constraints.

Significance of In-Situ Stresses in Stability Analysis of Underground Nuclear Waste Disposal Repository (방사성 폐기물 지하처분장의 안정성 분석에 있어서 암반내 초기응력의 역할과 의미)

  • Choi, Sung-O.
    • Tunnel and Underground Space
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    • v.17 no.1 s.66
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    • pp.26-31
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    • 2007
  • The 11 nuclear power plants have been taking charge of more than 40% of the total electrical power development in Korea. In addition to the existing nuclear power plants at Gori, Wolsung, Youngkwang, etc., the 12 nuclear power plants are expected to be newly established until 2006. So, the 23 nuclear power plants will produce the electric power as much as more than 50% of the national gross production. However the nuclear power plants are inevitably generating the detrimental atomic wastes. Therefore the disposal techniques for the nuclear wastes should be ensured considering a very high safety factor. According to the basic researches in KAERI, the underground disposal repositories are reported to be most favorable for Korea. The KBS-3 disposal system has been strongly suggested by KAERI and this system has a deep tunnel with several disposal boreholes in tunnel floor. The nuclear wastes, which are sealed tightly in a canister, will be disposed in these boreholes. Considering the disposal tunnel in a great depth, the in-situ stress regimes will affect severely the tunnel stability. Consequently the effect of the in-situ stresses on the disposal tunnel and the role of the in-situ stresses in tunnel stability analysis are examined by the numerical studies.