• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.502-503
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• 2009

• Korean System Dynamics Review
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.105-128
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• 2008

City of Gyeongju's referendum finally offered the long-waited low-level radioactive waste disposal site in November 2005. Gyeongju's positive decision was due to the various economic rewards and incentives the national government promised to the city. 300 billion won for an accepting bonus, the location of the headquarter building of the Korean Hydro and Nuclear Power Co., and the accelerator research center and 3.25 trillion won for supporting regional development program implementation. All of the above will affect the city's infrastructure and the citizens' economic and social lives. Population, land use, economic structure, SOC and quality of life will be affected. Some will be very positive, and some will be negative. This research project will see the future of the city and forecast the demographic, economic, physical and environmental changes of the city via computer simulation's system dynamics technique. This kind of simulation will help City of Gyeongju's what to prepare for the future. The population forecasting of the year 2046 will be 662,424 with the waste disposal site, and 327,274 without the waste disposal site in Gyeongju. The waste disposal site and regional supporting program will increase 184,246 Jobs more with 1,605 agriculture and fishery, 5,369 manufacturing shops and 27,577 shops. The population increase will bring 96,726 more houses constructed in the city. Land use will also be affected. More land will be developed. And road, water plant and waste water plant will be expanded as much. The city's financial structure will be expanded, due to the increased revenues from the waste disposal site, and property tax revenues from the middle-class employees of the company, and the high-powered scientists and technologists from the accelerator research center. All in all, the future of the city will be brighter after operating the nuclear waste disposal site inside the city.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.11-19
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• 2016

This paper focuses on the estimation of durability and service-life of reinforced concrete structures in Wolsong Low- and intermediate-level wastes Disposal Center (WLDC) in Korea. There are six disposal silos located in the saturated environment. The silo concrete is degraded due to reactions with groundwater and chemical attacks, and finally it will lose its properties as a transport barrier. The infiltration of sulfate and magnesium, leaching of potassium hydroxide, and chlorine induced corrosion are the most significant factors for degradation of reinforced concrete structure in underground environment. From the result of evaluation of the degradation time for each factor, the degradation rate of the reinforced concrete due to sulfate and magnesium is $1.308{\times}10^{-3}cm/yr$, and it is estimated to take 48,000 years for full degradation while potassium hydroxide is leached in depth of less than 1.5 cm at 1,000 years after the initiation of degradation. In case of chlorine induced corrosion, it takes 1,648 years to initiate corrosion in the main reinforced bar and 2,288 years to reach the lifetime limit of the structural integrity, and thus it is evaluated as the most significant factor.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.169-170
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• 2019

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.10
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• pp.25-31
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• 2017

The buffer is one of the major components of an engineered barrier system (EBS) for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). As the buffer is located between a disposal canister and host rock, it is indispensable to assure the disposal safety of high-level radioactive waste. It can restrain the release of radionuclide and protect the canister from the inflow of groundwater. Since high quantity of heat from a disposal canister is released to the surrounding buffer, thermal properties of the buffer are very important parameters for the analysis of the entire disposal safety. Especially, temperature criteria of the compacted bentonite buffer can affect the design of HLW repository facility. Therefore, this paper investigated thermal properties for the Kyungju compacted bentonite buffer which is the only bentonite produced in South Korea. Hot wire method and dual probe method were used to measure thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity of the compacted bentonite buffer according to the temperature variation. Thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity were decreased dramatically when temperature variation was between $22^{\circ}C{\sim}110^{\circ}C$ as degree of saturation decreased according to the temperature variation. However, there was little variation under the high temperature condition at $110^{\circ}C{\sim}150^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.267-270
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• 2021

Long-term experiments have been conducted on two important safety issues: long-term durability of a concrete barrier with the steel reinforcements and gas generation from low-and intermediate-level wastes in an underground research tunnel of a radioactive waste disposal facility. The gas generation and microbial communities were monitored from waste packages (200 L and 320 L) containing simulated dry active wastes. In the concrete experiment, corrosion sensors were installed on the steel reinforcements which were embedded 10 cm below the surface of concrete in a concrete mock-up, and groundwater was fed into the mock-up at a pressure of 2.1 bars to accelerate groundwater infiltration. No clear evidence was observed with respect to corrosion initiation of the steel reinforcement for 4 years of operation. This is attributed to the high integrity and low hydraulic conductivity of the concrete. In the gas generation experiment, significant levels of gas generation were not measured for 4 years. These experiments are expected to be conducted for a period of more than 10 years.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.239-256
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• 2017

In the process of site selection for a radioactive waste disposal, site characterization must be carried out to obtain input parameters to assess the safety and feasibility of deep geological repository. In this paper, methodologies of site characterization for radioactive waste disposal in Korea were suggested based on foreign cases of site characterization. The IAEA recommends that site characterization for radioactive waste disposal should be performed through stepwise processes, in which the site characterization period is divided into preliminary and detailed stages, in sequence. This methodology was followed by several foreign countries for their geological disposal programs. General properties related to geological environments were obtained at the preliminary site characterization stage; more detailed site characteristics were investigated during the detailed site characterization stage. The results of investigation of geology, hydro-geology, geochemistry, rock mechanics, solute transport and thermal properties at a site have to be combined and constructed in the form of a site descriptive model. Based on this site descriptive model, the site characteristics can be evaluated to assess suitability of site for radioactive waste disposal. According to foreign site characterization cases, 7 or 8 years are expected to be needed for site characterization; however, the time required may increase if the no proper national strategy is provided.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.323-334
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• 2023

The vast volumes of data that are generated during site characterization and associated research for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste require effective data management to properly chronicle and archive this information. The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company, SKB, established the SICADA database for site selection, evaluation, analysis, and modeling. The German Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal, BGE, established ArbeitsDB, a database and document management system, and the ELO data system to manage data collected according to the Repository Site Selection Act. The U.K. Nuclear Waste Services established the Data Management System to manage any research and survey data pertaining to nuclear waste storage and disposal. The U.S. Department of Energy and Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management established the Technical Data Management System for data management and subsequent licensing procedures during site characterization surveys. The presented cases undertaken by these national agencies highlight the importance of data quality management and the scalability of data utilization to ensure effective data management. Korea should also pursue the establishment of both a data management concept for radioactive waste disposal that considers data quality management and scalability from a long-term perspective and an associated data management system.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.281-299
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• 2017

The inventory management of radionuclides is essential for the safe management of disposal facilities. In this study, we compared the activity of dry active waste predicted using the generated waste data and that measured for the accepted waste in the disposal facility. For very low level waste, the measured activity was higher than the predicted activity for $^{137}CS$, $^{90}Sr$, $^{99}Tc$ and $^{129}I$. In low level waste, the predicted activity was higher than the measured activity for all radionuclides. We also evaluated the variation in the predicted quantity and total activity of each level of dry active waste through a sensitivity analysis on a scaling factor. This result will contribute to the construction of a Safety Case and safe operation of disposal facilities.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.63-72
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• 2015

The low and intermediate-level radioactive waste generated in Korea is disposed of at Wolsong Disposal Facility. For the safety of a disposal facility, it must be assessed by considering some abnormal scenarios including human intrusion as well as those by natural phenomena. The human intrusion scenario is a scenario that an incognizant man of the disposal facility will be occurred by the drilling. In this paper, the well usage scenario was classified into the human intrusion event as the probability of the well drilling is very low during the man's lifecycle and then was assessed by using conservative assumptions. This scenario was assessed using the dilution factor of contaminants released from a disposal facility and then it was introduced the applied methodology in this study. The assessed scenario using this methodology is satisfied the regulatory limits.