• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.34-42
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• 2017

Material defects in the Steam Generator Tubes (SGT) of sodium cooled fast breeder reactor (PFBR) can lead to leakage of water into sodium. The water and sodium reaction will lead to major accidents. Therefore, the examination of steam generator tubes for the early detection of defects is an important requirement for safety and economic considerations. In this work, the Magnetic Flux Leakage (MFL) based Non Destructive Testing (NDT) technique is used to perform the defect detection process. The rectangular notch defects on the outer surface of steam generator tubes are modeled using COMSOL multiphysics 4.3a software. The obtained MFL images are de-noised to improve the integrity of flaw related information. Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) features are extracted from MFL images and taken as input parameter to train the neural network. A comparative study on characterization have been carried out using feed-forward back propagation (FFBP) and cascade-forward back propagation (CFBP) algorithms. The results of both algorithms are evaluated with Mean Square Error (MSE) as a prediction performance measure. The average percentage error for length, depth and width are also computed. The result shows that the feed-forward back propagation network model performs better in characterizing the defects.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.330-338
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• 2016

The U-Zr or U-TRU-Zr cylindrical metallic fuel slug used in fast reactors is known to swell significantly and to grow during irradiation. In neutronics simulations of metallic-fueled fast reactors, it is assumed that the slug has swollen and contacted cladding, and the bonding sodium has been removed from the fuel region. In this research, a realistic burnup-dependent fuel-swelling simulation was performed using Monte Carlo code McCARD for a single-batch compact sodium-cooled breed-and-burn reactor by considering the fuel-swelling behavior reported from the irradiation test results in EBR-II. The impacts of the realistic burnup-dependent fuel swelling are identified in terms of the reactor neutronics performance, such as core lifetime, conversion ratio, axial power distribution, and local burnup distributions. It was found that axial fuel growth significantly deteriorated the neutron economy of a breed-and-burn reactor and consequently impaired its neutronics performance. The bonding sodium also impaired neutron economy, because it stayed longer in the blanket region until the fuel slug reached 2% burnup.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.9
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• pp.3122-3125
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• 2021

Electromagnetic vortex flowmeter is a new type of instrument for detecting leakage of steam generator, and the signal processing method based on the envelope to calculate energy ratio can effectively detect bubbles in sodium flow. The signal processing method is not affected by changes in the amplitude of the sensor output signal, which is caused by changes in magnetic field strength and other factors. However, the detection sensitivity of the electromagnetic vortex flowmeter is reduced. To this end, a signal processing method based on inverse Fourier transform to calculate energy ratio is proposed. According to the difference between the frequency band of the bubble noise signal and the flow signal, only the amplitude in the frequency band of the flow signal is retained in the frequency domain, and then the flow signal is obtained by the inverse Fourier transform method, thereby calculating the energy ratio. Using this method to process the experimental data, the results show that it can detect 0.1 g/s leak rate of water in the steam generator, and its performance is significantly better than that of the signal processing method based on the envelope to calculate energy ratio.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.8
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• pp.1025-1044
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• 2009

Systematic research has been conducted by KAERI to develop a supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle energy conversion system coupled with a sodium cooled fast reactor. For the development of the supercritical $CO_2$ Brayton cycle ECS, KAERI researched four major fields, separately. For the system development, computer codes were developed to design and analyze the supercritical $CO_2$ Brayton cycle ECS coupled with the KALIMER-600. Computer codes were developed to design and analyze the performance of the major components such as the turbomachinery and the high compactness PCHE heat exchanger. Three dimensional flow analysis was conducted to evaluate their performance. A new configuration for a PCHE heat exchanger was developed by using flow analysis, which showed a very small pressure loss compared with a previous PCHE while maintaining its heat transfer rate. Transient characteristics for the supercritical $CO_2$ Brayton cycle coupled with KALIMER-600 were also analyzed using the developed computer codes. A Na-$CO_2$ pressure boundary failure accident was analyzed with a computer code that included a developed model for the Na-$CO_2$ chemical reaction phenomena. The MMS-LMR code was developed to analyze the system transient and control logic. On the basis of the code, the system behavior was analyzed when a turbine load was changed. This paper contains the current research overview of the supercritical $CO_2$ Brayton cycle coupled to the KALIMER-600 as an alternative energy conversion system.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.233-239
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• 2017

The CA (Control Assembly) of an SFR has a CRA(Control Rod Assembly) with an inner duct and control rod. During an emergency situation, the CRA falls into the duct of the CA for a rapid shut-down. The drop time and impact velocity of the CRA are important parameters with respect to the reactivity insertion time and the structural integrity of the CRA. The objective of this study was to investigate the dynamic behavior and integrity of the CRA owing to a drop impact. The impact analysis of the CRA under normal/abnormal drop conditions was carried out using the commercial FEM code LS-DYNA. Results of the drop impact analysis demonstrated that the CRA maintained structural integrity, and could be safely inserted into the flow hole of the damper under abnormal conditions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.323-334
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• 2013

During a hypothetical core-disruptive accident (CDA) in a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), degraded core materials can form roughly conically-shaped debris beds over the core-support structure and/or in the lower inlet plenum of the reactor vessel from rapid quenching and fragmentation of the core material pool. However, coolant boiling may ultimately lead to leveling of the debris bed, which is crucial to the relocation of the molten core and heat-removal capability of the debris bed. To clarify the mechanisms underlying this self-leveling behavior, a large number of experiments were performed within a variety of conditions in recent years, under the constructive collaboration between the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and Kyushu University (Japan). The present contribution synthesizes and gives detailed comparative analyses of those experiments. Effects of various experimental parameters that may have potential influence on the leveling process, such as boiling mode, particle size, particle density, particle shape, bubbling rate, water depth and column geometry, were investigated, thus giving a large palette of favorable data for the better understanding of CDAs, and improved verifications of computer models developed in advanced fast reactor safety analysis codes.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.925-936
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• 2020

To ascertain the characteristics of pool sloshing behavior that might be encountered during a core disruptive accident of sodium-cooled fast reactors, in our earlier work several series of experiments were conducted under various scenarios including the condition with mono-sized solid particles. It is found that under the particle-bed condition, three typical flow regimes (namely the bubble-impulsion dominant regime, the transitional regime and the bed-inertia dominant regime) could be identified and a flow-regime model (base model) has been even successfully established to estimate the regime transition. In this study, aimed to further understand this behavior at more realistic particle-bed conditions, a series of simulated experiments is newly carried out using mixed-size particles. Through analyses, it is verified that for present scenario, by applying the area mean diameter, our previously-developed base model can provide the most appropriate predictive results among the various effective diameters. To predict the regime transition with a form of extension scheme, a correction factor which is based on the volume-mean diameter and the degree of convergence in particle-size distribution is suggested and validated. The conducted analyses in this work also indicate that under certain conditions, the potential separation between different particle components might exist during the sloshing process.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.2733-2742
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• 2020

This paper presents an assessment of applicability of the multigroup cross sections generated with Monte Carlo tools to the fast reactor analysis based on transport calculations. 33-group cross section sets were generated for simple one- (1-D) and two-dimensional (2-D) sodium-cooled fast reactor problems using the SERPENT code and applied to deterministic steady-state and depletion calculations. Relative to the reference continuous-energy SERPENT results, with the transport corrected P₀ scattering cross section, the k-eff value was overestimated by 506 and 588 pcm for 1-D and 2-D problems, respectively, since anisotropic scattering is important in fast reactors. When the scattering order was increased to P₅, the 1-D and 2-D problem errors were increased to 577 and 643 pcm, respectively. A sensitivity and uncertainty analysis with the PERSENT code indicated that these large k-eff errors cannot be attributed to the statistical uncertainties of cross sections and they are likely due to the approximate anisotropic scattering matrices determined by scalar flux weighting. The anisotropic scattering cross sections were alternatively generated using the MC²-3 code and merged with the SERPENT cross sections. The mixed cross section set consistently reduced the errors in k-eff, assembly powers, and nuclide densities. For example, in the 2-D calculation with P3 scattering order, the k-eff error was reduced from 634 pcm to -223 pcm. The maximum error in assembly power was reduced from 2.8% to 0.8% and the RMS error was reduced from 1.4% to 0.4%. The maximum error in the nuclide densities at the end of 12-month depletion that occurred in ²³⁷Np was reduced from 3.4% to 1.5%. The errors of the other nuclides are also reduced consistently, for example, from 1.1% to 0.1% for ²³⁵U, from 2.2% to 0.7% for ²³⁸Pu, and from 1.6% to 0.2% for ²⁴¹Pu. These results indicate that the scalar flux weighted anisotropic scattering cross sections of SERPENT may not be adequate for application to fast reactors where anisotropic scattering is important.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.331-345
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• 2023

The effects of pink inhibiting ingredients (PII) to eliminate the pink color defect in cooked turkey breast produced from presalted and stored raw ground turkey in the absence or presence of sodium tripolyphosphate (STP) were examined. Ground turkey breast was mixed with 2% sodium chloride and vacuum packaged. After storage for 6 d, ten PII were individually incorporated without or with added STP (0.5%) as follows: none (control), citric acid (CA; 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3%), calcium chloride (CC; 0.025%, 0.05%), ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid disodium salt (EDTA; 0.005%, 0.01%), and sodium citrate (SC; 0.5%, 1.0%). Treatments were cooked at a fast or slow cooking rate, cooled, and stored before analysis. All PII tested were capable of lowering inherent pink color compared to the control (No STP: CIE a^* pooled day reduction of 23.0%, 5.2%, 12.6%, and 12.6% for CA, CC, EDTA, and SC, respectively; STP: reduction of 21.5%, 17.4%, 6.0%, and 18.2% for CA, CC, EDTA, and SC, respectively). For samples without STP, fast cooking rate resulted in higher CIE a^*. However, slow cooking resulted in more red products than fast cooking when samples included STP. Presalting and storage of ground turkey caused the pink discoloration in uncured, cooked turkey (CIE a^* 6.24 and 5.12 for without and with STP). This pink discoloration can be decreased by inclusion of CA, CC, EDTA, or SC, but incorporation of CA decreased cooking yield. In particular, the addition of SC may provide some control without negatively impacting the cooking yield.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.225-242
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• 2015

The current investigation aims to study performance of geopolymer mortar reinforced with Multiwalled carbon nanotubes upon exposure to $200^{\circ}C$ to $1000^{\circ}C$ for 2 hrs. MWCNTs are doped into slag Geopolymer mortar matrices in the ratio of 0.0 to 0.4, % by weight of binder. Mortar composed of calcium aluminosilicate to sand (1:2), however, binder composed of 50% air cooled slag and 50% water cooled slag. Various water / binder ratios in the range of 0.114-0.129 used depending on the added MWCNT, while 6 wt., % sodium hydroxide used as an alkali activator. Results illustrate reduction in mechanical strength with temperature except specimens containing 0.1 and 0.2% MWCNT at $200^{\circ}C$, while further increase in temperature leads to decrease in strength values of the resulting geopolymer mortar. Also, decrease in firing shrinkage with MWCNT up to 0.1% at all firing temperatures up to $500^{\circ}C$ is observed, however the shrinkage values increase with temperature up to $500^{\circ}C$. Further increase on the firing temperature up to $1000^{\circ}C$ results in an increase in the volume due to expansion.