• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.389-406
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• 2022

Recycling concrete construction waste is an encouraging step toward green and sustainable building. A lot of research has been done on recycled aggregate concretes (RACs), but not nearly as much has been done on concrete made with recycled aggregate. Recycled aggregate concrete, on the other hand, has been found to have a lower mechanical productivity compared to conventional one. Accurately estimating the mechanical behavior of the concrete samples is a most important scientific topic in civil, structural, and construction engineering. This may prevent the need for excess time and effort and lead to economic considerations because experimental studies are often time-consuming, costly, and troublous. This study presents a comprehensive data-mining-based model for predicting the splitting tensile strength of recycled aggregate concrete modified with glass fiber and silica fume. For this purpose, first, 168 splitting tensile strength tests under different conditions have been performed in the laboratory, then based on the different conditions of each experiment, some variables are considered as input parameters to predict the splitting tensile strength. Then, three hybrid models as GWO-RF, GWO-MLP, and GWO-SVR, were utilized for this purpose. The results showed that all developed GWO-based hybrid predicting models have good agreement with measured experimental results. Significantly, the GWO-RF model has the best accuracy based on the model performance assessment criteria for training and testing data.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.56 no.1
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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.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.316-322
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• 2005

In this study, the concentration of 17 dioxin congeners in the soil samples near a waste incinerator with respect to distance from incinerator and wind directions were investigated. The effect of PCB source was investigated using the cluster analysis method. The total concentration and I-TEQ concentration of dioxin ranged from 31.065 to 7,257.499 pg/g(dry weight) and from 0.099 to 35.191 pg I-TEQ/g(dry weight.), respectively. There was a weak correlation(not statistically significant) observed between soil concentration and wind direction, and the distance from the incinerator. The reason may be due to the presence of the local combustion sources other than the target incinerator. The fraction of PCDFs and PCDDs was also examined to study the effect of incinerator. The fraction of PCDFs was decreased with the distance from the incinerator. The influence of target incinerator was found within a 500-meter radius. The high concentration in the for site was due to small incinerators and the use of agricultural chemicals such as PCP. To investigate the relationship between soil near the incinerator and the sources, the cluster analysis was conducted using the congener pattern. As a result soil samples were divided into four groups and were qualitatively estimated the influence of sources such as incinerator and PCP by comparing the congener pattern of each roups. It was thought that a cluster analysis was a useful statistical method for the source estimation of dioxin.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.16 no.1 s.79
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• pp.79-87
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• 2004

The qualify of lightweight aggregate made from waste PET bottle(WPLA) and the workability, the unit weight and strength property of concrete with WPLA were investigated for the purpose of recycling the waste PET bottles as lightweight concrete fine aggregate. This study indicated a good result that WPLA should be replaced with less than $50\%$ of natural fine aggregate. When WPLA was replaced with $50\%$ of natural fine aggregate, the specific gravity and water absorption of mixed fine aggregate were greatly reduced about 23 and $75\%$ respectively in comparison with those of river sand. The quality of WPLA affected on the properties of lightweight aggregate concrete. The workability of fresh concrete with WPLA(WPLAC) was improved with increasing the replacement ratio of WPLA and water cement ratio. Slump increasing ratio of the former showed about $45 {\~} 120\%$ because that a specific gravity of fine aggregate was decreased from 2.6 to 1.7. The unit weight of concrete with $75\%$ WPLA was decreased about $17\%$ in comparison with that of control concrete. Furthermore, the compressive strength of concrete with 25 and $50 \%$ WPLA at the age of 28 days increased higher than 30 MPa regardless with water cement ratio (W/C=45, 49 and $53\%$) of this study. Specific strength of concrete with $25\%$ WPLA, $15.11{\times}10^3 MPa{\cdot}m^3/kg$, was higher than that of contro concrete in water cement ratio of $49\%$. The compressive strength-splitting tensile strength ratio and compressive strength-modulus of elasticity ratio of WPLAC were similar to that of nomal lightweight aggregate concrete. This results showed a good estimation that WPLA will be able to recycled as a fine aggregate for lightweight concrete.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.252-260
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• 2011

BACKGROUND: Currently, national biomass inventory are being established for efficient management of the potential energy sources. Among the various types of biomass, agricultural wastes are considered to take the biggest portion of the total annual biomass generated in Korea, implying its importance. However, the currently estimated amount is not reliable because the old reference data are still used to estimate total annual amount of agricultural wastes. METHODS AND RESULTS: Therefore, to provide reliable estimation data, a correct conversion factor obtained by taking into account the current situation is required. For this, the current study was conducted to provide the conversion factors for each representative 8 crop through a field cultivation study. Also conversion factors for 18 crops were calculated using the average amount of each crop produced during 2004 and 2008, subsequently; total amount of agricultural wastes generated in 2009 was estimated using these conversion factors. The total biomass of rice straw and rice husk generated in 2009 were 6.5 and 1.1 million tons, respectively, which consist 75% of the total agricultural based wastes, while the total biomass of pepper shoots and apple pruning twigs were 1.0 and 0.6 million tons, respectively. Despite the high amount of rice-based biomass, their applicability for bio-energy production is low due to conventional utilization of these materials for animal feeds and beds for animal husbandry. In addition to exact estimation of the total biomass, temporal variations in both generated amount and the type of agricultural biomass materials are also important for efficient utilization; fruit pruning twigs (January to March); barley-, been-, and mustard-related waste materials (April to June); rice-related waste (September to October). CONCLUSION(s): Such information provided in this study can be used to establish a master plan for efficient utilization of the agricultural wastes on purpose of bio-energy production.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.33-40
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• 2006

The characteristics of the aluminum waste melting and the distribution of the radioactive nuclides have been investigated for the estimation on the volume reduction and the decontamination of the aluminum wastes from the decommissioning of the TRIGA MARK it and III research reactors at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute(KAERI). The aluminum wastes were melted with the use of the fluxes such as flux $A:NaCl-KCl-Na_3AlF_6$, flux B:NaCl-NaF-KF, flux $C:CaF_2$, and flux $D:LiF-KCl-BaCl_2$ in the DC graphite arc furnace. For the assessment of the distribution of the radioactive nuclides during the melting of the aluminum, the aluminum materials were contaminated by the surrogate nuclides such as cobalt(Co), cesium(Cs) and strontium(Sr). The fluidity of aluminum melt was increased with the addition of the fluxes, which has slight difference according to the type of fluxes. The formation of the slag during the aluminum melting added the flux type C and D was larger than that with the flux A and B. The rate of the slag formation linearly increased with increasing the flux concentration. The results of the XRD analysis showed that the surrogate nuclide was transferred to the slag, which can be easily separated from the melt and then they combined with aluminum oxide to form a more stable compound. The distribution ratio of cobalt in ingot to that in slag was more than 40% at all types of fluxes. Since vapor pressures of cesium and strontium were higher than those that of the host metals at the melting temperature, their removal efficiency from the ingot phase to the slag and the dust phase was by up to 98%.

• Clean Technology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.223-230
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• 2019

This research was performed to evaluate the characteristics of food waste from 5 areas in Gangwon Province, Korea and to predict the $CH_4$ gas production rate. Food wastes were sampled in July and September, 2017. The amount of methane gas generation was evaluated through the biochemical methane potential (BMP) test and a calculation method using chemical composition. Average bulk density and pH of the food wastes were in the range of $0.758{\sim}0.850g\;cm^{-3}$ and 4.29 ~ 4.75, respectively. By physical composition, vegetables were the highest with 56.43 ~ 72.81% with fruits recording 5.31 ~ 8.95%, cereals 1.60 ~ 18.73%, fish and meat 4.47 ~ 12.11%, and filtrate 1.76 ~ 3.64%. The average water content was 69.30 ~ 75.87%, and VS and ash content were 22.50 ~ 27.98% and 1.63 ~ 2.48%, respectively. In addition, $BOD_5$, $COD_{Cr}$, and $COD_{Mn}$ were in the ranges of $17,690.3{\sim}33,154.9mg\;L^{-1}$, $106,212.3{\sim}128,695.5mg\;L^{-1}$, and $51,266.1{\sim}63,426.3mg\;L^{-1}$, respectively. The NaCl content ranged from 0.81 to 1.17%. The results of elemental analysis showed that the contents of C, H, O, N, and S were 44.87 ~ 48.1%, 7.12 ~ 7.57%, 40.13 ~ 43.78%, 3.22 ~ 4.14%, and 0.00 ~ 0.02%, respectively. In a comparison of the methane production yield per VS mass of food waste, there was no significant difference between the cumulative amount (${0.303{\sim}0.354m_{CH4}}^3\;{kg_{VS}}^{-1}$) by the BMP test and the theoretical amount (${0.294{\sim}0.352m_{CH4}}^3\;{kg_{VS}}^{-1}$) calculated by chemical composition.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.29-37
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• 2007

A conventional single compartment model cannot simulate reasonably the migration phenomenon of contaminants through unsaturated zone, due to the intrinsic unrealistic assumption of the compartment model that contaminants entering a compartment are immediately and uniformly mixed. Although, a multi-compartments model, in which even physically identical layer is divided into multiple compartments, may be used for explaining the retardation of contaminant mass flux along with increasing number of compartments, its numerical modeling is usually time-consuming and appropriate analytical solutions have not been reported yet. In order to improve the conventional compartment models on contaminant migration through unsaturated zone, a series of analytical solutions for multi-compartments model were derived and a generalized constraint under which the results from multi-compartments model can be simply approximated by single compartment model was proposed. The simplified approximation method was verified by a simple numerical analysis on the constraint under hypothetical conditions. It was also proved that the influent contaminant transfer rate from the bulk unsaturated zone can be generally represented into a time-dependent nominal transfer rate rather than a constant. In addition, the nominal transfer rate turned out to be very sensitive to the contaminant transfer rate between compartments in unsaturated zone, but to be almost insensitive to the transfer rate from contaminated zone. It is expected that the simplified approximation method developed in this study can be used for rapid and reasonable estimation of the migration phenomenon of contaminant through unsaturated zone, instead of time-consuming multi-compartments modeling.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.103-116
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• 2006

By executing corrosion experiment on Inconel 600, 690 used to material of S/G tube in domestic NPP, this paper show estimation of amount of product such as Co-58, Co-60, Cr-51, Mn-54, Fe-59 which are main exposure cause to the workers in NPP. Therefore, Making the 12 samples consisted of Inconel 600, 690, whole corrosion experiment was carried out for 60 days(each pH by 20 days). The conditions of those tests were similar or more harsh than actual conditions of domestic NPP. The Glow Discharge Spectrometer(GDS) was used for quantitative analysis of results. The results of using GDS, the Inconel 600 corrodes more than Inconel 690 at pH 7 and pH 9. However, it is observed that Inconel 690 corrodes more than Inconel 600 at pH 4. Those results is estimated that test sections had the effect of transient. The long terms of experiment is required to minimize and solve the problem.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.225-232
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• 2008

An estimation has been made for inventories and characteristics of spent nuclear fuel(SNF) to be generated from existing and planned nuclear power plants based on the 3rd Basic Plan for Electric Power Demand and Supply. The characteristics under consideration in this study are dimensions, a fuel rod array, a weight, $^{235}U$ enrichment, and the discharge burnup in terms of fuel assembly. These are essentially needed for designing a pyroprocessing facility. It is appeared that the anticipated quantity by the end of 2077 is about 23,000 tU for PWR spent nuclear fuel. It is revealed that the proportion of SNF with the initial $^{235}U$ enrichment below 4.5 weight percent(wt.%) is approximately 95 % in total. For SNF with 16$\times$16 fuel rod array the proportion is expected approximately 74% in total. It appears that the average burnup of SNF will be 55 GWd/tU after the medium and/or latter part of 2010s while the average burnup is 45 GWd/tU at present. Finally, a requirement in terms of reference SNF for designing the pyroprocessing facility has been derived from the above-mentioned results. The anticipated SNF seems to be 16$\times$16 Korean Standard Fuel Assembly with a cross section of 21.4 cm$\times$21.4 cm, a length of 453 cm, a mass of 672 kg, the initial $^{235}U$ enrichment of 4.5 wt.%, and the discharge burnup of 55 GWd/tU.