• Proceedings of the Korea Society for Energy Engineering kosee Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.71-79
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• 2002

Nuclear design characteristics of duplex burnable poison rod were evaluated based on 24 month cycle fuel for Korean Standard Nuclear Plant. A fuel assembly with duplex burnable poison rod was designed for an equivalent assembly to 16 gadolinia BPs. Duplex BP is composed of inner region of natural U-12wt%Gd$_2$O$_3$ and outer shell of 4.95wt%UO$_2$-2wt%Er$_2$O$_3$. In order to compare this duplex option, assemblies with 140 erbia pins were designed as an alternative option. The variation of k-infinitive, rod worth, pin peaking and MTC were compared. Duplex BP had the better neutronic performance than gadolinia BP in all parameters. However, Duplex BP was worse than erbia BP in the aspect of safety.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.93-98
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• 1997

Air-oxidation experiments on unirradiated and irradiated UO$_2$ were performed at temperature from 150 to 375$^{\circ}C$ for investigating the long-term storage behavior of spent PWR fuel. The rate of oxidation was monitored by a thermogravimetric analyzer(TGA) and an X-ray diffraction(XRD). The correlation between the onset-time for U$_3$O$_{8}$ formation and temperature was given as follows, logt(hr) = -12.89+7650/T(K), 423$_2$ pellet, the oxidation rate of irradiated UO$_2$ increase more rapidly at the initial stage and shows a lower saturation point at the later Stage. The Oxidation rate of high bumup UO$_2$ and gadolinia-doped UO$_2$(Gd$_2$O$_3$-UO$_2$) were observed to be much slower than that of unirradiated UO$_2$ pellets.s.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.7
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• pp.2578-2590
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• 2023

In this work, a 24-month two-batch fuel management strategy for the APR1400 using LEU + has been investigated, where enrichments of 5.9 and 5.2 w/o are utilized in lieu of the conventional 4-5 w/o UO₂ fuel. In addition, an Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) clad based on the swaging technology is applied to APR1400 fuel assemblies. In this special ATF clad design, both outer and inner SS316 layers protect the conventional zircaloy clad. Erbia (Er₂O₃) is introduced as a burnable absorber with two-fold goals to lower the critical boron concentration in the long-cycle LEU + loaded core as well as to handle the LEU + fuel in the existing front-end fuel facilities without renewing the license. Two types of fuel assemblies with different loading of gadolinia (Gd₂O₃) are considered to control both the reactivity and the core radial power distribution. The erbia burnable absorber is uniformly admixed with UO₂ in all fuel pins except for the gadolinia-bearing ones. In this study, two core designs were devised with different erbia loading, and core performance and safety parameters were evaluated for each case in comparison with a core design without any burnable absorbers. The core analysis was done using the two-step method. First, cross-sections are generated by the SERPENT 2 Monte Carlo code, and the 3-D neutronic analysis is performed with an in-house multi-physics nodal code KANT.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2022

This study discusses the effect of using ²³²Th instead of ²³⁸U on the neutronic characteristics and the main operating parameters of the pressurized water reactor (PWR). MCNPX version 2.7 was used to compare the neutronic characteristics of UO₂ with (Th, ²³⁵U)O₂ and (Th, ²³³U) O₂. Firstly, the infinity multiplication factor (K_inf), thermal neutron flux, and power distribution have been studied for the investigated fuel types. Secondly, the effect of Gd₂O₃ and Er₂O₃ on the K_inf and on the radial thermal neutron flux and thermal power has been investigated to distinguish which of them is more suitable than the other in reactivity management. Thirdly, to illustrate the effectiveness of ²³²Th in decreasing the inventory of both the actinides and non-actinides, the concentration of plutonium (Pu) isotopes and minor actinides (MAs) has been simulated with the fuel burnup. Besides, due to their large thermal neutron absorption cross-section, the concentrations of ¹³⁵Xe, ¹⁴⁹Sm, and ¹⁵¹Sm with the fuel burnup have been investigated. Finally, the main safety parameters such as the reactivity worth of the control rods (ρ_CR), the effective delayed neutron fraction β_eff, and the Doppler reactivity coefficient (DRC) were calculated to determine to which extent these fuel types achieve the acceptable limits.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.242-258
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• 2004

The duplex burnable poison absorbers concept was suggested by Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. This BP rod is composed of inner region of natural U-Gd$_2$O$_3$ and outer shell of enriched UO$_2$-Er$_2$O$_3$. It is expected that this burnable absorber has same reactivity control capability with gadolinia burnable absorber used in extened fuel cycle. In order to evaluate the nuclear feasibility of duplex BPs, the nuclear design characteristics were compared with that of four types of burnable absorbers; gadolinia, erbia, IFBA, dysprosia duplex BP on 24 months fuel cycle for Korean Standard Nuclear Power plants. According to the evaluation results of nuclear characteristics, the duplex BPs were better than other BPs on k-infinitives, reactivity holddown worth (RHW), pin power peaking and moderator temperature coefficient (MTC). The possibility of nuclear core design was also confirmed based on the optimized fuel assemblies which were searched for a sensitivity analysis. Characteristics of core design with duplex BPs was compared with that of reference core with gadolinia BPs for cycle length, power peaking and MTC. The duplex BP core had a little longer cycle length by 4 to 7 days because of increased amount of fissile in enriched uranium at the outer shell of duplex BP In case of power peaking F$\_$Q/ of duplex BP core was reduced from 1.5773 to 1.5335. MTC was also less -0.48 pcm/C than that of reference core. Finally, evaluation of fuel cycle economy was performed for the manufacturing feasibility test and fuel cost evaluation with duplex BPs. Fuel cycle economy of duplex BP core almost was equivalent with that of gadolinia BP core.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.131-137
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• 2007

The urania-gadolinia fuels were dissolved with nitric acid. The analytical conditions of ICP-AES for the direct determinations of gadolinium in the uranium matrices without separation process were investigated. Based on the effect of uranium on gadolinium intensity, the best wavelength for gadolinium was 336.223 nm. The relative deviation of two methods, direct and indirect measurements with anion exchange chromatography, was less than 5 %. Therefore it was possible for this procedure directly to measure 5~10 wt.% of gadolinium in urania-gadolinia fuels without separation by ICP-AES.