• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.143-148
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• 2013

Operational nuclear facilities such as nuclear power plants and particle accelerators show various neutron spectra according to the type of facilities and specific position. Necessities of neutron dose management and neutron monitoring for radiation protection of radiation workers in such a kind of facilities have continuously increased in recent years. Bonner sphere spectrometers are widely used for measurement of neutron spectra. Data on response function of neutron detector, default neutron spectra and count rates of Bonner sphere spectrometer are required to obtain unfolded neutron spectra in specific workplaces. In this study, we carried out measurement of neutron spectra produced in MC50 cyclotron using Bonner sphere spectrometer with LiI scintillation detector. Additionally, we estimated quantitative data on neutron flux, mean neutron energy and ambient dose equivalent rate according to the incident proton energies and positions in MC50 cyclotron.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.18-35
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• 1993

The water level control system of the steam generator in a pressurized water reactor and its control problems are analysed. In this work the stable control strategy during the low power operation and transient states is studied. To solve the problem, a fuzzy logic control method is applied as a basic algorithm of the controller. The control algorithm is based on the operator's knowledges and the experiences of manual operation for water level control at the compact nuclear simulator set up in Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. From a viewpoint of the system realization, the control variables and rules are established considering simpler tuning and the input-output relation. The control strategy includes the dynamic tuning method and employs a substitutional information using the bypass valve opening instead of incorrectly measured signal at the low flow rate as the fuzzy variable of the flow rate during the pressure control mode of the steam generator. It also involves the switching algorithm between the control valves to suppress the perturbation of water level. The simulation results show that both of the fine control action at the small level error and the quick response at the large level error can be obtained and that the performance of the controller is improved.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.63-74
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• 2020

The Kori-Unit 1 nuclear power plant, which is scheduled for decommissioning after permanent shutdown, is expected to generate a large amount of various types of radioactive waste during decommissioning process. For concrete radioactive waste, which is expected to occupy the most amount, it is important to analyze the current waste disposal status and legal limitations and to prepare an appropriate and efficient disposal method. Concrete radioactive waste is waste of various levels, of which the clearance level is bioshield concrete. In this paper, clearance radioactive waste safety evaluation was performed using the RESRAD code, which is a safety evaluation code, based on the activation evaluation results for the wastes with the clearance level. The clearance scenario of the target radioactive waste was selected and the individual's exposure dose was calculated at the time of clearance to determine whether the clearance criteria limit prescribed by the Nuclear Safety Act was satisfied. As a result of the evaluation, the results showed significantly lower results and satisfied the criteria value. Based on the results of this clearance safety assessment, the appropriate disposal method for bioshield concrete, which are the clearance wastes of subject of deregulation, was suggested.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.67-76
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• 2008

As the first comprehensive attempt at a national implementation, this study aims at assessing the external costs of major electricity generation technologies in Korea, particularly an evaluation of the impacts on human health resulting from exposures to atmospheric radiological emissions from nuclear power plants, and a monetary quantification of their damages. The methodology used for the assessment of the externalities of the selected fuel cycles has been developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), namely the SimPacts Model Package. The model is internationally recognized as a tool which can be applied to a wide range of fuels, different technologies and locations, for an externalities study. In this study, the relevant emissions are quantified first and then their impacts on human health are evaluated and compared. The study focused on all the nuclear power plants for the last 6 years ($2001{\sim}2006$) in Korea. With respect to nuclear power, the impact analysis only focuses on a power generation, however the front- and back-end nuclear fuel cycles are not included, namely uranium mining, conversion, enrichment, reprocessing, conditioning, etc., because these facilities are not present in Korea. The analysis results show that nuclear power in general, generates low external costs. The highest damage costs from the nuclear power plants among the 4 sites in Korea were estimated to be 3.9 mills/MWh, which is about 1/20th of the result for a similar case study conducted in the U.K., implemented through the ExternE project. This difference is largely due to the number of radionuclides included in the study and the amount of released radioactive emissions based on up-to-date information in Korea. In this study, the sensitivities of the major factors for nuclear power plants were also calculated. The analysis indicates that there was around a ${\pm}3%$ damage costs variation to a ${\pm}15%$ change of the reference population density and a ${\pm}1%$ damage cost variation to a $1{\sim}30$ meters change of the effective release height, respectively. These sensitive calculations show that there is only a minor difference when the reference costs are compared.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.134-140
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• 2020

Nuclear power plants (NPPs) in Korea are required to be maintained using a defense in-depth approach to prevent leakage of radioactive substances outside the plant and allow safe shutdown in the event of a fire. Periodic testing must be conducted to ensure that the fire protection facilities perform as required by the laws for various nuclear reactor types. In June 2017, for the first time in Korea, a nuclear plant, Kori Unit 1, was permanently shut down. It was prepared for decommissioning in accordance with the fire protection regulations imposed by the regulatory body. However, a standard protocol is necessary for systematically establishing the fire protection program for decommissioning of NPPs in the future. Therefore, the nuclear legal systems of countries with many operating nuclear power plants, such as the United States, Japan, Canada, and various European countries, were reviewed and guidelines for establishing a fire protection program for decommissioning NPPs was suggested; the fire protection requirements stated by Reg Guide 1.191 (Decommissioning fire protection program for NPPs during decommissioning and permanent shutdown) were used as a model. Suggestions for establishing legal regulations to optimize fire protection programs and secure basic technology for decommissioning NPPs were also made.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.507-514
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• 1993

Titanium tubes have recently been used in condensers of nuclear power plants since titanium has very good corrosion resistance to seawater. However, when it is connected to Cu alloys as tube sheet materials and these Cu alloys are connected to carbon steels as water box materials, it makes significant galvanic corrosion on connected materials. It is expected from electrochemical tests that the corrosion rate of carbon steel will increase when it is galvanically coupled with Ti or Cu in sea water and the corrosion rate of Cu will increase when it is coupled with Ti, if this couple is exposed to sea water for a long time. It is also expected that the surface area ratios, R$_1$(surface area of carbon steel/surface area of Ti) and R$_2$(surface area of carbon steel/surface area of Cu) are very important for the galvanic corrosion of carbon steel and that these should not be kept to low values in order to minimize the galvanic corrosion on the carbon steel of the water box. Immersed galvanic corrosion tests show that the corrosion rate of carbon steel is 4.4 mpy when the ratio of surface area of Fe/ surface area of Al Brass is 1 while it is 570 mpy when this ratio is 10$^{-2}$ . The galvanic corrosion rate of this carbon steel is increased from 4.4 mpy to 13 mpy at this area ratio, 1, when this connected galvanic specimen is galvanically coupled with a Ti tube. This can be rationalized by the combined effects of R$_1$ and R$_2$ on the polarization curve.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.390-395
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• 2004

The iSTMS is a web-based integrated information system supporting Pre-Service and In-Service Inspection(PSI/ISI) processes for the nuclear power plants of KHNP(Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. Ltd.). The system provides a full spectrum coverage of the inspection processes from the planning stage to the final report of examination in accordance with applicable codes, standards, and regulatory requirements. The major functions of the system includes the inspection planning, examination, reporting, project control and status reporting, resource management as well as objects search and navigation. The system also provides two dimensional or three dimensional visualization interface to identify the location and geometry of components and weld areas subject to examination in collaboration with database applications. The iSIMS is implemented with commercial software packages such as database management system, 2-D and 3-D visualization tool, etc., which provide open, updated and verified foundations. This paper describes the key functions and the technologies for the implementation of the iSIMS.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.28-36
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• 2019

The APR1400 (Advanced Power Reactor 1400MW) nuclear power plant is a large-scale national infrastructure facility with a total project cost of 8.6 trillion won and a project period of 10 years or more. The total project area is about 2.17 million square meters and consists of more than 20 buildings and structures. And the total number of drawings required for construction is about 65,000. In order to design such a large facility, it is important to establish a design standard that reflects the design intent and can increase conformity between documents (drawings). To this end, a design bases document (DBD) reflecting the design bases that extracted in regulatory requirements (e.g. 10CFR50, Korean Law, etc.) is created. However, although the design bases are important concepts that are a big framework for the whole design of the nuclear power plant, they are managed in 2-dimensional by the experts in each field fragmentarily. Therefore, in order to improve the usability of building information, we developed BIM(Building Information Model) based 3-dimensional design bases management system. For this purpose, the concept of design bases information layer (DBIL) was introduced. Through the simulation of developed system, design bases attribute and element data extraction for each DBIL was confirmed, and walls, floors, doors, and penetrations with DBIL were successfully extracted.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.215-229
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• 2019

This technical note describes the current status of Finnish radioactive waste disposal project which started to construct the repository for spent nuclear waste for the first time in the world. Finland started operating nuclear power plant in 1977 and is currently operating four nuclear power plants. After detailed site surveys started in 1993, Olkiluoto was finally selected by the parliament of Finland as the site for geological disposal in 2001 followed by a construction license in 2015. If the operating license is approved by the government in the 2020s, it would be the world's first case of geological disposal. In ONKALO, a site-specific underground research facility at the site of Olkiluoto, various studies were conducted to verify the safety of the repository. Finland uses the KBS-3 disposal concept, and Korea considers a similar disposal concept because of similar rock formations. The entire process in Finland including the operation status of intermediate and low-level waste disposal, site investigation and selection stages, and the latest rock mechanics and hydrogeological studies in ONKALO are presented. Suggestions for the radioactive waste disposal in Korea is given based on the Finnish case.

• Journal of Platform Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.52-62
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• 2021

Quality control is critical at manufacturing sites and is key to predicting the risk of quality defect before manufacturing. However, the reliability of manual quality control methods is affected by human and physical limitations because manufacturing processes vary across industries. These limitations become particularly obvious in domain areas with numerous manufacturing processes, such as the manufacture of major nuclear equipment. This study proposed a novel method for predicting the risk of quality defects by using natural language processing and machine learning. In this study, production data collected over 6 years at a factory that manufactures main equipment that is installed in nuclear power plants were used. In the preprocessing stage of text data, a mapping method was applied to the word dictionary so that domain knowledge could be appropriately reflected, and a hybrid algorithm, which combined n-gram, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency, and Singular Value Decomposition, was constructed for sentence vectorization. Next, in the experiment to classify the risky processes resulting in poor quality, k-fold cross-validation was applied to categorize cases from Unigram to cumulative Trigram. Furthermore, for achieving objective experimental results, Naive Bayes and Support Vector Machine were used as classification algorithms and the maximum accuracy and F1-score of 0.7685 and 0.8641, respectively, were achieved. Thus, the proposed method is effective. The performance of the proposed method were compared and with votes of field engineers, and the results revealed that the proposed method outperformed field engineers. Thus, the method can be implemented for quality control at manufacturing sites.