• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.589-593
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• 2018

Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK) conducted the $6^{th}$ underground nuclear test at the Punggye-ri underground nuclear test site on September 27, 2017 12 hours 30 minutes of Korean local time. Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) under U.N. announced the body wave magnitude of the event was mb 6.1 while U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)'s calculation was mb 6.3. In this study, the differences of the magnitude estimates were investigated and verified. For this purpose, a source scaling between the $5^{th}$ and $6^{th}$ event, which's epicenters are 200 meters apart, was performed using seismic data sets from 30 broadband stations. The relative amplitude variations of the $6^{th}$ event compared to the $5^{th}$ event in the frequency domain was analyzed through the scaling. The increased amount of the bodywave magnitude $m_b$ for the $6^{th}$ event was calculated at 1 Hz, which was compared to those from USGS and CTBTO's calculations.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.18 no.2_spc
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• pp.261-273
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• 2020

North Korea conducted the sixth underground nuclear test on September 3, 2017 at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site (NTS). In contrast to the previous five nuclear tests, several induced earthquakes occurred around the NTS after the sixth nuclear test and this may have caused radioxenon leakages at the site. Considering these reported earthquakes, we performed atmospheric dispersion simulations on some radioxenon emission scenarios for this event using our Lagrangian Atmospheric Dose Assessment System (LADAS) model by employing the Unified Model (UM) based numerical weather prediction data produced by the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). To find out possible detection locations and times, we combined not only daily and weekly based delayed releases but also leakages after the reported earthquakes around the NTS to create emission scenarios. Our simulation results were generally in good agreement with the measured data of the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission and International Monitoring System (IMS) stations operated by the Comprehensive nuclear Test-Ban-Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.31-39
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• 2016

Background: It is necessary to consider the overall countermeasure for analysis of nuclear activities according to the increase of the nuclear facilities like nuclear power and reprocessing plants in the neighboring countries including China, Taiwan, North Korea, Japan and South Korea. South Korea and comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty organization (CTBTO) are now operating the monitoring instruments to detect radionuclides released into the air. It is important to estimate the origin of radionuclides measured using the detection technology as well as the monitoring analysis in aspects of investigation and security of the nuclear activities in neighboring countries. Materials and methods: A three-dimensional forward/backward trajectory model has been developed to estimate the origin of radionuclides for a covert nuclear activity. The developed trajectory model was composed of forward and backward modules to track the particle positions using finite difference method. Results and discussion: A three-dimensional trajectory model was validated using the measured data at Chernobyl accident. The calculated results showed a good agreement by using the high concentration measurements and the locations where was near a release point. The three-dimensional trajectory model had some uncertainty according to the release time, release height and time interval of the trajectory at each release points. An atmospheric dispersion model called long-range accident dose assessment system (LADAS), based on the fields of regards (FOR) technique, was applied to reduce the uncertainties of the trajectory model and to improve the detective technology for estimating the radioisotopes emission area. Conclusion: The detective technology developed in this study can evaluate in release area and origin for covert nuclear activities based on measured radioisotopes at monitoring stations, and it might play critical tool to improve the ability of the nuclear safety field.