• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제45권6호
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• pp.803-810
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• 2013

The U.S. Department of Energy's Fuel Cycle Technologies R&D program under the Office of Nuclear Energy is working to advance technologies to enhance both the existing and future fuel cycles. One thrust area is in developing enabling technologies for next generation nuclear materials management under the Materials Protection, Accounting and Control Technologies (MPACT) Campaign where advanced instrumentation, analysis and assessment methods, and security approaches are being developed under a framework of Safeguards and Security by Design. An overview of the MPACT campaign's activities and recent accomplishments is presented along with future plans.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권1호
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• pp.43-53
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• 2017

Increasing the operation cycle length can be an important goal in the fuel reload design of a nuclear reactor core. In this research paper, a new optimization approach, electromagnetism mechanism (EM), is applied to the fuel arrangement design of the Bushehr WWER-1000 core. For this purpose, a neutronic solver has been developed for calculating the required parameters during the reload cycle of the reactor. In this package, two modules have been linked, including PARCS v2.7 and WIMS-5B codes, integrated in a solver for using in the fuel arrangement optimization operation. The first results of the prepared package, along with the cycle for the original pattern of Bushehr WWER-1000, are compared and verified according to the Final Safety Analysis Report and then the results of exploited EM linked with Purdue Advanced Reactor Core Simulator (PARCS) and Winfrith Improved Multigroup Scheme (WIMS) codes are reported for the loading pattern optimization. Totally, the numerical results of our loading pattern optimization indicate the power of the EM for this problem and also show the effective improvement of desired parameters for the gained semi-optimized core pattern in comparison to the designer scheme.

• 한국방사성폐기물학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국방사성폐기물학회 2017년도 추계학술논문요약집
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• pp.63-64
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• 2017

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제45권4호
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• pp.421-426
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• 2013

The need for extended storage of used nuclear fuel is increasing globally as disposition schedules for used fuel are pushed further into the future. This is creating a situation where dry storage of used fuel may need to be extended beyond normal regulatory licensing periods. While it is generally accepted that used fuel in dry storage will remain in a safe condition, there is little data that demonstrate used fuel performance in dry storage environments for long periods of time. This is especially true for high burnup used fuel. This paper discusses a technical approach that defines a process that develops the technical basis for demonstrating the safety of used fuel over extended periods of time.

• 시스템엔지니어링학술지
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• 제13권2호
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• pp.34-41
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• 2017

The Pyro project, one of the large national R&D project to construct Korea Advanced Pyroprocessing Facility (KAPF), which has many goals such as development of pyro technology and process equipment, design of equipment and facility, construction, and test operation, is now under research and development. To reduce uncertainty and risk of such complex project, the technical management processes in systems engineering standards and NASA handbook were reviewed, and then the ten common technical management processes were selected for the large national R&D project to meet its goal successfully. And the essential technical management processes were finally suggested for Pyro project in consideration of current situation of the project.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권7호
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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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• 제27권5호
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• pp.721-729
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• 1995

000년부터 2030년까지의 한국 원전연료주기의 최적전략을 도출하기 위하여 선형계획법을 사용하였다. 최적화를 위한 결정 인자로서는 원전연료 주기비용, 요소비용의 불확실성, 우라늄 소요량을 사용하였다. 위의 인자들을 동시에 고려하기 위하여 각각에 대한 만족도 중 최소값을 최대화하는 퍼지 의사결정기법을 이용하였다. 사용 후 원전 연료에 대한 가능한 선택대안으로는 직접처분, DUPIC, 재처리를 가정하였다. 한국의 원전연료주기 전략은 2010년경부터 재처리를 시작하여 그 처리용량을 2025년경에는 800톤까지 점차로 늘려 나가고, DUPIC 처리를 2025년경부터 시작하는 것이 최적인 것으로 나타났다. 요소비용의 불확실성과 우라늄 소요량을 고려함으로써 단순히 비용만을 고려한 경우보다 총비용은5.4%증가하나, 요소비용 불확실성은 7.1%, 우라늄 소요량은 6. d1％ 감소하는 것으로 나타났다.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 2003년도 추계학술발표대회 요약집
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• pp.70-70
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• 2003

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제42권3호
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• pp.231-236
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• 2010

The growth in global energy demand and the increased recognition of the impacts of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel plants have aroused a renewed interest on nuclear energy. Many countries are looking afresh at building more nuclear power stations to deal with the twin problems of global warming and the need for more generating capacity. Many in the nuclear community are also anticipating a significant growth of new nuclear generation in the coming decades. If there is a nuclear renaissance, will the expansion of nuclear power be compatible with global non-proliferation and security? or will it add to the environmental burden from the large inventory of spent nuclear fuel already produced in existing nuclear power reactors? We learn from past peaceful nuclear activities that significant concerns associated with nuclear proliferation and spent-fuel management have resulted in a decrease in public acceptance for nuclear power in many countries. The terrorist attack in the United States (US) on September 11, 2001 also raised concern for security and worry that nuclear materials may fall into the wrong hands. As we increase the use of nuclear power, we must simultaneously reduce the proliferation, security and environmental risks in managing spent-fuel below where they are today.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제43권4호
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• pp.335-342
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• 2011

As part of the Department of Energy's Fuel Cycle Research and Development Program an electrochemical technology employing molten salts is being developed for recycle of metallic fast reactor fuel and treatment of light water reactor oxide fuel to produce a feed for fast reactors. This technology has been deployed for treatment of used fuel from the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) in the Fuel Conditioning Facility, located at the Materials and Fuel Complex of Idaho National Laboratory. This process is based on dry (non-aqueous) technologies that have been developed and demonstrated since the 1960s. These technologies offer potential advantages compared to traditional aqueous separations including: compactness, resistance to radiation effects, criticality control benefits, compatibility with advanced fuel types, and ability to produce low purity products. This paper will summarize the status of electrochemical development and demonstration activities with used nuclear fuel, including preparation of associated high-level waste forms.