• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.49-62
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• 2011

Recently, International Atomic Energy Agency and major leading countries in radioactive waste management tend to subdivide the categories of radioactive waste based upon risk-graded approach. In this context, the category of very low level waste has been newly introduced, or optimized management options for this kind of waste have been pursued in many countries. The application of engineered surface landfill type facilities dedicated to dispose of very low level waste has been gradually expanded, and it was analyzed that their design concept of isolation has been much advanced than those of the old fashioned surface trench-type disposal facilities for low and intermediate level waste, which were usually constructed in 1960's. In addition, the management options for very low level waste in major leading countries are varied depending upon and interfaced with the affecting factors such as: national framework for clearance, legal and practical availability of low and intermediate level waste repository and/or non-nuclear waste landfill, public acceptance toward alternative waste management options, and so forth. In this regard, it was concluded that optimized long-term management options for very low level waste in Korea should be also established in a timely manner through comprehensive review and discussions, in preparation of decommissioning of large nuclear facilities in the future, and be implemented in a systematic manner under the framework of national policy and management plan for radioactive waste management.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.12
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• pp.4137-4141
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• 2021

As NPPs continue to operate, liquid waste continues to be generated, and containers are needed to store and transport them at low cost and high capacity. To transport and store liquid phase very low-level radioactive waste (VLLW), a container is designed by considering related regulations. The design was constructed based on the existing container design, which easily transports and stores liquid waste. The radiation shielding calculation was performed according to the composition change of barium sulfate (BaSO₄) using the Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) code. High-density polyethylene (HDPE) without mixing the additional BaSO₄, represented the maximum dose of 1.03 mSv/hr (<2 mSv/hr) and 0.048 mSv/hr (<0.1 mSv/hr) at the surface of the inner container and at 2 m away from the surface, respectively, for a 10 Bq/g of ⁶⁰Co source. It was confirmed that the dose from the inner container with the VLLW content satisfied the domestic dose standard both on the surface of the container and 2 m from the surface. Although it satisfies the dose standard without adding BaSO₄, a shielding material, the inner container was designed with BaSO₄ added to increase radiation safety.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.660-664
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• 2003

The exposure dose form recycling on a large amount of the steel scrap from the KRR-1&2 decommissioning activities was evaluated, and also the clearance level was derived. The maximum individual dose and collective dose were evaluated by modifying internal dose conversion factor which was based on the concept of effective dose in ICRP 60, applied to the RESRAD-RECYCLE ver 3.06 computing code, IAEA Safety Series III-P-1.1 and NUREG-1640 as the assessment tool. The result of assessment for individual dose and collective dose is 23.9 ${\mu}Sv$ per year and 0.11 man$\cdot$Sv per year respectively. The clearance levels were ultimately determined by extracting the most conservative value form the results of the generic assessment and specific assessment methodologies. The result of clearance level for radionuclides($Co^60$, $Cs^137$) is less than $1.67{\times}10^{-1}$ Bq/g to comply with the clearance criterion(maximum individual dose : 10 $\muSv$ per year, collective dose : 1 man$\cdot$Sv per year) provided for Korea Atomic Energy Act and relevant regulations.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.103-111
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• 2020

Pulling-type cutting devices, which use a diamond wire saw, have been used generally for cutting concrete structures. In this study, a pushing-type cutting device with a collection cover was developed by overcoming the disadvantages of pulling-type devices. In this device, dry or liquid methods can be selected to cool frictional heat. Operation and leakage tests of the dust generated during the dismantling of a concrete structure were carried out, confirming the suitable operation of the fabricated cutting device; the leakage rate was approximately 1.7%. For a conservative evaluation, the internal dose of workers was estimated in dismantling the core center part of biological shield concrete with a specific activity of 99.5 Bq·g^-1. The committed effective dose per worker was 0.25 mSv. The developed cutting device contributed to reducing radioactive concrete waste and minimizing worker exposure due to its easy installation. Therefore, it can be utilized as a cutting apparatus for dismantling not only reinforced concrete structures but also radioactive biological shield concrete in nuclear power plant decommissioning efforts.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.19-32
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• 2023

The amount of radioactive waste is expected to dramatically increase with decommissioning of nuclear power plants such as Kori-1, the first nuclear power plant in South Korea. Accurate nuclide analysis is necessary to manage the radioactive wastes safely, but research on verification of radionuclide analysis has yet to be well established. This study aimed to develop the technology that can verify the results of radionuclide analysis based on artificial intelligence. In this study, we propose an anomaly detection algorithm for inspecting the analysis error of radionuclide. We used the data from 'Updated Scaling Factors in Low-Level Radwaste' (NP-5077) published by EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute), and resampling was performed using SMOTE (Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique) algorithm to augment data. 149,676 augmented data with SMOTE algorithm was used to train the artificial neural networks (classification and anomaly detection networks). 324 NP-5077 report data verified the performance of networks. The anomaly detection algorithm of radionuclide analysis was divided into two modules that detect a case where radioactive waste was incorrectly classified or discriminate an abnormal data such as loss of data or incorrectly written data. The classification network was constructed using the fully connected layer, and the anomaly detection network was composed of the encoder and decoder. The latter was operated by loading the latent vector from the end layer of the classification network. This study conducted exploratory data analysis (i.e., statistics, histogram, correlation, covariance, PCA, k-mean clustering, DBSCAN). As a result of analyzing the data, it is complicated to distinguish the type of radioactive waste because data distribution overlapped each other. In spite of these complexities, our algorithm based on deep learning can distinguish abnormal data from normal data. Radionuclide analysis was verified using our anomaly detection algorithm, and meaningful results were obtained.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.381-390
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• 2017

In Korea, commercial nuclear power plants and research reactors have on-site storage systems for the spent nuclear fuel, but it is difficult to expand the facilities used for the storage systems. If decommissioning of nuclear power plants starts, an amount of high level radioactive waste will be generated. In this study, a radiological impact assessment of the railroad transport of high level radioactive waste was carried out considering radiation workers and the public, using the developed transport container as the transport package. The dose rates for workers and the public during the transport period were estimated, considering anticipated transport scenarios, and the results compared with the regulatory limit. A sensitivity analysis was also carried out by considering the different release ratios of the radioactive materials in the high level radioactive waste, and different distances between the transport container and workers during loading and unloading phases and while attaching another freight car. For all the anticipated transport scenarios, the radiological impacts for workers and the public met the regulatory limits.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.289-295
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• 2016

Kori Unit 1, the first PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor) plant in Korea, began its commercial operation in 1978 and will permanently shut down on June 18, 2017. After moving the spent fuels to SFP (Spent Fuel Pool) system, Kori Unit 1 will perform a full system chemical decontamination to reduce radiation levels inside the various plant systems. This paper will describe the operation concept of the full system chemical decontamination for Kori Unit 1 based on experiences overseas.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.245-251
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• 2016

Soil can be contaminated by radioactive materials due to nuclide leakage following unexpected situations during the decommissioning of a nuclear power plant. Soil decontamination is necessary if contaminated land is to be reused for housing or industry. The present study classifies various soil remediation technologies into biological, physics/chemical and thermal treatment and analyzes their principles and treatment materials. Among these methods, this study selects technologies and categorizes the economics, applicability and technical characteristics of each technology into three levels of high, medium and low by weighting the various factors. Based on this analysis, the most applicable soil decontamination technology was identified.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.556-561
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• 2017

Serving as an excellent adsorbent and inorganic ion exchanger in the water purification field, zeolite 4A has in this work presented a strong capability for purifying radioactive waste, such as $Sr^{2+}$, $Cs^+$, and $Co^{2+}$ in water. During the processes of decontamination and decommissioning of suspended solids and organics in low-level radioactive wastewater, the purification performance of zeolite 4A has been studied. Under ambient temperature and neutral condition, zeolite 4A absorbed simulated radionuclides such as $Sr^{2+}$, $Cs^+$, and $Co^{2+}$ with an absorption rate of almost 90%. Additionally, in alkaline condition, the adsorption percentage even approached 98.7%. After conducting research on suspended solids and organics of zeolite 4A for the treatment of radionuclides, it was found that the suspended clay was conducive to absorption, whereas the absorption of organics in solution was determined by the species of radionuclides and organics. Therefore, zeolite 4A has considerable potential in the treatment of radioactive wastewater.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.7
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• pp.2736-2747
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• 2022

The operations in the design lifecycle of a nuclear power plant targeted to be decommissioned lead to neutron activation. Operations in the decommissioning process include cutting, decontamination, disposal, and processing. Among these, cutting is done close to the target material, and thus workers are exposed to radiation. As there are only a few studies on pressurizers, there arises the need for further research to assess the radiation exposure dose. This study obtained the specifications of the AP1000 pressurizer of Westinghouse and the distribution of radionuclide inventory of a pressurizer in a pressurised water reactor for evaluation based on literature studies. A cutting scenario was created to develop an optimal method so that the cut pieces fill a radioactive solid waste drum with dimensions 0.571 m × 0.834 m. The estimated exposure dose, estimated using the tool VISIPLAN SW, in terms of the decontamination factor (DF) ranged from DF-0 to DF-100, indicating that DF-90 and DF-100 meet the ICRP recommendation on exposure dose 0.0057 mSv/h. At the end of the study, although flame cutting was considered the most efficient method in terms of cutting speed, laser cutting was the most reasonable one in terms of the financial aspects and secondary waste.