• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.3335-3343
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• 2021

The impact of gamma radiation on a commercial off the shelf microcontroller board has been investigated. Three different tests have been performed to ascertain the radiation tolerance of the device from a nuclear decommissioning deployment perspective. The first test analyses the effect of radiation on the output voltage of the on-board voltage regulator during irradiation. The second test evaluated the effect of gamma radiation on the voltage characteristics of analogue and digital inputs and outputs. The final test analyses the functionality of the microcontroller when using an external, shielded voltage regulator instead of the on-board voltage regulator. The results suggest that a series of latch-ups occurs in the microcontroller during irradiation, causing increased current drain which can damage the voltage regulator if it does not have short-circuit protection. The analogue to digital conversion functionality appears to be more sensitive to gamma radiation than digital and analogue output functionality. Using an external, shielded voltage regulator can prove beneficial when used for certain applications. The collected data suggests that detaching the voltage regulator can extend the lifespan of the platform up to approximately 350 Gy.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.1169-1175
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• 2019

The minimum detectable activity (MDA) value was derived according to the flow rate of the sample and degree of amplification of the device by sending the sample directly from the collection site to the detection part through a pump. This method can lead to reduction in time and cost compared to the existing measurement method that uses a pre-treatment process. In this study, experiments were conducted on $^3H$ and $^{90}Sr$, which are the major pure beta-emitting radionuclides, by setting the sample flow rate and the amplification gain as factors. The MDA values were derived according to the flow rates, considering that the flow rate can affect the MDA values. There were no change in the MDA under different flow rates of 0, 600, 800, and 1000 mL/min. Therefore, it was confirmed that the flow rate may not be considered when collecting samples for monitoring in actual field. As the degree of amplification of the amplifier increased, the time required to reach the target MDA decreased. When the amplification was quadrupled, the detection efficiency increased by approximately 23.4 times, and the time to reach the MDA decreased to approximately 1/550 times. This method offers the advantage of real-time on-site monitoring.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.459-469
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• 2019

It is important to estimate the shear strength of shallow compacted soils as a construction material. A series of constant water content triaxial compression (CWCC) tests under low confining state in this study were performed on compacted geomaterials. For establishing a relationship of the shear strengths between saturated and unsaturated states on compacted geomaterials, the suction stresses were derived by two methods: the conventional suction-measured method and the Suction stress-SWRC Method (SSM). Considering the suction stress as an equivalent confining stress component in the (${\sigma}_{net}$, ${\tau}$) plane, it was found that the peak deviator stress states agree well with the failure line of the saturated state from the triaxial compression test when the SSM is applied to obtain the suction stress. On the other hand, the cavitation phenomenon on the measurement of suction affected the results of the conventional suction-measured method. These results mean that the SSM is distinctly favorable for obtaining the suction value in the CWCC test because the SSM is not restricted by the cavitation phenomenon. It is expected that the application of the SSM would reduce the time required, and the projected cost with the additional equipment such as a pore water measuring device in the CWCC test.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.104-115
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• 2019

Since the Fukushima Daiichi accident, there has been an emphasis on the risk resulting from multi-unit accidents. Human reliability analysis (HRA) is one of the important issues in multi-unit probabilistic safety assessment (MUPSA). Hence, there is a need to properly identify all the human and organizational factors relevant to a multi-unit incident scenario in a nuclear power plant (NPP). This study identifies and categorizes the human and organizational factors relevant to a multi-unit incident scenario of NPPs based on a review of relevant literature. These factors are then analyzed to ascertain all possible unit-to-unit interactions that need to be considered in the multi-unit HRA and the pattern of interactions. The human and organizational factors are classified into five categories: organization, work device, task, performance shaping factors, and environmental factors. The identification and classification of these factors will significantly contribute to the development of adequate strategies and guidelines for managing multi-unit accidents. This study is a necessary initial step in developing an effective HRA method for multiple NPP units in a site.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.618-625
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• 2021

In this paper, the single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) featuring three different p-well implantation doses (∅_p-well) of 5.0 × 10¹², 4.0 × 10¹², and 3.0 × 10¹² atoms/cm² under the identical device layouts were fabricated and characterized to evaluate the effects of field enhanced mechanisms on primary dark pulses due to the maximum electric field. From the I-V curves, the breakdown voltages were found as 23.2 V, 40.5 V, and 63.1 V with decreasing ∅_p-well, respectively. By measuring DCRs as a function of temperature, we found a reduction of approximately 8% in the maximum electric field lead to a nearly 72% decrease in the DCR at V_ex = 5 V and T = 25 ℃. Also, the activation energy increased from 0.43 eV to 0.50 eV, as decreasing the maximum electric field. Finally, we discuss the importance of electric field engineering in reducing the field-enhanced mechanisms contributing to the DCR in SPADs and the benefits on the SPADs related to different types of radiation detection applications.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2640-2645
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• 2021

We report the development of a gamma-ray imaging device, named Large-Area Hybrid Gamma Imager (LAHGI), featuring high imaging sensitivity and good imaging resolution over a broad energy range. A hybrid collimation method, which combines mechanical and electronic collimation, is employed for a stable imaging performance based on large-area scintillation detectors for high imaging sensitivity. The system comprises two monolithic position-sensitive NaI(Tl) scintillation detectors with a crystal area of 27 × 27 cm² and a tungsten coded aperture mask with a modified uniformly redundant array (MURA) pattern. The performance of the system was evaluated under several source conditions. The system showed good imaging resolution (i.e., 6.0-8.9° FWHM) for the entire energy range of 59.5-1330 keV considered in the present study. It also showed very high imaging sensitivity, successfully imaging a 253 µCi ¹³⁷Cs source located 15 m away in 1 min; this performance is notable considering that the dose rate at the front surface of the system, due to the existence of the ¹³⁷Cs source, was only 0.003 µSv/h, which corresponds to ~3% of the background level.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.1483-1490
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• 2021

Many studies are undertaken into nuclear power plants (NPPs) in preparation for accidents exceeding design standards. In this paper, we analyze the applicability of various wireless communication technologies as accident countermeasures in different NPP environments. In particular, a commercial wireless communication module (WCM) is investigated by measuring leakage current and packet error rate (PER), which vary depending on the intensity of incident radiation on the module, by testing at a Co-60 gamma-ray irradiation facility. The experimental results show that the WCMs continued to operate after total doses of 940 and 1097 Gy, with PERs of 3.6% and 0.8%, when exposed to irradiation dose rates of 185 and 486 Gy/h, respectively. In short, the lower irradiation dose rate decreased the performance of WCMs more than the higher dose rate. In experiments comparing the two communication protocols of request/response and one-way, the WCMs survived up to 997 and 1177 Gy, with PERs of 2% and 0%, respectively. Since the request/response protocol uses both the transmitter and the receiver, while the one-way protocol uses only the transmitter, then the electronic system on the side of the receiver is more vulnerable to radiation effects. From our experiments, the tested module is expected to be used for design-based accidents (DBAs) of "Category A" type, and has confirmed the possibility of using wireless communication systems in NPPs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.1167-1175
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• 2021

The process of automation and monitoring in industrial control system involves the use of many types of sensors. A programmable logic controller plays an important role in the automation of the different processes in the power plant system. The major control units are boiler for temperature and pressure, turbine for speed of motor, generator for voltage, conveyer belt for fuel. The power plant units are controlled using microcontrollers and PLCs, but FPGA can be the feasible solution. The paper focused on the design and simulation of hardware chip to monitor boiler, turbine, generator and conveyer belt. The hardware chip of the plant is designed in Xilinx Vivado Simulator 17.4 software using VHDL programming. The methodology includes VHDL code design, simulation, verification and testing on Virtex-5 FPGA hardware. The system has four independent buzzers used to indicate the status of the boiler, generator, turbine motor and conveyer belt in on/off conditions respectively. The GSM is used to display corresponding message on the mobile to know the status of the device in on/off condition. The system is very much helpful for the industries working on plant automation with FPGA hardware integration.

• International journal of advanced smart convergence
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.22-29
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• 2022

In this paper, for the purpose of designing an real-time unmanned monitoring system, the YOLOv5s (small) object detection model was applied on the NVIDIA TX2^TM AI (Artificial Intelligence) edge computing platform in order to design the fundamental function of an unmanned monitoring system that can detect objects in real time. YOLOv5s was applied to the our real-time unmanned monitoring system based on the performance evaluation of object detection algorithms (for example, R-CNN, SSD, RetinaNet, and YOLOv5). In addition, the performance of the four YOLOv5 models (small, medium, large, and xlarge) was compared and evaluated. Furthermore, based on these results, the YOLOv5s model suitable for the design purpose of this paper was ported to the NVIDIA TX2^TM AI edge computing system and it was confirmed that it operates normally. The real-time unmanned monitoring system designed as a result of the research can be applied to various application fields such as an security or monitoring system. Future research is to apply NMS (Non-Maximum Suppression) modification, model reconstruction, and parallel processing programming techniques using CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) for the improvement of object detection speed and performance.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.2801-2815
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• 2022

With the advent and realization of Software Defined Network (SDN) architecture, many organizations are now shifting towards this paradigm. SDN brings more control, higher scalability, and serene elasticity. The SDN spontaneously changes the network configuration according to the dynamic network requirements inside the constrained environments. Therefore, a monitoring system that can monitor the physical and virtual entities is needed to operate this type of network technology with high efficiency and proficiency. In this manuscript, we propose a real-time monitoring system for data collection and visualization that includes the Prometheus, node exporter, and Grafana. A node exporter is configured on the physical devices to collect the physical and virtual entities resources utilization logs. A real-time Prometheus database is configured to collect and store the data from all the exporters. Furthermore, the Grafana is affixed with Prometheus to visualize the current network status and device provisioning. A monitoring system is deployed on the physical infrastructure of the KOREN topology. Data collected by the monitoring system is further pre-processed and restructured into a dataset. A monitoring system is further enhanced by including machine learning techniques applied on the formatted datasets to identify the elephant flows. Additionally, a Random Forest is trained on our generated labeled datasets, and the classification models' performance are verified using accuracy metrics.