• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.19-26
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• 2010

The paper presents a case study of a limestone quarry of the Philippines, where major problems in terms of improper fragmentation, poor wall control, and poor heave of the muck pile were witnessed. The paper highlights the significant role of switching over from diagonal firing pattern to V-type firing pattern, and also of making suitable adjustments in the stemming column length for improved confinement and gas retention. The study revealed that by making aforesaid design modifications in the blast round, marked improvement in blasting results was registered. Looking at the results, it was further contemplated to expand the mesh area in the subsequent blast rounds. The mesh area was incremented from the existing $8.96m^2$ to $12m^2$. The results were meticulously registered in the field, and clearly depicted definite improvements in the blast results in terms of increased P.F., reduced boulder count, reduced FEL cycle time, reduced dozing hours and improved heave.

• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.18-27
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• 1998

Biopulping is defined as the treatment of wood chips with lignin-degrading fungi prior to pulping. Fungal pretreatment prior to mechanical pulping reduces electrical energy requirements during refining or increases mill throughput, improves paper strength, reduces the pitch content, and reduces the environmental impact of pulping. Our recent work involved scaling up the biopulping process towards the industrial level, investigating both the engineering and economic feasibility. We envision the process to be done in either a chip-pile or silo-based system for which several factors need to be considered: the degree of decontamination, a hospitable environment for the fungus, and the overall process economics. Currently, treatment of the chips with low-pressure steam is sufficient for decontamination and a simple, forced ventilation system maintains the proper temperature, humidity, and moisture conditions, thus promoting uniform growth of the fungus. The pilot-scale trial resulted in the successful treatment of 4 tons of wood chips (dry weight basis) with results comparable to those on a laboratory. Larger, 40-ton trials were also successful, with energy savings and paper properties comparable with the laboratory scale. The overall economics of the process also look very favorable and can result in significant annual savings to the mill. Although the current research has focused on biopulping for mechanical pulping, it is also beneficial for sulfite chemical pulping and some applications to recycled fiber have been investigated.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.5C
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• pp.177-183
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• 2012

The use of energy pile foundation has been increased for economic utilization of geothermal energy. In particular, a coil-shaped ground heat exchanger (GHE) is preferred than conventional U-shaped heat exchanger to ensure better efficiency of heat exchange rate. This paper presents experimental results by changing different pitch spaces of spiral coils. Joomunjin sand was filled in a steel box of which the size was $5m{\times}1m{\times}1m$. Thermal response tests (TRTs) were conducted to measure the ground thermal conductivity with temperatures of circulating water using line source model and ring coil model. Experimental results and analytical solutions were compared to validate the applicability of these models. Ring coil model showed more accurate similar results with experimental data rather than line source model and cylindrical source model.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.745-752
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• 2024

A method for gamma/neutron event classification based on frequency-domain analysis for mixed radiation environments is proposed. In contrast to the traditional charge comparison method for pulse-shape discrimination, which requires baseline removal and pulse alignment, our method does not need any preprocessing of the digitized data, apart from removing saturated traces in sporadic pile-up scenarios. It also features the identification of neutron events in the detector's full energy range with a single device, from thermal neutrons to fast neutrons, including low-energy pulses, and still provides a superior figure-of-merit for classification. The proposed frequency-domain analysis consists of computing the fast Fourier transform of a triggered trace and integrating it through a simplified version of the transform magnitude components that distinguish the neutron features from those of the gamma photons. Owing to this simplification, the proposed method may be easily ported to a real-time embedded deployment based on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays or Digital Signal Processors. We target an off-the-shelf detector based on a small CLYC (Cs2LiYCl6:Ce) crystal coupled to a silicon photomultiplier with an integrated bias and preamplifier, aiming at lightweight embedded mixed radiation monitors and dosimeter applications.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.35-40
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• 2012

Several neutron measuring devices were tested under the neutron fields characterized with two distinct kinds of thermal and fast neutron spectrum. These neutron fields were constructed by the mixing of both thermal neutron fields and fast neutron fields. The thermal neutron field was constructed using by a graphite pile with eight AmBe neutron sources. The fast neutron field of 14 MeV was made by a DT neutron generator. In order to change the fraction of fast neutron fluence rate in each neutron fields, a neutron generator was placed in the thermal neutron field at 50 cm and 150 cm from the reference position. The polyethylene neutron collimator was used to make moderated 14 MeV neutron field. These neutron spectra were measured by using a Bonner sphere system with an LiI scintillator, and dosimetric quantities delivered to neutron surveymeters were determined from these measurement results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.443-449
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• 2014

To check the characteristics of nuclear fuels during an irradiation test, the nuclear fuel rod needs to be disassembled from the test rig located in the pool of the research reactor. Then, the disassembled fuel rod is delivered to the hot cell for intermediate examination. A fuel rod that passes the intermediate examination is delivered to the reactor pool to be reassembled into the test rig. The irradiation test is resumed with the reassembled test rig. Because nuclear fuel rods irradiated by neutrons are highly radioactive, all the disassembly and reassembly processes should be carried out in the pool of the research reactor to prevent operators being exposed to radiation. In particular, because a test rig is 5.4-m long and the reactor pool of HANARO is 6-m deep, special tools need to be developed for performing the disassembly and reassembly processes. In this study, a new assembly design of nuclear fuel rods for intermediate examination is introduced. Furthermore, tools for treating the irradiated fuel rod assembly are introduced, and their performance is verified by an out pile test.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.22-33
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• 1987

The confirmed integrity of nuclear fuel cladding materials is an important object during steady state and transient operations at nuclear power plant. In this context, the clad material yielding behavior is especially important because of pellet-clad gap expansion. During the steep power excursion, the in-pile irradiation behavior differences between uranium-dioxide fuel pellet and zircaloy clad induce the contact pressure between them. If this pressure reaches the zircaloy clad yield pressure, the zircaloy clad will be plastically deformed. After the reactor power resumed to normal state, this plastic permanent expansion of clad tube give rise to the pellet-clad gap expansion. In this paper, the simple mandrel expansion test method which utilizes thermal expansion difference between copper mandrel and zircaloy tube was adopted to simulate this phenomenon. That is, copper mandrel which has approximately three times of thermal expansion coefficient of zircaloy-4 (PWR fuel cladding material) were used in this experiment at the temperature range from 400C to 700C. The measured plastic expansion of zircaloy outer radius and derived mathematical relations give the yield pressure, yield stress of zircaloy-4 clad at the various clad wall temperatures, the activation energy of zircaloy tube yielding, and pellet-clad gap expansion. The obtained results are in good agreement with previous experimental results. The mathematical analysis and simple test method prove to be a reliable and simple technique to assess the yielding behavior and gap expansion measurement between zircaloy-4 tube and uranium-dioxide fuel pellet under biaxial stress conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.21-31
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• 2014

Recently, the research on renewable energy against depletion of fossil fuel have been actively carried out in the world. Especially, offshore wind turbines are very economical and innovative technology. However, offshore wind turbines experience large base moments due to the wind and wave loading, so the monopile with large diameter needs to be applied. For the economical design of the large diameter pile, it is important to consider the flexibility of the foundation to estimate the maximum moment accurately, based on studies conducted so far. In this paper, the foundation was modeled using the finite element method in order to better describe the large diameter effect of a monopile and the results were compared with those of p-y method. For the examples studied in this paper, the change in maximum moment was insignificant, but the maximum tilt angle from the finite element method was over 14% larger than that of p-y method. Therefore, the finite element approach is recommended to model the flexibility effect of the pile when large tilt angles may cause serviceability issues.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.281-294
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• 2015

In order to quantitatively estimate the nonlinear destructive interaction of wave load with wind load, which is very vital for the optimal design of offshore wind energy converter, we carried out a hydraulic model test and wind tunnel test. As a substructure of offshore wind energy converter, we would deploy the monopile, which is popular due to its easiness in construction. Based on the simulation using Monte Carlo simulation using Kaimal spectrum and cross spectrum, the instantaneous maximum wind velocity is adjusted to 10 m/s. And, considering the wave conditions of the Western Sea where a pilot wind farm is planned to be constructed, $H_s=0.1m$, 0.15 m, 0.2 m is carefully chosen. It turns out that the nonlinear destructive interaction between the wind and wave loads acting on the offshore wind energy converter is more clearly visible at rough seas rather than at mild seas, which strongly support our deduction that a Large eddy, a swirling vortex developed near the bumpy water surface in the opposite direction of the wind, is the driving mechanism underlying nonlinear destructive interaction between the wind and wave loads.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.10-39
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• 1988

This study investigated the temperatures and relative humidities in the semi-greenhouse type solar dryer with a black rock-bed heat storage and without heat storage and outdoor temperature and relative humidity at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.. A comparison was made of the drying rates, final moisture contents, moisture content distributions, casehardening stresses, drying defects, volumetric shrinkage of dried lumber for solar- and air-drying from the green condition of mixtures of Douglas-fir, lauan, taun, oak and sycamore 25mm- and 50 mm-thick lumber during the same period for four seasons, and heat efficiencies for solar dryer with and without the heat storage for saving of heat energy and the cost of lumber drying using the solar energy. The results from this study were summarized as follows: I. The mean weekly temperatures in the solar dryers were 3 to $6^{\circ}C$ at 9 a.m. and 9 to $13^{\circ}C$ at 2 p.m. higher than mean outdoor temperature during all the drying period. 2. The mean weekly relative humidities in the solar dryers were about 1 to 19% at 9 a.m. higher than the outdoor relative humidity. and the difference between indoor and outdoor relative humidity in the morning was greater than in the afternoon. 3. The temperatures and relative humidities in the solar dryer with and without the heat storage were nearly same. 4. The overall solar insolation during the spring months was highest and then was greater in the order of summer, atumm, and winter month. S. The initial rate of solar drying was more rapid than that of air drying. As moisture content decreased, solar drying rate became more rapid than that of air drying. The rates of solar drying with and without heat storage were nearly same. The drying rate of Douglas-fir was fastest and then faster in the order of sycamore, lauan, taun and oak. and the faster drying rate of species, the smaller differences of drying rates between thicknesses of lumber. The drying rates were fastest in the summer and slowest in the winter. The rates of solar drying during the spring were more slowly in the early stage and faster in the later stage than those during the autumn. 6. The final moisture contents were above 15% for 25mm-thick air dried and about 10% for solar dried lumber, but the mean final MCs for 50mm-thick lumber were much higher than those of thin lumber. The differences of final MC between upper and lower course of pile for solar drying were greater than those of pile for air drying. The differences of moisture content between the shell and the core of air dried lumbers were greater than those of solar dried lumber, smallest in the drying during summer and greatest in the drying during winter among seasons. 7. Casehardening stresses of 25mm- and 50mm-thick dried lumber were slight, casehardening stress of solar dried lumber was severer than that of air dried lumber and was similar between solar dried lumber with and without heat storage, Casehardening stresses of lumber dried during spring were slightest and then slighter in the order of summer, autumn, and winter. Casehardening stresses of Douglas -fir, sycamore and lauan were slight, comparing with those of taun and oak. 8. Maximum initial checks of 25mm-thick lumber occurred above and below fiber saturation point and those of 50mm-thick lumber occurred in the higher moisture content than thin lumber. As the moisture content decreased, most of checks were closed and didn't show distinct difference of the degree of checks among drying methods. The degree of checks were very slight in case of Douglas-fir and lauan, and severe in case of taun and oak. The degree of checks for 50mm-thick lumber were severer than those for 25mm-thick lumber. 9. The degree of warpage showed severe in case of oak and sycamore lumber, but no warping was found in case of Douglas-fir, lauan and taun. 10. The volumetric shrinkages of taun and oak were large and medium in case of Douglas-fir, lauan and sycamore. 11. Heat efficiencies of solar dryer with heat storage were 6.9% during spring, 7.7% during summer, 12.1% during autumn and 4.1% during winter season. Heat efficiency of solar dryer with heat storage was slightly greater than that of without heat storage. As moisture content of lumber decreased, heat efficiency decreased.