• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1996년도 춘계학술발표회논문집(2)
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• pp.637-642
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• 1996

This paper presents the analysis results for the core degradation processes and the fission product release of the PHEBUS FPT0 experiment using MELCOR1.8.3. The objective of this study is to assess models associated with the core damage and fission product behavior in MELCOR. The calculation results were much improved through sensitivity studies. Thermal/hydraulic behavior in the core and the circuit was well predicted under the intact core geometry. In non-eutectic model case. the UO$_2$ dissolution model in the MELCOR always showed such a tendency that the resulting dissolved UO$_2$ mass was small at the highly oxidized condition due to the model logic. Total H$_2$ generation mass was underpredicted because the stiffner was not modeled and the liner in the shroud was not allowed to be oxidized in MELCOR. Some difficulties were found in modeling the activation product were solved by manipulating the RN input associated with the initial fission product inventory. These problem were occurred because there are no control rod model in MELCOR. Generally the fission product release ratio showed a similar trend compared with the measured data except the activation product. which have no model to simulate in MELCOR.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권7호
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• pp.2641-2649
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• 2024

Effective management of slightly used nuclear fuel (SUNF) is crucial for both technical and public acceptance reasons. SUNF management, radiotoxicity risk, and associated financial investment and technological capabilities are major concerns in nuclear power production. Reducing the volume of SUNF can simplify its management, and one possible solution is utilizing small modular reactors (SMR) and advanced fuel designs like those with thorium. This research focuses on studying the neutronic performance and radionuclide inventory of three different thorium fuel configurations. The mass of fissile material in thorium-based fuel significantly impacts Kinf, burn-up, and neutron energy spectrum. Compared to uranium, thorium as a fuel produces far fewer transuranic elements and less long-lived fission products (LLFPs) at the end of the core cycle (EOC). However, certain fission product elements produced from thorium-based fuel exhibit higher radioactivity at the beginning of the core cycle (BOC). Physical separation of thorium and uranium in the fuel block, like seed-and-blanket units (SBU) and duplex fuel designs, generate less radioactive waste with lower radioactivity and longer cycle lengths than homogeneous or mixed thorium-uranium fuel. Furthermore, the SBU and duplex feel designs exhibit comparable neutron spectra, leading to negligible differences in SUNF production between the two.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제41권5호
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• pp.729-738
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• 2009

Given the evolution of High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor(HTGR) designs, the source terms for licensing must be developed. There are three potential source terms: fission products, actinides in the fuel and tritium in the coolant. It is necessary to provide first an inventory of the source terms under normal operations. An analysis of source terms has yet to be performed for HTGRs. The previous code, which can estimate the inventory of the source terms for LWRs, cannot be used for HTGRs because the general data of a typical neutron cross-section and flux has not been developed. Thus, this paper uses a combination of the MCNP, ORIGEN, and MONTETEBURNS codes for an estimation of the source terms. A method in which the HTR-10 core is constructed using the unit lattice of a body-centered cubic is developed for core modeling. Based on this modeling method by MCNP, the generation of fission products, actinides and tritium with an increase in the burnup ratio is simulated. The model developed by MCNP appears feasible through a comparison with models developed in previous studies. Continuous fuel management is divided into five periods for the feeding and discharging of fuel pebbles. This discrete fuel management scheme is employed using the MONTEBURNS code. Finally, the work is investigated for 22 isotope fission products of nuclides, 22 actinides in the core, and tritium in the coolant. The activities are mainly distributed within the range of $10^{15}{\sim}10^{17}$ Bq in the equilibrium core of HTR-10. The results appear to be highly probable, and they would be informative when the spent fuel of HTGRs is taken into account. The tritium inventory in the primary coolant is also taken into account without a helium purification system. This article can lay a foundation for future work on analyses of source terms as a platform for safety assessment in HTGRs.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1997년도 추계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.70-75
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• 1997

A CASMO/ORIGEN coupling utility program was developed to predict the composition of all the fission products in spent PWR fuels. The coupling program reads the CASMO output file, modifies the ORIGEN cross section library and reconstructs the ORIGEN input file at each depletion step. In ORIGEN, the burnup equation is solved for actinides and fission products based on the fission reaction rates and depletion flux of CASMO. A sample calculation has been performed using a 14$\times$14 PWR fuel assembly and the results are given in this paper.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권3호
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• pp.812-824
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• 2021

In order to reduce risks from the Steam Generator Tube Rupture (SGTR) accident and to meet safety targets, various measures have been analyzed to minimize the amount of fission product (FP) release. In this paper, we propose an introduction of a Containment Filtered Venting System (CFVS) connected to the steam generator secondary side, which can reduce the amount of FP release while minimizing adverse effects identified in the previous studies. In order to compare the effect of new equipment with the existing strategy, accident simulations using MELCOR were performed. As a result of simulations, it is confirmed that CFVS operation lowers FP release into the environment, and the release fractions are lower (minimum 0.6% of the initial inventory for Cs) than that of the strategy which intends to depressurize the primary system directly (minimum 15.2% for Cs). The sensitivity analyses identify that refill of the CFVS vessel is a dominant contributor reducing the amount of FP released. As the new strategy has the possibility of hydrogen combustion and detonation in CFVS, the installation of an igniter inside the CFVS vessel may be considered in reducing such hydrogen risk.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1997년도 추계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.651-656
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• 1997

Fission product release (FPR) assessment for End Fitting Failure (EFF) in CANDU reactor loaded with CANFLEX-natural uranium (NU) fuel bundles has been peformed. The predicted results are compared with those for the reactor loaded with standard 37-element bundles. The total channel I-131 release at the end of transient for EFF accident is calculated to be 380.8 TBq and 602.9 TBq for the CANFLEX bundle and standard bundle channel cases, respectively. They are 4.9% and 7.9% of the total inventory, respectively. The lower total releases of the CANFLEX bundle O6 channel are attributed to the lower initial fuel temperatures caused by the lower linear element power of the CANFLEX bundle compared with the standard bundle.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제45권5호
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• pp.581-588
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• 2013

This paper deals with the Safety Analysis for $CANDU^{(R)}$ 6 nuclear reactors as affected by main Heat Transport System (HTS) aging. Operational and aging related changes of the HTS throughout its lifetime may lead to restrictions in certain safety system settings and hence some restriction in performance under certain conditions. A step in confirming safe reactor operation is the tracking of relevant data and their corresponding interpretation by the use of appropriate thermal-hydraulic analytic models. Safety analyses ranging from the assessment of safety limits associated with the prevention of intermittent fuel sheath dryout for a slow Loss of Regulation (LOR) analysis and fission gas release after a fuel failure are summarized. Specifically for fission gas release, the thermal-hydraulic analysis for a fresh core and an 11 Effective Full Power Years (EFPY) aged core was summarized, leading to the most severe stagnation break sizes for the inlet feeder break and the channel failure time. Associated coolant conditions provide the input data for fuel analyses. Based on the thermal-hydraulic data, the fission product inventory under normal operating conditions may be calculated for both fresh and aged cores, and the fission gas release may be evaluated during the transient. This analysis plays a major role in determining possible radiation doses to the public after postulated accidents have occurred.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제42권2호
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• pp.114-129
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• 2017

Background: The purpose of this paper is to confirm the event timings and the magnitude of fission product aerosol release from the Fukushima accident. Over a few hundreds of technical papers have been published on the environmental impact of Fukushima Daiichi accident since the accident occurred on March 11, 2011. However, most of the research used reverse or inverse method based on the monitoring of activities in the remote places and only few papers attempted to estimate the release of fission products from individual reactor core or from individual spent fuel pool. Severe accident analysis code can be used to estimate the radioactive release from which reactor core and from which radionuclide the peaks in monitoring points can be generated. Materials and Methods: The basic material used for this study are the initial core inventory obtained from the report JAEA-Data/Code 2012-018 and the given accident scenarios provided by Japanese Government or Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) in official reports. In this research a forward method using severe accident progression code is used as it might be useful for justifying the results of reverse or inverse method or vice versa. Results and Discussion: The release timing and amounts to the environment are estimated for volatile radioactive fission products such as noble gases, cesium, iodine, and tellurium up to 184 hours (about 7.7 days) after earthquake occurs. The in-plant fission product behaviors and release characteristics to environment are estimated using the severe accident progression analysis code, MELCOR, for Fukushima Daiichi accident. These results are compared with other research results which are summarized in UNSCEAR 2013 Report and other technical papers. Also it may provide the physically based arguments for justifying or suspecting the rationale for the scenarios provided in open literature. Conclusion: The estimated results by MELCOR code simulation of this study indicate that the release amount of volatile fission products to environment from Units 1, 2, and 3 cores is well within the range estimated by the reverse or inverse method, which are summarized in UNSCEAR 2013 report. But this does not necessarily mean that these two approaches are consistent.

• 방사성폐기물학회지
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• 제2권1호
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• pp.35-40
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• 2004

Final disposal of radioactive waste generated from Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) requires the detailed information about the characteristics and the quantities of radionuclides in waste package. Most of these radionuclides are difficult to measure and expensive to assay. Thus it is suggested to the indirect method by which the concentration of the Difficult-to-Measure (DTM) nuclide is estimated using the correlations of concentration - it is called the scaling factor - between Easy-to-Measure (Key) nuclides and DTM nuclides with the measured concentration of the Key nuclide. In general, the scaling factor is determined by the log mean average (LMA) method and the regression method. However, these methods are inadequate to apply to fission product nuclides and some activation product nuclides such as 14$^{C}$ and 90$^{Sr}$ . In this study, the artificial neural network (ANN) method is suggested to improve the conventional SF determination methods - the LMA method and the regression method. The root mean squared errors (RMSE) of the ANN models are compared with those of the conventional SF determination models for 14$^{C}$ and 90$^{Sr}$ in two parts divided by a training part and a validation part. The SF determination models are arranged in the order of RMSEs as the following order: ANN model