• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.3127-3132
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• 2021

Feasibility study of burn-up analysis and monitoring using delayed fast neutrons was investigated at Missouri University of Science and Technology Reactor (MSTR). Burnt and fresh fuel elements were used to collect delayed fast neutron data for different power levels. Total reactivity varied depending on the burn-up rate of fuel elements for each core configuration. The regulating rod worth was 2.07E-04 𝚫k/k/in and 1.95E-04 𝚫k/k/in for T121 and T122 core configurations at 11 inch, respectively. Delayed fast neutron spectrum of F1 (burnt) and F16 (fresh) fuel elements were analyzed further, and a strong correlation was observed between delayed fast neutron emission and burn-up. According to the analyzed peaks in burnt and fresh fuels, reactor power dependency was observed and it was determined that delayed neutron provided more reliable results at reactor powers of 50 kW and above.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.1002-1008
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• 2016

An understanding of the coarsening process of the large fission gas pores in the high burn-up structure (HBS) of irradiated $UO_2$ fuel is very necessary for analyzing the safety and reliability of fuel rods in a reactor. A numerical model for the description of pore coarsening in the HBS based on the Ostwald ripening mechanism, which has successfully explained the coarsening process of precipitates in solids is developed. In this model, the fission gas atoms are treated as the special precipitates in the irradiated $UO_2$ fuel matrix. The calculated results indicate that the significant pore coarsening and mean pore density decrease in the HBS occur upon surpassing a local burn-up of 100 GWd/tM. The capability of this model is successfully validated against irradiation experiments of $UO_2$ fuel, in which the average pore radius, pore density, and porosity are directly measured as functions of local burn-up. Comparisons with experimental data show that, when the local burn-up exceeds 100 GWd/tM, the calculated results agree well with the measured data.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.1013-1018
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• 2008

For a sequential port fuel injection natural gas engine, its combustion and emission characteristics at low loads are crucial to meet light duty vehicle emission regulations. Fuel injection timing is an important parameter related to the mixture formation in the cylinder. Its effect on the combustion and emission characteristics of a natural gas engine were investigated at 0.2 MPa brake mean effective pressure (BMEP)/2000 rpm and 0.26 MPa BMEP/1500 rpm. The results show that early fuel injection timing is beneficial to the reduction of the coefficient of variation (COV) of indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) under lean burn conditions and to extending the lean burn limits at the given loads. When relative air/fuel ratio is over 1.3, fuel injection timing has a relatively large effect on engine.out emissions. The levels of NOx emissions are more sensitive to the fuel injection timing at 0.26 MPa BMEP/1500 rpm. An early fuel injection timing under lean burn conditions can be used to control engine out NOx emissions.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.19-32
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• 1999

The present study investigated the forms and behaviors of fuel during intake and compression process, and the initial flame stability in a lean burn engine modified as a single cylinder engine equipped with quartz windows for visualization. PLIF(Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence) method with KrF Excimer laser was used for measuring the fuel distributions. The principal design concept of the lean burn nin in this study is the axial stratification in the fuel distribution via fuel injection during intake process and different shapes of intake ports; helical and straight. The experiments showed that fuel flowed in as a vapor state in the early part of intake process and lots of this mixture mated down along the intake valve side cylinder wall, but in the latter part, a lot of fuel flowed in as a liquid state and this fuel stayed in the upper part of cylinder, after that the dense fuel cloud moved upward in the early of part compression process. It became clear that the fuel flowed in via straight port had a important role in the axial fuel stratification.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.1893-1908
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• 2021

In light of the importance of helium production in influencing the behaviour of fast reactor fuels, in this work we present a burn-up module with the objective to calculate the production of helium in both in-pile and out-of-pile conditions tracking the evolution of 23 alpha-decaying actinides. This burn-up module relies on average microscopic cross-section look-up tables generated via SERPENT high-fidelity calculations and involves the solution of the system of Bateman equations for the selected set of actinide nuclides. The results of the burn-up module are verified in terms of evolution of actinide and helium concentrations by comparing them with the high-fidelity ones from SERPENT, considering two representative test cases of (U,Pu)O₂ fuel in fast reactor conditions. In addition, a code-to-code comparison is made with the independent state-of-the-art module TUBRNP (implemented in the TRANSURANUS fuel performance code) for the same test cases. The herein presented burn-up module is available in the SCIANTIX code, designed for coupling with fuel performance codes.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.377-384
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• 2013

During the last three decades, South Korean nuclear power plants have discharged about 5,950 tons of spent fuel and the maximum burn-up reached 55 GWd/MTU in 2002. This study was performed to support the development of Korean dry spent fuel storage alternatives. First, we chose V5H-$17{\times}17$ and KSFA-$16{\times}16$ as representative domestic spent fuels, considering current accumulation and the future generation of the spent fuels. Examination reveals that their average burn-ups have already increased from 33 to 51 GWd/MTU and from 34.8 to 48.5 GWd/MTU, respectively. Evaluation of the fuel characteristics shows that at the average burn-up of 42 GWd/MTU, the oxide thickness, hydrogen content, and hoop stress ranged from $30{\sim}60{\mu}m$, 250 ~ 500 ppm, and 50 ~ 75 MPa, respectively. But when burn-up exceeds 55 GWd/MTU, those characteristics can increase up to 100 ${\mu}m$, 800 ppm, and 120 MPa, respectively, depending on the power history. These results demonstrate that most Korean spent nuclear fuels are expected to remain within safe bounds during long-term dry storage, however, the excessive hoop stress and hydrogen concentration may trigger the degradation of the spent fuel integrity early during the long-term dry storage in the case of high burn-up spent fuels exceeding 45 GWd/MTU.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.199-214
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• 2009

High burn-up transformation process in low temperature nuclear fuel oxides material was observed in the early sixties in LWR $UO_2$ fuels, but not studied in depth. Increasing progressively the fuel discharge burn-up in PWR power plants, this material transformation was again observed in 1985 and identified as an important process to be accounted for in the fuel simulations due to its expected consequence on fuel heat transfer and therefore on the fission gas release. Fission gas release was one of the major concerns in PWR fuels, mainly during transient or accidents events. The behaviour of such a material in case of rod failure was also an important aspect to analyse. Therefore several national and international programs were launched during the last 25 years to understand the mechanisms leading to the high burn-up structure formation and to evaluate the physical properties of the final material. A large observations database has been acquired, using the more sophisticated techniques available in hot cells. This large database is discussed in this paper, providing basis to build an engineering-model, which is based on phenomenological description data and information accumulated. In addition this paper has the ambition to construct the best logical model to understand restructuring.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.28-41
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• 2009

Because fire has significant impacts on fauna and flora in forest ecosystems, as well as socioeconomic influences to local community, it has been an important field of study for decades. One of the most common ways to reduce fire risk is to enhance fire-resilience of forest through fuel treatments including thinning and prescribed burning. Since fuel treatment can't be practiced over all forested areas, appropriate and effective strategies are needed. The present study aims to look at the relationship between spatial characteristics of forest structure measured with landscape pattern metrics and burn severity to provide guidelines for effective fuel treatments. Samchuck fire was selected for the study, and 232 grids covering the study areas were generated, and the grid size was 1km. The burn severity is measured with dNBR derived from satellite imagery, and spatial characteristics of forest structure were measured using FRAGSTATS for both landscape and class levels for each 1km grid. The results of this study strongly indicated that heterogeneity in composition and configuration of forests may significantly reduce burn severity. By enhancing heterogeneity of forests, fuel treatments for fire-resilience forest could be more effective.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.330-338
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• 2016

The U-Zr or U-TRU-Zr cylindrical metallic fuel slug used in fast reactors is known to swell significantly and to grow during irradiation. In neutronics simulations of metallic-fueled fast reactors, it is assumed that the slug has swollen and contacted cladding, and the bonding sodium has been removed from the fuel region. In this research, a realistic burnup-dependent fuel-swelling simulation was performed using Monte Carlo code McCARD for a single-batch compact sodium-cooled breed-and-burn reactor by considering the fuel-swelling behavior reported from the irradiation test results in EBR-II. The impacts of the realistic burnup-dependent fuel swelling are identified in terms of the reactor neutronics performance, such as core lifetime, conversion ratio, axial power distribution, and local burnup distributions. It was found that axial fuel growth significantly deteriorated the neutron economy of a breed-and-burn reactor and consequently impaired its neutronics performance. The bonding sodium also impaired neutron economy, because it stayed longer in the blanket region until the fuel slug reached 2% burnup.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.155-159
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• 2016

Background: Nuclear reactors produce a great number of antielectron neutrinos mainly from beta-decay chains of fission products. Such neutrinos have energies mostly in MeV range. We are interested in neutrinos in a region of keV, since they may take part in special weak interactions. We calculate reactor antineutrino spectra especially in the low energy region. In this work we present neutrino spectrum from a typical pressurized water reactor (PWR) reactor core. Materials and Methods: To calculate neutrino spectra, we need information about all generated nuclides that emit neutrinos. They are mainly fission fragments, reaction products and trans-uranium nuclides that undergo negative beta decay. Information in relation to trans-uranium nuclide compositions and its evolution in time (burn-up process) were provided by a reactor code MVP-BURN. We used typical PWR parameter input for MVP-BURN code and assumed the reactor to be operated continuously for 1 year (12 months) in a steady thermal power (3.4 GWth). The PWR has three fuel compositions of 2.0, 3.5 and 4.1 wt% $^{235}U$ contents. For preliminary calculation we adopted a standard burn-up chain model provided by MVP-BURN. The chain model treated 21 heavy nuclides and 50 fission products. The MVB-BURN code utilized JENDL 3.3 as nuclear data library. Results and Discussion: We confirm that the antielectron neutrino flux in the low energy region increases with burn-up of nuclear fuel. The antielectron-neutrino spectrum in low energy region is influenced by beta emitter nuclides with low Q value in beta decay (e.g. $^{241}Pu$) which is influenced by burp-up level: Low energy antielectron-neutrino spectra or emission rates increase when beta emitters with low Q value in beta decay accumulate Conclusion: Our result shows the flux of low energy reactor neutrinos increases with burn-up of nuclear fuel.