• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.1297-1302
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• 2003

KAERI has contrived 15 kinds of spacer grid shapes of its own since 1997 and applied for domestic and foreign patents. To date, KAERI has obtained US and ROK patents for 6 kinds of spacer grid shapes among them and the others are under review in USA, EC, China, and ROK. In this study, mechanical/structural performance analysis and test on two spacer grid shapes that are assumed to be the most effective candidates for the spacer grid of the next generation nuclear fuel in Korea was carried out. The result has shown that the performances of the candidates are better or not worse than those of the current spacer grid.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.15 no.3 s.84
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• pp.226-231
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• 2006

The fuel injector is a pa.1 that controls the fuel supply of automotive engine. The housing of the fuel injector supports the rod, the needle valve and the solenoid. In this study, the rigid-plastic FE-analysis by using the design of experiments (DOE) and the response surface methodology (RSM) has been performed to produce the product reducing the under-fill and the maximum effective strain. From the results of DOE, the stem of counter punch and the face angle of punch at the $1^{st}$ process, and the stem of punch at the $2^{nd}$ process were determined as the significant design variables far each response such as the upper under-fill, lower under-fill and the maximum effective strain. From the results of RSM, the optimal values of the design variables have been also determined by simultaneously considering the responses.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.191-196
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• 1997

As a part of International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP), SAXTON critical experiments were reevaluated. The effects on $K_{eff}$ of the uncertainties in experiment parameters, fuel rod characterization, soluble boron, critical water level, core structure, $^{241}$ Am and $^{241}$ Pu isotope number densities, random pitch error, duplicated experiment, axial fuel position, model simplification, etc., were evaluated and added in benchmark-model $k_{eff}$. In addition to detailed model, the simplified model for Saxton critical experiments was constructed by omitting the top, middle, and bottom grids and ignoring the fuel above water.r.r.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.432-437
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• 2004

KAERI has contrived 16 kinds of spacer grid shapes of its own since 1997 and applied for domestic and foreign patents. To date, KAERI has obtained US and ROK patents for 11 kinds of spacer grid shapes among them and the others are under review in USA, EC, China, and ROK. In this study, detailed performance analysis and test on two spacer grid shapes that are assumed to be the most effective candidates for the spacer grid of the next generation nuclear fuel in Korea was carried out. The result has shown that the performances of the candidates are better or not worse than those of the current spacer grid.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1994.11a
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• pp.311-313
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• 1994

RC(Rod Consolidation) technology in spent nuclear fuel management is an essential method and requires remote operation due to radiation exposure. Its technology may provide an effective means to double the storage capacity of spent fuel storage space. So development of this technology will provide a valuable contribution to establishing economical as well as technological basis for future spent fuel management.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.7-14
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• 1997

Grain boundary diffusion plays a significant role in fission gas release, which is one of the crucial processes dominating nuclear fuel performance. Gaseous fission produce such as Xe and Kr generated during nuclear fission have to diffuse in the grain lattice and the boundary inside fuel pellets before they reach the open spaces in a fuel rod. These processes can be studied by 'tracer diffusion' techniques, by which grain boundary diffusivity can be estimated and directly used for low burn-up fission gas release analysis. However, only a few models accounting for the both processes are available and mostly handle them numerically due to mathematical complexity. Also the numerical solution has limitations in a practical use. In this paper, an approximate analytical solution in case of stationary grain boundary in a polycrystalline solid is developed for the tracer diffusion techniques. This closed-form solution is compared to available exact and numerical solutions and it turns out that it makes computation not only greatly easier but also more accurate than previous models. It can be applied to theoretical modelings for low bum-up fission gas release phenomena and experimental analyses as well, especially for PIE (post irradiation examination).

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.601-608
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• 2003

Thermal analyses have been carried out for a spent fuel dry storage cask under normal and off-normal conditions. Environmental temperature is assumed to be $15^{\circ}C$ under the normal condition. The off-normal condition has an environmental temperature of $38^{\circ}C$. An additional off-normal condition is considered as a partial blockage of the air inlet ducts. Two of the four air inlet ducts are assumed to be completely blocked. The maximum temperatures of the fuel rod and concrete overpack were lower than the allowable values under the normal condition. Temperature distributions for the off-normal conditions were slightly higher than the normal conditions.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.301-307
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• 2005

The morphology of the high burnup $UO_2$ spent fuel, which was oxidized and annealed in a PIA (Post Irradiation Annealing) apparatus, has been observed. The high burnup fuel irradiated in Ulchin Unit 2, average rod burnup 57,000 MWd/tU, was transported to the KAERI's PIEF. The test specimen was used with about 200 mg of the spent $UO_2$ fuel fragment of the local burnup 65,000 MWd/tU. This specimen was annealed at $1400^{\circ}C$ for 4hrs after the oxidation for 3hrs to grain boundary using the PIA apparatus in a hot-cell. In order to oxidize the grain boundary, the oxidation temperature increased up to $500^{\circ}C$ and held for 3hrs in the mixed gas (60 ml He and 100 ml STD-air) atmosphere. The amount of 85Kr during the whole test process was measured to know the fission gas release behavior using the online system of a beta counter and a gamma counter. The detailed micro-structure was observed by a SEM to confirm the change of the fuel morphology after this test. As the annealing temperature increased, the fission products were observed to move to the grain surface and grain boundary of the $UO_2$ matrix. This specimen was re-structured through the reduction process, and the grain sizes were distributed from 5 to $10\;{\mu}m$.

• 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.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.160-178
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• 1983

A method which determines TRIGA Mark-III core power distribution by measuring fuel temperature is developed. The temperature measurement is performed by sweeping the already existing instrumented fuel elements which are loaded as an expedient of safe operation, and the number of fuel positions swept is 16. Experimental results are compared with those from computation using neutron diffusion theory. The maximum and standard deviations are 12 and 5%, respectively. It is confirmed that the estimation of rod power density of measuring fuel temperature is for more convenient than the conventional methods, and that it is proved to be very accurate as well.