• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.313-323
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• 2003

The sliding wear behaviors of Zircaloy-4 nuclear fuel rod were investigated using two support springs with convex and concave shapes in room temperature air and water. The main focus is to compare the wear behavior of various test variables such as slip amplitude, environment, contact contours with different spring shape and a number of cycles. The results indicated that wear volume and maximum wear depth increased with slip amplitude in both air and water, but their trends tended to change according to the spring shapes and test environments. In air condition, the wear volume was controlled by wear debris behavior generated on worn surface. As a result, final wear volume and maximum wear depth decreased if a ratio of protruded wear volume to worn area $(D_p)$ would be saturated to specific value. This is because wear particle layer could accommodate large strain by accumulating and transforming wear particle layer. However, in water condition, metal-to metal contact was more dominant and wear volume was greatly affected by changed mechanical behavior between contact surfaces since wear debris should be generated after repeated plastic deformation and fracture. After wear test, worn surfaces were examined using optical microscope and SEM and details of wear mechanism were discussed using a ratio of wear volume to worn area $(D_e)$ at each test condition.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.47-59
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• 1993

The criticality of the shipping cask(KSC-7) for transportion of 7PWR spent fuel assemblies has been calculated and analysised on the basis of neutron transport theory. For criticality analysis, effects of the rod pitches, the fixed neutron absorbers(borated sus+boral) were considered. The effective multiplication factor has been calculated by KENO-Va, Mote Carlo method computer code, with the HANSEN-ROACH 16 group cross section set, which was made for personal computer system. The criticality for the KSC-7 cask was calculated in terms of the fresh fuel which was conservative for the aspects of nuclear critility. From the results of criticality analysis, the calculated Keff is proved to be lower than subcritical limit during normal transportation and under hypothetical accident condition. The maximum calculated criticalities of the KSC-7 were lower the safety criticality limit 1.0 recommended by US 10CFR71 both under normal and hypothetical accident condition. Also, to verify the KSC-7 criticality calculation results by using KENO-Va, it was carried out benchmark calculation with experimental data of B & W(Bobcock and Wilcox) company. From the 3s series of calculation of the KSC-7 cask and benchmark calculation, the cask was safely designed in nuclear criticality, respectively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2020

At present, the Department of Energy (DOE) in Unite State are directing the efforts of developing accident tolerant fuel (ATF) technology. As the first barrier of nuclear fuel system, the material selection of fuel rod cladding for ATFs is a basic but very significant issue for the development of this concept. The advanced cladding is attractive for providing much stronger oxidation resistance and better in-pile behavior under sever accident conditions (such as SBO, LOCA) for giving more coping time and, of course, at least an equivalent performance under normal condition. In recent years, many researches on in-plie or out-pile physical properties of some suggested cladding materials have been conducted to solve this material selection problem. Base on published literatures, this paper introduced relevant research backgrounds, objectives, research institutions and their progresses on several main potential claddings include triplex SiC, FeCrAl and MAX phase material Ti3SiC2. The physical properties of these claddings for their application in ATF area are also reviewed in thermohydraulic and mechanical view for better understanding and simulating the behaviors of these new claddings. While most of important data are available from publications, there are still many relevant properties are lacking for the evaluations.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.242-258
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• 2004

The duplex burnable poison absorbers concept was suggested by Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. This BP rod is composed of inner region of natural U-Gd$_2$O$_3$ and outer shell of enriched UO$_2$-Er$_2$O$_3$. It is expected that this burnable absorber has same reactivity control capability with gadolinia burnable absorber used in extened fuel cycle. In order to evaluate the nuclear feasibility of duplex BPs, the nuclear design characteristics were compared with that of four types of burnable absorbers; gadolinia, erbia, IFBA, dysprosia duplex BP on 24 months fuel cycle for Korean Standard Nuclear Power plants. According to the evaluation results of nuclear characteristics, the duplex BPs were better than other BPs on k-infinitives, reactivity holddown worth (RHW), pin power peaking and moderator temperature coefficient (MTC). The possibility of nuclear core design was also confirmed based on the optimized fuel assemblies which were searched for a sensitivity analysis. Characteristics of core design with duplex BPs was compared with that of reference core with gadolinia BPs for cycle length, power peaking and MTC. The duplex BP core had a little longer cycle length by 4 to 7 days because of increased amount of fissile in enriched uranium at the outer shell of duplex BP In case of power peaking F$\_$Q/ of duplex BP core was reduced from 1.5773 to 1.5335. MTC was also less -0.48 pcm/C than that of reference core. Finally, evaluation of fuel cycle economy was performed for the manufacturing feasibility test and fuel cost evaluation with duplex BPs. Fuel cycle economy of duplex BP core almost was equivalent with that of gadolinia BP core.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 1999.06a
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• pp.303-309
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• 1999

The fretting wear behaviour of Zircaloy-4 tube used as the fuel rod cladding in PWR nuclear power plants has been investigated at the different test environment, in light water and in air as a function of slip amplitude, normal load, test duration and frequency. Zircaloy-4 tubes were used for both of oscillating and stationary specimens. A fretting wear tester was designed to be suitable for this fretting test. The wear volume and specific wear rate of Zircaloy-4 tube in water were greater than those in air under various slip amplitude. It was found that delaminate debris and surface cracks were observed at low slip amplitude and high load in water Experimental results showed that the light water accelerated the wear of Zircaloy-4 tube at low slip amplitude in fretting.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 1999.06a
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• pp.310-316
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• 1999

The fretting wear characteristics of the contact between Zircaloy-4 tube and Inconel 600 tube have investigated. Zircaloy-4 is used for fuel rod in nuclear reactor and Inconel 600 is used for tube In steam generator of nuclear power plant. A fretting wear tester was designed to be suitable for this fretting test. In this study, the number of cycles, slip amplitude and normal load were selected as main factors of fretting wear. This study shows that the wear scar length of Zircaloy-4 and Inconel 600 increases as number of cycles, normal load and slip amplitude increase and the wear scar length of Zircaloy-4 is more longer than that of Inconel 600 due to the surface hardness.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2000.06a
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• pp.269-275
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• 2000

The fretting wear characteristics of TiN coated Zircaloy-4 tube were investigated experimentally The fretting wear experiment was performed using TiN coated Zircaloy-4 tube as the fuel rod cladding material and uncoated Zircaloy-4 tube as one of grids. TiN coating is probably one of the most frequently and successfully used PVD coatings for the mitigation of fretting wear. In this study, TiN coating by PVD was employed for improvement of Zircaloy-4 tube fretting characteristics. The fretting tester was designed and manufactured for this experiment. TiN coated Zircaloy-4 tube was used as the moving specimen, uncoated ZircaBoy-4 tube as the stationary one. The number of cycles, slip amplitude and normal load were selected as main factors of fretting wear. The results of this research showed that the wear volume of TiN coated Zircaloy-4 tube increased as number of cycles, normal load and slip amplitude increase but the quantity of volume was lower than the case of uncoated Zircaloy-4 tube pairs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.143-148
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• 2009

The increasing power and other demands on PWR fuel is leading to a demand for cladding that has low corrosion but that should also be robust with regard to mechanical behavior, impact of the irradiation environment and the coolant chemistry. The Optimized $ZIRLO^{TM}$ cladding is an evolutionary development of $ZIRLO^{TM}$ taking advantage of the long experience of the ZIRLO cladding but has significantly improved corrosion behavior. Recently, operation of Optimized ZIRLO to above 73 kWd/kgU has shown a reduction of the corrosion of almost 50%.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.23 no.6 s.183
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• pp.72-80
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• 2006

Electric Power Steering (EPS) mechanism has become widely equipped in passenger vehicle due to the increasing environmental concerns and higher fuel efficiency. This paper describes the development of concurrent simulation technique and simulation integration technique of EPS control system with a dynamic vehicle system. A full vehicle model interacting with EPS control algorithm was concurrently simulated on a single bump road condition. The dynamic responses of vehicle chassis and steering system resulting from road surface impact were evaluated and compared with proving ground experimental data. The comparisons show reasonable agreement on tie-rod load, rack displacement, steering wheel torque and tire center acceleration. This concurrent simulation capability was employed fur EPS performance evaluation and calibration as well as for vehicle handling performance integration and synthesis.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.84-90
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• 2004

It is very important to improve the durability and reliability of crankshaft because of conflicting demands for lower fuel consumption and higher power output. In this study, for the crankshaft bearing design, analyses were conducted to determine the lubrication characteristics such as oil flow rate, minimum oil film thickness, friction force and increase of oil temperature at main bearing and connecting rod bearing. Additionally, supplied oil pressure and temperature effects on the bearings were simulated to figure out lubrication characteristics on the bearings. Finally the effects of increasing the bearing width and clearance were introduced on the lubrication characteristics.