• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.497-505
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• 2021

Water management is essential to improve the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. This study targets to understand the characteristics of water concentration in proton exchange membrane fuel cells at a dynamic load variable environment. The fuel cell model was developed to simulate nonlinear water transport in membrane by the MATLAB/Simulink^® (MathWorks, Natick, MA, USA) platform, and it calculates water content in membrane, ionic conductivity, and predicts fuel cell performance through one-dimensional analysis.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.101-104
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• 2006

Water management is considered to be one of the main issues to be addressed for the performance improvement of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. For good water management, the detailed information on the water distribution inside an operating PEM fuel cell should be available to main an adequate level of hydration in the PEM While avoiding performance decline due to liquid rater flooding. For the PEM fuel cell to be commercially viable as vehicle applications, the flooding on the cathode side should be minimized during the fuel ceil operation. In this study to investigate cathode flooding and its relation with temperature distribution in flow channels, visualization study was performed on the cathode side of a PEM fuel cell. For the direct visualization of temperature field and water transport in cathode flow channels, a transparent cell was designed and manufactured using quartz window. Water transport and its two-phase flow characteristics in flow channels were investigated experimentally. Also, the visualization of temperature distribution In cathode flow channels was made by using IR camera. Results indicated that the temperature rise near the exit of cathode flow channel was found. It is found that this area corresponds to the flooding area from both temperature and flooding visualization results It is expected that this study can effectively contribute to get the detailed data on water transport linked with heat management during the operation of a PEM fuel cell

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.43-49
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the radiation effect on damage when the external shield of the spent nuclear fuel transport cask is damaged due to impact as the cause of an unexpected accident. The neutron and gamma-ray intensities and spectra are calculated using the ORIGEN-Arp module in the SCALE 6.2.4 code package⁽¹⁾ and then using MCNP6.2⁽²⁾ code calculate the dose rate. In order to evaluate the radiation dose according to the size of damage caused by external impact, various sized holes of 0.3~13.7% are assumed in the outer shield of the cask to evaluate the sensitivity to the dose. In the case of radiation source leakage, damage to the nuclear fuel assembly is assumed to be up to 6% based on overseas test cases. When only the outer shield is damaged, the maximum surface dose is calculated as 3.12E+03 mSv/hr. However, if the radiation source is leaked due to damage to the nuclear fuel assembly, it becomes 7.00E+05 mSv/hr which is about 200 times greater than the former case.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.18 no.2_spc
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• pp.275-289
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• 2020

In 2017, multimodal transportation tests for evaluating road, sea, and rail transport were performed by research institutes in the US, Spain, and the Republic of Korea. In this study, acceleration and strain data determined through road and sea tests were analyzed. It was investigated whether the load generated for each transport mode was amplified or attenuated according to the load transfer path. From the results, it was confirmed that the load transfer characteristics differed according to the transportation mode and loading path. The effects of strain determined through each test on the structural integrity of the spent nuclear fuel were also investigated. It was found that the magnitude of the measured strain had a negligible effect on the structural integrity of the spent nuclear fuel, considering its fatigue strength. The results for the acceleration and strain data analyses obtained in this study will be useful for scheduled domestic transportation tests under normal transport conditions.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.291-298
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• 2003

The KN-12 transport cask has been designed to transport 12 PWR spent nuclear fuel assemblies and to comply with the regulatory requirements for a Type B(U) package. The containment boundary of the cask is defined by a cask body, a cask lid, lid bolts with nuts, O-ring seals and a bolted closure lid. The containment vessel for the cask consists of a forged thick-walled carbon steel cylindrical body with an integrally-welded carbon steel bottom and is closed by a lid made of stainless steel, which is fastened to the cask body by lid bolts with nuts and sealed by double elastomer O-rings. In the cask lid an opening is closed by a plug with an O-ring seal and covered by the bolted closure lid sealed with an O-ring. The cask must maintain a radioactivity release rate of not more than the regulatory limit for normal transport conditions and for hypothetical accident conditions, as required by the related regulations. The containment requirements of the cask are satisfied by maintaining a maximum air reference leak rate of $2.7{\times}10^{-4}ref.cm^3s^{-1}$ or a helium leak rate of $3.3{\times}10^{-4}cm^3s^{-1}$ for normal transport conditions and for hypothetical accident conditions.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.207-214
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• 2001

The KN-12 spent nuclear fuel (SNF) transport cask is designed for transportation of up to 12 assemblies and is in standby status for being licensed in accordance with Korea Atomic Energy Act. To evaluate radiation shielding and criticality safety of the KN-12 cask, each case of study was carried out using MCNP4B Code. MCNP code is verified by performing benchmark calculation for the KSC-4 SNF cask designed in 1989. As a result of radiation safety evaluation for the KN-12 cask, calculated dose rates always satisfied the standards at the cask surface, at 2m from the surface in normal transport condition, and at 1 m from the surface in hypothetical accident condition. Maximum dose rate was always arisen on the side of the cask. For normal transport condition, photons primarily contribute to dose rate between two kinds of released sources, neutrons and photons, from spent nuclear fuel but for hypothetical accident condition, contrary case was resulted. The level of calculated dose rate was 27.8% of the limit at the cask surface, 89.3% at 2 m from the cask surface, and 25.1% at 1 m from the cask surface. For criticality analysis, keff resulting from the criticality analysis considering the condition of optimum partial flooding with fresh water is 0.89708(0.00065. The results confirm the standards recommended by all regulations on radiation safety.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.281-290
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• 2003

The KN-12 spent nuclear fuel transport cask, which is a Type B(U) package designed to comply with the requirements of Korea Atomic Energy Act[1], IAEA Safety Standards Series No.TS-R-1[2] and US 10 CFR Part 71[3], is designed for carrying up to 12 PWR spent fuel assemblies in a basket structure. The cask has been licensed in accordance with Korea Atomic Energy Act and was fabricated in Korea in accordance with the requirements of ASME B&PV Sec.III, Div.3[4]. The cask must maintain thermal integrity in accordance with the related regulations and be evaluated to verify that the thermal performance of the cask complies with the regulatory requirements. The temperatures of the cask and components were determined by using finite elements methods with a numerical tool, safety tests using an 1/8 height slice model of the real cask were conducted to demonstrate verification of the numerical tool and methods, and heat transfer tests for normal transport conditions were performed as a fabrication acceptance test to demonstrate the heat transfer capability of the cask.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.457-466
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• 2008

The relation between the phase separated morphologies and their transport properties in the polymer blend membrane for direct methanol fuel cell application was studied. In order to enhance the proton conductivity and reduce the methanol crossover, sulfonated poly(arylene ether sulfone) copolymer, with a sulfonation of 60 mol% (sPAES-60), was blended with nonsulfonated poly(ether sulfone) copolymer (RH-2000, Solvay). Various morphologies were obtained by varying the drying condition and the concentration of the casting solution (10, 15, 20 wt%). The transport properties of proton and methanol molecule through the polymer blend membranes were studied according to the absorbed water. AC impedance spectroscopy was used to measure the proton conductivity and a liquid permeability measuring instrument was designed to measure the methanol permeability. The state of water in the blend membranes was confirmed by differential scanning calorimetry and was used to correlate the morphology of the membrane with the membrane transport properties.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.955-965
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• 2014

Transport phenomena of reactant and product are directly linked to intrinsic inhomogeneous random configurations of catalyst layer (CL) that consist of ionomer, carbon-supported catalyst (Pt/C), and pores. Hence, electrochemically active surface area (ECSA) of Pt/C is dominated by geometrical morphology of mass transport path. Undoubtedly these ECSAs are key factor of total fuel cell efficiency. In this study, non-deterministic micro-scale CLs were randomly generated by Monte Carlo method and implemented with the percolation process. To ensure valid inference about Pt/C catalyst utilization, 600 samples were chosen as the number of necessary samples with 95% confidence level. Statistic results of 600 samples generated under particular condition (20vol% Pt/C, 30vol% ionomer, 50vol% pore, and 20nm particle diameter) reveal only 18.2%~81.0% of Pt/C can construct ECSAs with mean value of 53.8%. This study indicates that the catalyst utilization in fuel cell CLs cannot be identical notwithstanding the same design condition.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.86-91
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• 2010

Among various fuel cells, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) offer the highest energy efficiency, when taking into account the thermal recycling of waste heat at high temperature. However, the highest efficiency and lowest pollution for a SOFC can be achieved through the sophisticated control of its constituent components such as electrodes, electrolytes, interconnects and sealing materials. The electrochemical conversion efficiency of a SOFC is particularly dependent upon the performance of its electrode materials. The electrode materials should meet highly stringent requirements to optimize cell performance. In particular, both mass and charge transport should easily occur simultaneously through the electrode structure. Matter transport or charge transport is critically related to the configuration and spatial disposition of the three constituent phases of a composite electrode, which are the ionic conducting phase, electronic conducting phase, and the pores. The current work places special emphasis on the quantification of this complex microstructure of composite electrodes. Digitized images are exploited in order to obtain the quantitative microstructural information, i.e., the size distributions and interconnectivities of each constituent component. This work reports regarding zirconia-based composite electrodes.