• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.11
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• pp.2660-2666
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• 2020

Korea successfully achieved energy independence in the shortest period of time from being the poorest country in terms of energy 50 years ago through steady development of nuclear technology. In the past, the nuclear industry has been driven through government-centered policy development, public institution-based research, and industrial facility and infrastructure construction. Consequently, South Korea became a nuclear energy powerhouse exporting nuclear power plants to the UAE, surpassing the level of domestic technological independence. However, in recent years, the nuclear industry in Korea has experienced a decline in new plant construction since the Fukushima accident in Japan, which caused changes in public perspectives regarding nuclear power plant operation, more stringent safety standards on the operation of nuclear power plants, and a shift in governmental energy policy. These changes are expected to change the domestic nuclear industry ecosystem. Therefore, in this study, we investigate the priority of technology development investment from the perspective of experts in private nuclear power companies, shifting the focus from government-led nuclear R&D policies. To establish a direction in nuclear technology development, a survey was conducted by applying an analytic hierarchy analysis to experts who have worked in nuclear power plants for more than 15 years. The analysis items of focus were the 3 attributes of strategic importance, urgency, and business feasibility of four major fields related to nuclear energy: nuclear safety, decommissioning, radioactive waste management, and strengthening industrial competitiveness.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.157-164
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• 2015

Nuclear power plants have logical loop structures in their system configuration. This paper explains the method to solve a loop structure in reliability analysis. As examples of loop structured systems, the reactor core isolation cooling system and high-pressure core injection system of a boiling water reactor are considered and analyzed under a station blackout accident condition. The analysis results show the important role of loop structures under severe accidents. For the evaluation of the safety of nuclear power plants, it is necessary to accurately evaluate a loop structure's reliability.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.209-216
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• 2015

It has been about 5 years since the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, which contaminated large area with radioactive materials. It is necessary to assess radiation dose to establish evacuation areas and to set decontamination goal for the large contaminated area. In this study, we assessed temporal trend of radiation dose to the public living in the large area contaminated with radioactive materials after the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. The dose assessment was performed based on Chernobyl model and RESRAD model for two evacuation lift areas, Kawauchi and Naraha. It was reported that deposition densities in the areas were $4.3{\sim}96kBq\;m^{-2}$ for $^{134}Cs$, $1.4{\sim}300kBq\;m^{-2}$ for $^{137}Cs$, respectively. Radiation dose to the residents depended on radioactive cesium concentrations in the soil, ranging $0.11{\sim}2.4mSv\;y^{-1}$ at Kawauchi area and $0.69{\sim}1.1mSv\;y^{-1}$ at Naraha area in July 2014. The difference was less than 5% in radiation doses estimated by two different models. Radiation dose decreased with calendar time and the decreasing slope varied depending on dose assessment models. Based on the Chernobyl dosimetry model, radiation doses decreased with calendar time to about 65% level of the radiation dose in 2014 after 1 year, 11% level after 10 years, and 5.6% level after 30 years. RESRAD dosimetry model more slowly decreased radiation dose with time to about 85% level after 1 year, 40% level after 10 years, and 15% level after 30 years. The decrease of radiation dose can be mainly attributed into radioactive decays and environmental transport of the radioactive cesium. Only environmental transports of radioactive cesium without consideration of radioactive decays decreased radiation dose additionally 43% after 1 year, 72% after 3 years, 80% after 10 years, and 83% after 30 years. Radiation doses estimated with cesium concentration in the soil based on Chernobyl dosimetry model were compared with directly measured radiation doses. The estimated doses well agreed with the measurement data. This study results can be applied to radiation dose assessments at the contaminated area for radiation safety assurance or emergency preparedness.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.23-29
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• 2011

The renewed global interest in nuclear power has arisen from the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to provide sufficient electricity for a growing global population before the accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan. In spite of the safety issues of nuclear power plants raised by the ongoing Japanese nuclear crisis, many countries with nuclear power plants (NPPs) are still implementing license extensions of 10~20 years, and even consideration is being given to the concept of life-beyond-60, a further period of license extension from 60 to 80 years. To solving the materials aging problem is integral to its success. To evaluate the plant aging phenomena, a lot of background information such as materials and environment of the parts of the reactor and plant systems is needed by the experts. Information on degradation mechanisms is also used. In this paper, a materials degradation evaluation program called OnMDE-SYS (On-line Materials Degradation Evaluation System) is introduced. The developed program provides a variety of information on the materials and stressors as well as operational experience to the experts. It is also anticipated that the experts can perform materials degradation assessment on the web directly by referring to domestic and international information about the degradation of a nuclear power plants through OnMDE-SYS.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.791-794
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• 2013

Since the Fukushima accident in 2011, the importance of the electrical systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs) has been emphasized. The result has been that NPP regulators are enhancing their monitoring of loss of offsite power (LOOP) events. Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) is reviewing the status and issues related to LOOPs, and is attempting to establish specific countermeasures to prevent LOOPs, because they can have severe consequences in the complicated maintenance schedule during an outage. A starting point for preventing LOOPs is the control of the loss of voltage (LOV)-initiating components. In order to reflect this in the risk assessment program, an LOV monitor is being developed for use during plant outages.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.597-604
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• 2013

Containment Filtered Vent Systems (CFVSs) have been mainly equipped in nuclear power plants in Europe and Canada for the controlled depressurization of the containment atmosphere under severe accident conditions. This is to keep the containment integrity against overpressure during the course of a severe accident, in which the radioactive gas-steam mixture from the containment is discharged into a system designed to remove the radionuclides. In Korea, a CFVS was first introduced in the Wolsong unit-1 nuclear power plant as a mitigation measure to deal with the threat of over pressurization, following post-Fukushima action items. In this paper, the overall features of a CFVS installation such as risk assessments, an evaluation of the performance requirements, and a determination of the optimal operating strategies are analyzed for the Wolsong unit 1 nuclear power plant using a severe accident analysis computer code, ISAAC.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.286-294
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• 2017

The events at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in March 2011 point out, among other matters, that concurrent accidents at multiple units of a site can occur in reality. Although site risk has been deterministically considered to some extent in nuclear power plant siting and design, potential occurrence of multi-unit accident sequences at a site was not investigated in sufficient detail thus far in the nuclear power community. Therefore, there is considerable worldwide interest and research effort directed toward multi-unit site risk assessment, especially in the countries with high-density nuclear-power-plant sites such as Korea. As the technique of probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) has been successfully applied to evaluate the risk associated with operation of nuclear power plants in the past several decades, the PSA having primarily focused on single-unit risks is now being extended to the multi-unit PSA. In this paper we first characterize the site risk with explicit consideration of the risk associated with spent fuel pools as well as the reactor risks. The status of multi-unit risk assessment is discussed next, followed by a description of the emerging issues relevant to the multi-unit risk evaluation from a practical standpoint.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.131-143
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• 2023

Background: This study examined the detection limit of thyroid screening monitoring conducted at the time of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident in 2011 using a Monte Carlo simulation. Materials and Methods: We calculated the detection limit of a NaI(Tl) survey meter to measure ¹³¹I accumulation in the thyroid gland of children. Mathematical phantoms of 1- and 5-year-old children were developed in the simulation of the Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System code. Contamination of the body surface with eight radionuclides found after the FDNPP accident was assumed to have been deposited on the neck and shoulder area. Results and Discussion: The detection limit was calculated as a function of ambient dose rate. In the case of 40 Bq/cm² contamination on the body surface of the neck, the present simulations showed that residual thyroid radioactivity corresponding to thyroid dose of 100 mSv can be detected within 21 days after intake at the ambient dose rate of 0.2 µSv/hr and within 11 days in the case of 2.0 µSv/hr. When a time constant of 10 seconds was used at the dose rate of 0.2 µSv/hr, the estimated survey meter output error was 5%. Evaluation of the effect of individual differences in the location of the thyroid gland confirmed that the measured value would decrease by approximately 6% for a height difference of ±1 cm and increase by approximately 65% for a depth of 1 cm. Conclusion: In the event of a nuclear disaster, simple measurements carried out using a NaI(Tl) scintillation survey meter remain effective for assessing ¹³¹I intake. However, it should be noted that the presence of short-half-life radioactive materials on the body surface affects the detection limit.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.37-41
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• 2011

This paper presents a Combined solar-wave Power Generation (CPG) concept that the CPG unit is maintained as buoyant at the level of sea water and it is also supported by a submerged tunnel, with the aim of supplying emergency electric power during the station blackout events of nuclear power plants. The CPG concept has been motivated from the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi Accidents due to the loss of both offsite AC power and emergency diesel power caused by natural hazards such as earthquake and tsunami. The CPG is conceptualized by applying different types and different sites for emergency power generation, in order to reduce common cause failures of emergency power suppliers due to natural hazards. Thus, the CPG can provide a new mean for supplying emergency electric power during station blackout events of nuclear power plants. For this application, the CPG requirements are described with a typical configuration at the ocean side of a submerged tunnel.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.207-212
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• 2013

Since the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in March 2011, critical views on the increase in operation of nuclear power plants including the safety and the economic feasibility thereof have been expanding across the world. In these circumstances, we are to find out solutions to the controversial questions on whether nuclear power plants are economically more feasible than other energy sources, while the safety thereof is fully maintained. Thereby, nuclear power plants will play a key role as a sustainable energy source in the future as well as at present. To measure the social safety level that Korean people are actually feeling after the Fukushima accident, a method of cost-benefit analysis called the Contingent Valuation Method(CVM) was used, whereby we wanted to estimate the amount of expenses the general public would be willing to pay for the safety based on their acceptance rather than the social safety. As a result of calculating the trade-off value of the economic feasibility versus the safety in nuclear power plants through the survey thereon, it caused the nuclear power generation cost to be increased by 4.75 won/kWh. Reflecting this on the current power generation cost of 39.11 won/kWh would increase the cost to 43.86 won/kWh. It is thought that this potential cost is still more competitive than the coal-fired power generation cost of 67 won/kWh. This result will be available as a basic data for the 2nd Energy Basic Plan to be drawn up this year, presenting policy implications at the same time.