• 전기학회논문지P
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• 제53권3호
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• pp.122-128
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• 2004

This paper presents a control approach for designing a fuzzy-PI controller for a synchronous generator excitation and SVC system. A combination of thyristor-controlled reactors and fixed capacitors(TCR-FC) type SVC is recognized as having the most flexible control and high speed response, which has been widely utilized in power systems, is considered and designed to improve the response of a synchronous generator, as well as controlling the system voltage. A Fuzzy-PI controller for SVC system was proposed in this paper. The PI gain parameters of the proposed Fuzzy-PI controller which is a special type of PI ones are self-tuned by fuzzy inference technique. It is natural that the fuzzy inference technique should be based on humans intuitions and empirical knowledge. Nonetheless, the conventional ones were not so. Therefore, In this paper, the fuzzy inference technique of PI gains using MMGM(Min Max Gravity Method) which is very similar to humans inference procedures, was presented and applied to the SVC system. The system dynamic responses are examined after applying all small disturbance condition.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권5호
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• pp.1181-1194
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• 2019

A new moving-mesh Finite Volume Method (FVM) for the efficient solution of the two-dimensional neutron diffusion equation is introduced. Many other moving-mesh methods developed to solve the neutron diffusion problems use a relatively large number of sophisticated mathematical equations, and so suffer from a significant complexity of mathematical calculations. In this study, the proposed method is formulated based on simple mathematical algebraic equations that enable an efficient mesh movement and CV deformation for using in practical nuclear reactor applications. Accordingly, a computational framework relying on a new moving-mesh FVM is introduced to efficiently distribute the meshes and deform the CVs in regions with high gradient variations of reactor power. These regions of interest are very important in the neutronic assessment of the nuclear reactors and accordingly, a higher accuracy of the power densities is required to be obtained. The accuracy, execution time and finally visual comparison of the proposed method comprehensively investigated and discussed for three different benchmark problems. The results all indicated a higher accuracy of the proposed method in comparison with the conventional fixed-mesh FVM.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제40권4호
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• pp.311-318
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• 2008

In modem power reactors, nuclear fuels have recently reached 55,000 MWd/MtU from the initial average burnup of 35,000 MWd/MtU to reduce the fuel cycle cost and waste volume. At such high burnups, a fuel pellet produces fission products proportional to the burnup and creates a typical high burnup structure around the periphery region of the pellet, producing the so called 'rim effect'. This rim region of a highly burnt fuel is known to be ca. $200\;{\mu}m$ in width and is known to affect the fuel integrity. To characterize the local burnup in the rim region, solid sampling in the micro meter region by laser ablation is needed so that the distribution of isotopes can be determined by ICP-MS. For this procedure, special radiation shielding is required for personnel safety. In this study, we installed a radiation shielded laser ablation ICP-MS system, and a performance test of the developed system was conducted to evaluate the safe operation of instruments.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권12호
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• pp.2709-2716
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• 2020

Compositions of large nuclear cores (e.g. boiling water reactors) are highly heterogeneous in terms of fuel composition, control rod insertions and flow regimes. For this reason, they usually lack high order of symmetry (e.g. 1/4, 1/8) making it difficult to estimate their neutronic parameters for large spaces of possible loading patterns. A detailed hyperparameter optimization technique (a combination of manual and Gaussian process search) is used to train and optimize deep neural networks for the prediction of three neutronic parameters for the Ringhals-1 BWR unit: power peaking factors (PPF), control rod bank level, and cycle length. Simulation data is generated based on half-symmetry using PARCS core simulator by shuffling a total of 196 assemblies. The results demonstrate a promising performance by the deep networks as acceptable mean absolute error values are found for the global maximum PPF (~0.2) and for the radially and axially averaged PPF (~0.05). The mean difference between targets and predictions for the control rod level is about 5% insertion depth. Lastly, cycle length labels are predicted with 82% accuracy. The results also demonstrate that 10,000 samples are adequate to capture about 80% of the high-dimensional space, with minor improvements found for larger number of samples. The promising findings of this work prove the ability of deep neural networks to resolve high dimensionality issues of large cores in the nuclear area.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권2호
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• pp.248-257
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• 2020

This study presents an initial design for a novel system consisting in a coupled nuclear reactor and a phase change material-based thermal energy storage (TES) component, which acts as a buffer and regulator of heat transfer between the primary and secondary loops. The goal of this concept is to enhance the capacity factor of nuclear power plants (NPPs) in the case of high integration of renewable energy sources into the electric grid. Hence, this system could support in elevating the economics of NPPs in current competitive markets, especially with subsidized solar and wind energy sources, and relatively low oil and gas prices. Furthermore, utilizing a prismatic-core advanced high temperature reactor (PAHTR) cooled by a molten salt with a high melting point, have the potential in increasing the system efficiency due to its high operating temperature, and providing the baseline requirements for coupling other process heat applications. The present research studies the neutronics and thermal hydraulics (TH) of the PAHTR as well as TH calculations for the TES which consists of 300 blocks with a total heat storage capacity of 150 MWd. SERPENT Monte Carlo and MCNP5 codes carried out the neutronics analysis of the PAHTR which is sized to have a 5-year refueling cycle and rated power of 300 MW_th. The PAHTR has 10 metric tons of heavy metal with 19.75 wt% enriched UO₂ TRISO fuel, a hot clean excess reactivity and shutdown margin of $33.70 and -$115.68; respectively, negative temperature feedback coefficients, and an axial flux peaking factor of 1.68. Star-CCM + code predicted the correct convective heat transfer coefficient variations for both the reactor and the storage. TH analysis results show that the flow in the primary loop (in the reactor and TES) remains in the developing mixed convection regime while it reaches a fully developed flow in the secondary loop.

• 전기학회논문지
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• 제66권8호
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• pp.1163-1171
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• 2017

The problem of fault current to exceed the rated capacity of a power circuit breaker can cause a serious accident to hurt the reliability of the power system. In order to solve this issue, current limiting reactors and circuit breakers with increased capacity are utilized but these solutions have some technical limitations. Back-to-back high voltage direct current(BTB HVDC) may be applied for reducing the fault current. When BTB HVDCs are installed for reduction in fault current, selecting the optimal location of the BTB HVDC without causing overload of line power becomes a key point. In this paper, we use genetic algorithm to find optimal location effectively in a short time. We propose a new methodology for determining the BTB HVDC optimal location to reduce fault current without causing overload of line power in metropolitan areas. Also, the procedure of performing the calculation of fault current and line power flow by PSS/E is carried out automatically using Python. It is shown that this optimization methodology can be applied effectively for determining the BTB HVDC optimal location to reduce fault current without causing overload of line power by a case study.

• 신재생에너지
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• 제18권4호
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• pp.12-21
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• 2022

The pyrolysis characteristics of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), and polypropylene (PP) were analyzed numerically using a 1D plug flow reactor (PFR) model. A lumped kinetic model was selected to simplify the pyrolysis products as wax, oil, and gas. The simulation was performed in the 400-600℃ range, and the plastic pyrolysis and product generation characteristics with respect to time were compared at various temperatures. It was found that plastic pyrolysis accelerates rapidly as the temperature rises. The amounts of the pyrolysis products wax and oil increase and then decrease with time, whereas the amount of gas produced increases continuously. In LDPE pyrolysis, the pyrolysis time was longer than that observed for other plastics at a specified temperature, and the amount of wax generated was the greatest. The maximum mass fraction of oil was obtained in the order of HDPE, PP, and LDPE at a specified temperature, and it decreased with temperature. Although the 1D model adopted in this study has a limitation in that it does not include material transport and heat transfer phenomena, the qualitative results presented herein could provide base data regarding various types of plastic pyrolysis to predict the product characteristics. These results can in turn be used when designing pyrolysis reactors.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권3호
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• pp.638-644
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• 2017

The importance of developing a source-term assessment technology has been emphasized owing to the decommissioning of Kori nuclear power plant (NPP) Unit 1 and the increase of deteriorated NPPs. We analyzed the behavioral mechanism of corrosion products in the primary system of a pressurized heavy-water reactor-type NPP. In addition, to check the possibility of applying the CRUDTRAN code to a Canadian Deuterium Uranium Reactor (CANDU)-type NPP, the type was assessed using collected domestic onsite data. With the assessment results, it was possible to predict trends according to operating cycles. Values estimated using the code were similar to the measured values. The results of this study are expected to be used to manage the radiation exposures of operators in high-radiation areas and to predict decommissioning processes in the primary system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권12호
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• pp.2699-2708
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• 2020

Helical-coil steam generator (HCSG) technology is a major design candidate for small modular reactors due to its compactness and capability to produce superheated steam with high generation efficiency. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of the passively autonomous power maneuvering by coupling the 3-D transient multi-physics of a soluble-boron-free (SBF) core with a time-dependent HCSG model. The predictor corrector quasi-static method was used to reduce the cost of the transient 3-D neutronic solution. In the numerical system simulations, the feedwater flow rate to the secondary of the HCSGs is adjusted to extract the demanded power from the primary loop. This varies the coolant temperature at the inlet of the SBF core, which governs the passively autonomous power maneuvering due to the strongly negative coolant reactivity feedback. Here, we simulate a 100-50-100 load-follow operation with a 5%/minute power ramping speed to investigate the feasibility of the passively autonomous load-follow in a 450 MW_th SBF PWR. In addition, the passively autonomous frequency control operation is investigated. The various system models are coupled, and they are solved by an in-house Fortran-95 code. The results of this work demonstrate constant steam temperature in the secondary side and limited variation of the primary coolant temperature. Meanwhile, the variations of the core axial shape index and the core power peaking are sufficiently small.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제47권7호
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• pp.924-933
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• 2015

The correlation of the isotopic composition of uranium, plutonium, neodymium, and cesium with the burnup for high burnup pressurized water reactor fuels irradiated in nuclear power reactors has been experimentally investigated. The total burnup was determined by Nd-148 and the fractional $^{235}U$ burnup was determined by U and Pu mass spectrometric methods. The isotopic compositions of U, Pu, Nd, and Cs after their separation from the irradiated fuel samples were measured using thermal ionization mass spectrometry. The contents of these elements in the irradiated fuel were determined through an isotope dilution mass spectrometric method using $^{233}U$, $^{242}Pu$, $^{150}Nd$, and $^{133}Cs$ as spikes. The activity ratios of Cs isotopes in the fuel samples were determined using gamma-ray spectrometry. The content of each element and its isotopic compositions in the irradiated fuel were expressed by their correlation with the total and fractional burnup, burnup parameters, and the isotopic compositions of different elements. The results obtained from the experimental methods were compared with those calculated using the ORIGEN-S code.