• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.23-41
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• 2023

Coupled thermo-hydraulic-mechanical (THM) processes are essential for the long-term performance of deep geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste. In this study, a numerical sensitivity analysis was performed to analyze the effect of rock properties on THM responses after the execution of the heater test at the Kamaishi mine in Japan. The TOUGH-FLAC simulator was applied for the numerical simulation assuming a continuum model for coupled THM analysis. The rock properties included in the sensitivity study were the Young's modulus, permeability, thermal conductivity, and thermal expansion coefficients of crystalline rock, rock salt, and clay. The responses, i.e., temperature, water content, displacement, and stress, were measured at monitoring points in the buffer and near-field rock mass during the simulations. The thermal conductivity had an overarching impact on THM responses. The influence of Young's modulus was evident in the mechanical behavior, whereas that of permeability was noticed through the change in the temperature and water content. The difference in the THM responses of the three rock type models implies the importance of the appropriate characterization of rock mass properties with regard to the performance assessment of the deep geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.573-588
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• 2021

The interaction of cracks and water significantly affects the fracture mechanism of rocks. In this study, laboratory tests were conducted using sandstone samples containing a single fissure to explore the hydro-mechanical behaviors in the failure process of pre-cracked rocks. The internal crack characteristics were also analyzed using X-ray CT scanning. The results show that the confining pressure has the greatest effect on the mechanical properties (e.g., strengths, elastic modulus, and Poisson's ratio), followed by the fissure inclination and water pressure. At a lower fissure inclination, the confining pressure may control the type main cracks that form, and an increase in the water pressure increases the number of anti-wing cracks and the length of wing cracks and branch cracks. However, the fracture behaviors of samples with a higher fissure inclination are only slightly affected by the confining pressures and water pressures. The effect of fissure inclination on the internal crack area is reduced with the propagation from the fissure tips to the sample ends. The fissure inclination mainly affects the value of permeability but not affect the trend. The impact of pre-existing fissure on permeability is smaller than that of confining pressure and water pressure.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.197-213
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• 2019

We simulated the fault reactivation experiment conducted at 'Main Fault' intersecting the low permeability clay formations of Mont Terri Underground Research Laboratory in Switzerland using TOUGH-FLAC simulator. The fluid flow along a fault was modelled with solid elements and governed by Darcy's law with the cubic law in TOUGH2, whereas the mechanical behavior of a single fault was represented by creating interface elements between two separating rock blocks in FLAC3D. We formulate the hydro-mechanical coupling relation of hydraulic aperture to consider the elastic fracture opening and failure-induced dilation for reproducing the abrupt changes in injection flow rate and monitoring pressure at fracture opening pressure. A parametric study was conducted to examine the effects of in-situ stress condition and fault deformation and strength parameters and to find the optimal parameter set to reproduce the field observations. In the best matching simulation, the fracture opening pressure and variations of injection flow rate and monitoring pressure showed good agreement with field experiment results, which suggests the capability of the numerical model to reasonably capture the fracture opening and propagation process. The model overestimated the fault displacement in shear direction and the range of reactivated zone, which was attributed to the progressive shear failures along the fault at high injection pressure. In the field experiment results, however, fracture tensile opening seems the dominant mechanism affecting the hydraulic aperture increase.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.296-304
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• 2011

In order to design a shear coaxial injector of solid particles with water, basic experiments on a particle laden jet are necessary. The purpose of the present study is to understand the effect of particle loading ratio on the particle spray characteristics (i.e. spreading angle, distribution of particle number density, velocity profiles, and particle developing region length). Hydro-reactive Al2O3 particles with a primary particle diameter of 35~50 ${\mu}m$ are used in this experiment. An automated particle feeder was designed to supply constant particle mass flowrates. Air is used as the carrier gas. To determine the air velocity at the orifice exit, tracers (aluminum oxide, 0.5~2 ${\mu}m$ primary diameter) are also supplied by a tracer feeder. A plain orifice type injector with 3 mm diameter, and 20 mm length was adopted. Particle image velocimetry is used to measure the mean and fluctuating velocity components along the axial and radial directions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.11
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• pp.3852-3859
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• 2021

This paper presents experimental and numerical analysis results regarding the effects of an incomplete penetration defect on the fatigue lives of socket welded pipes. For the experiment, four-point bending fatigue tests with various defect geometries (defect depth and circumferential length) were performed, and test results are presented in terms of stress-life data. The results showed that for circumferentially short defects, the fatigue life tends to increase with increasing crack depth, but for longer defects, the trend becomes the opposite. Finite element analysis showed that for short defects, the maximum principal stress decreases with increases in crack depth. For a longer defect, the opposite trend was found. Furthermore, the maximum principal stress tends to increase with an increase in defect length regardless of the defect depth.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.363-373
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• 2018

The evaluation of Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical (THM) coupling behavior is important for the development of underground space for various purposes. For a high-level radioactive waste repository excavated in a deep underground rock mass, the accurate prediction of the complex THM behavior is essential for the long-term safety and stability assessment. In order to develop reliable THM analysis techniques effectively, an international cooperation project, Development of Coupled models and their Validation against Experiments (DECOVALEX), was carried out. In DECOVALEX-2015 Task B2, the in situ THM experiment that was conducted at Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory(URL) by Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), was modeled by the research teams from the participating countries. In this study, a THM coupling technique that combined TOUGH2 and FLAC3D was developed and applied to the THM analysis for the in situ experiment, in which rock, buffer, backfill, sand, and heater were installed. With the assistance of an artificial neural network, the boundary conditions for the experiment could be adequately implemented in the modeling. The thermal, hydraulic, and mechanical results from the modeling were compared with the measurements from the in situ THM experiment. The predicted buffer temperature from the THM modelling was about $10^{\circ}C$ higher than measurement near by the overpack. At the other locations far from the overpack, modelling predicted slightly lower temperature than measurement. Even though the magnitude of pressure from the modeling was different from the measurements, the general trends of the variation with time were found to be similar.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.320-334
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• 2020

This study presents an application of hydro-mechanical coupled Particle Flow Code 3D (PFC3D) to simulation of fluid injection induced fault slip experiment conducted in Mont Terri Switzerland as a part of a task in an international research project DECOVALEX-2019. We also aimed as identifying the current limitations of the modelling method and issues for further development. A fluid flow algorithm was developed and implemented in a 3D pore-pipe network model in a 3D bonded particle assembly using PFC3D v5, and was applied to Mont Terri Step 2 minor fault activation experiment. The simulated results showed that the injected fluid migrates through the permeable fault zone and induces fault deformation, demonstrating a full hydro-mechanical coupled behavior. The simulated results were, however, partially matching with the field measurement. The simulated pressure build-up at the monitoring location showed linear and progressive increase, whereas the field measurement showed an abrupt increase associated with the fault slip We conclude that such difference between the modelling and the field test is due to the structure of the fault in the model which was represented as a combination of damage zone and core fractures. The modelled fault is likely larger in size than the real fault in Mont Terri site. Therefore, the modelled fault allows several path ways of fluid flow from the injection location to the pressure monitoring location, leading to smooth pressure build-up at the monitoring location while the injection pressure increases, and an early start of pressure decay even before the injection pressure reaches the maximum. We also conclude that the clay filling in the real fault could have acted as a fluid barrier which may have resulted in formation of fluid over-pressurization locally in the fault. Unlike the pressure result, the simulated fault deformations were matching with the field measurements. A better way of modelling a heterogeneous clay-filled fault structure with a narrow zone should be studied further to improve the applicability of the modelling method to fluid injection induced fault activation.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.77-84
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• 2005

The considerations for reminder life of transmission line is gradually higher. It is requisite for investigation of ACSR life to test tensile load of ACSR as a fundamental data. It is vary important to analysis correlations between results of tensile load testing and elapsed years. Estimation of ACSR life can be obtained by statistics processing using mechanical experimental results. It is a general method to use regression analysis as a statistics processing technique. In this paper, we did experiment on tensile strength of ACSR by using a new and due to flame for artificial fire, and gathering due to a flame. The limit of life estimation is decided by basic line using twenty percentage reduction of rate tensile strength. This basic line is like to results of Canada Ontario Hydro-research. There are $480[mm^2]$ ACSR which are experimented on this study.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.200-210
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• 2013

It has become important to manage plant data effectively and to share these data among different organizations that are located in different places and participate in a variety of lifecycle phases. ISO 15926 is an international standard for integration of lifecycle data for process plants including oil and gas facilities. This standard consists of several parts providing a generic data model, reference data, and implementation methods. iRINGTools is a tool developed for the exchange of plant design data. This tool supports the implementation methods specified in ISO 15926. In this paper, the exchange of plant design data using iRINGTools is investigated. For this, sample P&ID data was modeled and data exchange experiment was performed. From the experiment, a data exchange procedure based on ISO 15926 is established and design data types that can be practically exchanged using ISO 15926 were identified.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.356-368
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• 2019

This paper presents the verification and validation (V&V) of the STREAM/RAST-K 2.0 code system for a pressurized water reactor (PWR) analysis. A lattice physics code STREAM and a nodal diffusion code RAST-K 2.0 have been developed by a computational reactor physics and experiment laboratory (CORE) of Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) for an accurate two-step PWR analysis. The calculation modules of each code were already verified against various benchmark problems, whereas this paper focuses on the V&V of linked code system. Three PWR type reactor cores, OPR-1000, three-loop Westinghouse reactor core, and APR-1400, are selected as V&V target plants. This code system, for verification, is compared against the conventional code systems used for the calculations in nuclear design reports (NDRs) and validated against measured plant data. Compared parameters are as follows: critical boron concentration (CBC), axial shape index (ASI), assembly-wise power distribution, burnup distribution and peaking factors. STREAM/RAST-K 2.0 shows the RMS error of critical boron concentration within 20 ppm, and the RMS error of assembly power within 1.34% for all the cycles of all reactors.