• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.167-173
• /
• 2002

The hydrogen gas pick-up problem that can occur during Lost Foam Casting was investigated by reduced pressure test and practical Lost Foam Casting. The proper test pressure of reduced pressure test was determined by experiments not to use polystyrene and gas contents of the melt were calculated from density measurement results. The results showed that the hydrogen pick-up increased with the increased amount of polystyrene that was replaced by melt. The hydrogen pick-up was larger in the case of no degassed melt than that of degassed melt. So the hydrogen pick-up depended on the initial hydrogen content of the melt and the contact time of the melt with the decomposed gas phase. The mold evacuation decreased the hydrogen pick-up and increased the flow length of melt during Lost Foam Casting. And the error of calculated hydrogen pick-up was calculated by numerical method.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.30 no.5
• /
• pp.396-402
• /
• 1998

Experiments on the steamside corrosion and hydrogen pick-up of Zircaloy-4 under high pressure up to 10.3MPa are carried out to estimate the pressure effects on the kinetics. Temperature and reaction time are determined to be 37$0^{\circ}C$ and 72hours for the pre-transition test and $700^{\circ}C$ and 210minutes for the post-transition test, respectively. Results show that under 10.3MPa pressure the oxidation reaction is 50% and 100% enhanced in the pre-and the post-transition regime, respectively. Total amount of hydrogen uptake in the reaction is proportionally increased as corrosion weight gain is elevated. However, pick-up fraction is not affected by the high pressure. The fraction is almost twice greater than that in the waterside corrosion. Edges in the specimens play a certain role in the enhancement, especially in the post-transition regime. To identify physical property changes of oxide film such as micro-cracks or micro-pores, careful and thorough examination must be needed with some special techniques.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
• /
• v.23 no.5
• /
• pp.268-275
• /
• 2003

The mechanism of the hydrogen gas pore formation was investigated in Lost Foam Casting of Al-alloy by reduced pressure test and real casting. The hydrogen gas pick-up was affected by the formed gas during the decomposition of polystyrene in addition to the liquid product. It depended on pouring temperature and a proper temperature of metal front gave the minimum hydrogen pick-up. At a low pouring temperature, the hydrogen went into the melt mainly from entrapped liquid product of polystyrene but pores were formed from the gas as well as the liquid product at a high pouring temperature. The mold flask evacuation down to 710torr decreased the gas porosity down by around 0.4% vol%. The entrapped decomposition product of polystyrene in the melt was observed through the visualization of filling behavior of Al alloy-melt with the high speed camera.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
• /
• 2004.10a
• /
• pp.915-916
• /
• 2004

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.268-273
• /
• 1998

Standard Zircaloy-4 sheets, charged with 230-250ppm hydrogen by the gas-charging method and homogenized at $400^{\circ}C$ for 72hrs in a vacuum, were corroded in pure water and aqueous LiOH solutions using static autoclaves at $350^{\circ}C$. Their corrosion behaviors were characterized by measuring their weight gains with the corrosion time and observing their microstructures using an optical microscope and a scanning electron microscope. The elemental depth profiles for hydrogen and lithium were measured using a secondary ion mass spectrometry(S1MS) to confirm their distributions at the oxidelmetal interface. The normal Zircaloy-4 specimens corroded abruptly and heavily at the concentration of Li ions more than 30ppm in the aqueous solution. This is due to accelerations by the rapid oxidation of many Zr- hydrides formed by the large amount of absorbed hydrogen, resulting from the increased substitution of $Li^{+}$ ions with $Zr^{4+}$-sites in the oxide as the Li ion concentration increased. The specimens that had been charged with amounts of hydrogen greater than its solubility corroded early with a more rapid acceleration than normal specimens, regardless of the corrosion solutions. At longer corrosion times. however, normal specimens showed a rather accelerated corrosion rate compared to the hydrogen-charged specimens. These slower corrosion rates of the hydrogen-charged specimens at the longer corrosion times would be due to the pre-existent Zr-hydride in the matrix, which causes the hydrogen pick- up into the specimen to be depressed, when the oxide with an appropriate thickness formed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.35 no.5
• /
• pp.471-481
• /
• 2003

In order to evaluate the microstructural characteristics of irradiated fuel claddings (Zircaloy-4), two irradiated specimens having different burnups (18 GWD/MTU and 42 GWD/MTU) were prepared from the G23-M4 fuel rods, which were loaded in Kori Unit 1 for 4 fuel cycles. The oxide thickness, hydride morphology and hardness change were characterized by an optical microscope and a micro-hardness tester after preparing the irradiated specimens in the PIE (Post Irradiation Examination) facilities. The dislocation loops and the amorphous transformation of precipitates induced by the neutron irradiation in the nuclear plant were also examined by a TEM. As the burnup increased from 18 GWD/MTU to 42 GWD/MTU, the oxide thickness increased from $6.0{\mu}m\;to\;25.3{\mu}m$ and the contents of hydrogen pick-up in the Zr matrix also greatly increased. In the comparison of the hardness of the unirradiated fuel cladding, the amount of hardness increase was nearly $9.3\%\;and\;24.2\%$ for the irradiated samples of 18 and 42 GWD/MTU, respectively. Both -type dislocation loops and -type dislocation components were observed simultaneously in the irradiated specimens and the densities of the dislocation was increased by increasing the burnup. The precipitates in both the irradiated specimens were amorphously transformed by the neutron irradiation and the trend of the amorphous transformation of the precipitates was enhanced at a higher burnup.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.50 no.2
• /
• pp.313-317
• /
• 2018

Licenses for the storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and vitrified highly active waste in casks under dry conditions are limited to 40 years and have to be renewed for prolonged storage periods. If such a license renewal has to be expected since as in accordance with the new site selection procedure a final repository for spent fuel in Germany will not be available before the year 2050. For transport and possible unloading and loading in new casks for final storage, the integrity and the maintenance of the geometry of the cask's inventory is essential because the SNF rod cladding and the cladding of the vitrified highly active waste are stipulated as a barrier in the storage concept. For SNF, the cladding integrity is ensured currently by limiting the hoop stress and hoop strain as well as the maximum temperature to certain values for a 40-year storage period. For a prolonged storage period, other cladding degradation mechanisms such as inner and outer oxide layer formation, hydrogen pick up, irradiation damages in cladding material crystal structure, helium production from alpha decay, and long-term fission gas release may become leading effects driving degradation mechanisms that have to be discussed.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.118-127
• /
• 2011

An IGCC was evaluated as one of the next generation technologies that would be able to substitute for coal-fired power plants. According to "The 4th Basic Plan of Long-term Electricity Supply & Demand" which is developed by the Electricity Business Acts, the first IGCC will be operated at 2015. Like other new and renewable energy such as solar PV, Fuel cell, The IGCC is considered as non-competitive generation technology because it is not maturity technology. Before the commercial operation of an IGCC in our electricity market, its economic feasibility under the Korean electricity market, which is cost-based trading system, is studied to find out institutional support system. The results of feasibility summarized that under the current electricity trading system, if the IGCC is considered like a conventional plant such as nuclear or coal-fired power plants, it will not be expected that its investment will be recouped within life-time. The reason is that the availability of an IGCC will plummet since 2016 when several nuclear and coal-fired power plants will be constructed additionally. To ensure the reasonable return on investment (NPV>0 IRR>Discount rate), the availability of IGCC should be higher than 77%. To do so, the current electricity trading system is amended that the IGCC generator must be considered as renewable generators to set up Price Setting Schedule and it should be considered as pick load generators, not Genco's coal fired-generators, in the Settlement Payment.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.378-385
• /
• 1999

To evaluate the effect of Sn on the corrosion behavior of Zr alloys for nuclear fuel claddings, the corrosion tests on the binary Zr-xSn and the ternary Zr-0.4Nb-xSn alloys were performed in water at $360^{\circ}C$. The binary alloys containing 0.5, 0.8 and 1.5wt.% Sn showed the transition corrosion rate at 15 days. On the other hand, the binary alloy containing 2.0wt.% Sn showed a good corrosion resistance without the transition of corrosion rate up to 80 days. The corrosion rate of the ternary alloy increased with increasing Sn content. The difference of corrosion behaviors between binary and ternary alloys is considered due to the different solubility of Sn, Nb content and precipitates. The corrosions of Zr-xSn and Zr-0.4Nb-xSn alloys would be controlled by the fraction of tetragonal-$ZrO_2$and the amount of hydrogen pick-up.