• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.107-113
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• 2022

At present, it is possible to manufacture electrodes down to several micrometers (~ ㎛) using inkjet printing technology owing to the development of precision ejection heads. Inkjet printing technology is also used in the manufacturing of bio-sensors, electronic sensors, and flexible displays. To reduce the difference between the electrode design/simulation performance and actual printing pattern performance, it is necessary to analyze and optimize the processable area of the ink material, which is a fluid. In this study, process optimization was conducted to manufacture an IDE pattern and fabricate an impedance sensor. A total of 25 IDE patterns were produced, with five for each lamination process. Electrode line width and height changes were measured by stacking the designed IDE pattern with a nanoparticle-based conductive ink multilayer. Furthermore, the optimal process area for securing a performance close to the design result was analyzed through impedance and capacitance. It was observed that the increase in the height of stack layer 4 was the lowest at 4.106%, and the increase in capacitance was measured to be the highest at 44.08%. The proposed stacking process pattern, which is optimized in terms of uniformity, reproducibility, and performance, can be efficiently applied to bio-applications such as biomaterial sensing with an impedance sensor.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.7
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• pp.1547-1554
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• 2017

VESTA (Verification of Ex-vessel corium STAbilization) and VESTA-S (-small) test facilities were constructed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in 2010 to perform various corium melt experiments. Since then, several tests have been performed for the verification of an ex-vessel core catcher design for the EU-APR1400. Ablation tests of an impinging $ZrO_2$ melt jet on a sacrificial material were performed to investigate the ablation characteristics. $ZrO_2$ melt in an amount of 65-70 kg was discharged onto a sacrificial material through a well-designed nozzle, after which the ablation depths were measured. Interaction tests between the metallic melt and sacrificial material were performed to investigate the interaction kinetics of the sacrificial material. Two types of melt were used: one is a metallic corium melt with Fe 46%, U 31%, Zr 16%, and Cr 7% (maximum possible content of U and Zr for C-40), and the other is a stainless steel (SUS304) melt. Metallic melt in an amount of 1.5-2.0 kg was delivered onto the sacrificial material, and the ablation depths were measured. Penetration tube failure tests were performed for an APR1400 equipped with 61 in-core instrumentation penetration nozzles and extended tubes at the reactor lower vessel. $ZrO_2$ melt was generated in a melting crucible and delivered down into an interaction crucible where the test specimen is installed. To evaluate the tube ejection mechanism, temperature distributions of the reactor bottom head and in-core instrumentation penetration were measured by a series of thermocouples embedded along the specimen. In addition, lower vessel failure tests for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are being performed. As a first step, the configuration of the molten core in the plant was investigated by a melting and solidification experiment. Approximately 5 kg of a mixture, whose composition in terms of weight is $UO_2$ 60%, Zr 10%, $ZrO_2$ 15%, SUS304 14%, and $B_4C$ 1%, was melted in a cold crucible using an induction heating technique.