• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2556-2563
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• 2021

Metaheuristic algorithms can work well in solving or optimizing problems, especially those that require approximation or do not have a good analytical solution. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is one of these algorithms. The response quality of these algorithms depends on the objective function and its regulated parameters. The nonlinear nature of the pressurized light-water nuclear reactor (PWR) dynamics is a significant target for PSO. The two-point kinetics model of this type of reactor is used because of fission products properties. The proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller is intended to control the power level of the PWR at a short-time transient. The absolute error (IAE), integral of square error (ISE), integral of time-absolute error (ITAE), and integral of time-square error (ITSE) objective functions have been used as performance indexes to tune the PID gains with PSO. The optimization results with each of them are evaluated with the number of function evaluations (NFE). All performance indexes achieve good results with differences in the rate of over/under-shoot or convergence rate of the cost function, in the desired time domain.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.781-789
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• 2022

KHNP had licensed Dynamic Control rod Reactivity Measurement (DCRM) method using detector current signals of PWRs in 2006. The method has been applied to all PWRs in Korea for about 15 years successfully. However, the original method was inapplicable to PWRs using low-sensitivity integral fission chamber as ex-core detectors because of their pulse pile-up and the nonlinearity of the mean-square voltage at low power region. Therefore, to overcome this disadvantage, a modified method, DCRM-EK, was developed using kinetics behavior after equilibrium condition where the pulse counts maintain the maximum value before pulse pile-up. Overall measurement, analysis procedure, and related computer codes were changed slightly to reflect the site test condition. The new method was applied to a total of 15 control rods of 1000 MWe and 1400 MWe PWRs in Korea with worths in the range of 200 pcm -1200 pcm. The results show the average difference of -0.4% and the maximum difference of 7.1% compared to the design values. Therefore, the new DCRM-EK will be applied to PWRs using low sensitivity integral fission chambers, and also can replace the original DCRM when the evaluation fails by big noises present in current or voltage signals of uncompensated/compensated ion chambers.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.251-259
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• 2023

Immobilizing microalgae cells in a hyphal matrix can simplify harvest while producing novel mycoalgae products with potential food, feed, biomaterial, and renewable energy applications; however, limited quantitative information to describe the process and its applicability under various conditions leads to difficulties in comparing across studies and scaling-up. Here, we demonstrate the immobilization of both active and heat-deactivated marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum (UTEX 466) using different loadings of fungal pellets (Aspergillus sp.) and model the process through kinetics and equilibrium models. Active P. tricornutum cells were not required for the fungal-assisted immobilization process and the fungal isolate was able to immobilize more than its original mass of microalgae. The Freundlich isotherm model adequately described the equilibrium immobilization characteristics and indicated increased normalized algae immobilization (g algae removed/g fungi loaded) under low fungal pellet loadings. The kinetics of algae immobilization by the fungal pellets were found to be adequately modeled using both a pseudo-second order model and a model previously developed for fungal-assisted algae immobilization. These results provide new insights into the behavior and potential applications of fungal-assisted algae immobilization.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.46-58
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• 2023

Deterministic safety analysis is a crucial part of safety assessment, particularly when it comes to demonstrating the safety of nuclear power plant designs. The traditional approach to deterministic safety analysis models is to model the nuclear core using point kinetics. However, this simplified approach does not fully reflect the real core behavior with proper moderator and fuel reactivity feedbacks during the transient. The use of Multi-Physics approach allows more precise simulation reflecting the inherent three-dimensionality (3D) of the problem by representing the detailed 3D core, with instantaneous updates of feedback mechanisms due to changes of important reactivity parameters like fuel temperature coefficient (FTC) and moderator temperature coefficient (MTC). This paper addresses a CEA ejection accident at hot full power (HFP), in which the underlying strong and un-symmetric feedback between thermal-hydraulics and reactor kinetics exist. For this purpose, a multi-physics analysis tool has been selected with the nodal kinetics code, 3DKIN, implicitly coupled to the thermal-hydraulic code, RELAP5, for real-time communication and data exchange. This coupled approach enables high fidelity three-dimensional simulation and is therefore especially relevant to reactivity initiated accident (RIA) scenarios and power distribution anomalies with strong feedback mechanisms and/or un-symmetrical characteristics as in the CEA ejection accident. The Systems Engineering approach is employed to provide guidance in developing the work in a systematic and efficient fashion.

• Clean Technology
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.154-160
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• 2016

For any conceivable desalination process using the gas hydrate formation, the kinetics has to be one of the most important parameters from the economic point of view. We thus were to improve the kinetics of the R-134a (also known as HFC-134a) gas hydrate formation by using promoters and three different kinds of edible surfactants were selected for the desalination process targeted to produce potable water; κ-carrageenan, lecithin, and polysorbate 80 among anionic, amphoteric, and nonionic surfactants, respectively. Then, the kinetics change of the R-134a hydrate formation was monitored by varying the surfactant concentration. Experimental results demonstrated that the rate of R-134a hydrate formation increases with the addition of edible surfactants in general and the effect as a promotor has an order of polysorbate 80 > κ-carrageenan > lecithin. As a supportive measure, the atomic charges of each surfactant were calculated by using a DFT (density functional theory)-based molecular modeling and the results showed a positive relationship between the promotor effect of each surfactant and the number of oxygens available for hydrogen bonding and the negativity of their atomic charge values.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.36 no.3 s.104
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• pp.295-303
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• 2003

Sorption kinetics of hydrophobic organic compounds (chlorobenzene and phenanthrene) in natural wetland soils was investigated using laboratory batch adsorbers. One -site mass transfer model (OSMTM) and two compartment first-order kinetic model (TCFOKM) were used to analyze sorption kinetics. Analysis of OSMTM reveals that apparent sorption equilibria were obtained within 10 to 75 hours for chlorobenzene and 2 hours for phenanthrene, respectively. For chlorobenzene, the sorption equilibrium time for surface soil was longer than that of deeper soil presumably due to physico-chemical differences between the soils. For phenanthrene, however, no difference in sorption equilibrium time was observed between the soils. As expected from the number of model parameters involved, the three-parameter TCFOKM was better than the two-parameter OSMTM in describing sorption kinetics, The fraction of fast sorption ($f_1$) and the first-order sorption rate constants for fast ($k_1$)and slow ($k_2$) compartments were determined by fitting experimental data to the TCFOKM. The results of TCFOKM analysis indicate that the sorption rate constant in the fast compartment($k_1$) was much greater than that of slow fraction($k_2$) . The fraction of the fast sorption ($f_1$) and the sorption rate constant in the fast compartment($k_1$) were increasing in the order of increasing $k_{ow}$, phenanthrene > chlorobenzene. The first-order sorption rate constants in the fast ($k_1$) and slow ($k_2$) compartments were found to vary from $10^{-0.1}\;to\;-10^{1.0}$ and from $10^{-4}\;to-10^{-2}$, respectively.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.52-59
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• 2005

The study was targeted to saccharify foodwastes with the cellulolytic and amylolytic enzymes obtained from culture supernatant of Trichoderma harzianum FJ1 and analyze the kinetics of the saccharification in order to enlarge the utilization in industrial application. T. harzianum FJ1 highly produced various cellulolytic (filter paperase 0.9, carboxymethyl cellulase 22.0, ${\beta}$-glucosidase 1.2, Avicelase 0.4, xylanase 30.8, as U/mL-supernatant) and amylolytic (${alpha}$-amylase 5.6, ${\beta}$-amylase 3.1, glucoamylase 2.6, as U/mL-supernatant) enzymes. The $23{\sim}98\;g/L$ of reducing sugars were obtained under various experimental conditions by changing FPase to between $0.2{\sim}0.6\;U/mL$ and foodwastes between $5{\sim}20\%$ (w/v), with fixed conditions at $50^{\circ}C$, pH 5.0, and 100 rpm for 24 h. As the enzymatic hydrolysis of foodwastes were performed in a heterogeneous solid-liquid reaction system, it was significantly influenced by enzyme and substrate concentrations used, where the pH and temperature were fixed at their experimental optima of 5.0 and $50^{\circ}C$, respectively. An empirical model was employed to simplify the kinetics of the saccharification reaction. The reducing sugars concentration (X, g/L) in the saccharification reaction was expressed by a power curve ($X=K{\cdot}t^n$) for the reaction time (t), where the coefficient, K and n. were related to functions of the enzymes concentrations (E) and foodwastes concentrations (S), as follow: $K=10.894{\cdot}Ln(E{\cdot}S^2)-56.768,\;n=0.0608{\cdot}(E/S)^{-0.2130}$. The kinetic developed to analyze the effective saccharification of foodwastes composed of complex organic compounds could adequately explain the cases under various saccharification conditions. The kinetics results would be available for reducing sugars production processes, with the reducing sugars obtained at a lower cost can be used as carbon and energy sources in various fermentation industries.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.286-291
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• 2006

Various ${\beta}$-ionone resistant mutants were isolated from the wild-type red yeast Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous KCTC 7704. Although the growth of X. dendrorhous KCTC 7704 was strongly inhibited at 0.025 mM ${\beta}$-ionone, one of the ${\beta}$-ionone resistant mutants isolated at 0.1 mM ${\beta}$-ionone by NTG mutagenesis showed rather 70% of relative survival at 0.15 mM ${\beta}$-ionone. Fermentation kinetics study with the mutant was carried out at $20^{\circ}C$ for 4 days in 300-mL baffled flasks. The mutant yielded up to 2.3-fold higher carotenoids content(viz. $1.2{\mu}g$ of total carotenoids per mg of dry cells) compared with the wild-type strain. The production of metabolites such as organic acids could be neglected. Studies on the kinetics with various carbon substrates revealed both an increase in final dry cell mass and a higher total carotenoids content in cell mass with glucose when compared to fructose or sucrose. As a further part of study, the effect of pH on the fermentation kinetics was investigated in glucose-limited chemostat at a dilution rate of $0.04h^{-1}$. When compared to steady-state kinetic parameters obtained at pH 4.0, a significant reduction in cell concentration at pH 3.0 and a lower carotenoids content at pH 5.2 were evident.

• Proceedings of the Korean Magnestics Society Conference
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• 2003.12a
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• pp.252-252
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• 2003

• Proceedings of the Korean Fiber Society Conference
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• 1999.04a
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• pp.241-244
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• 1999