• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권7호
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• pp.2578-2590
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• 2023

In this work, a 24-month two-batch fuel management strategy for the APR1400 using LEU + has been investigated, where enrichments of 5.9 and 5.2 w/o are utilized in lieu of the conventional 4-5 w/o UO₂ fuel. In addition, an Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) clad based on the swaging technology is applied to APR1400 fuel assemblies. In this special ATF clad design, both outer and inner SS316 layers protect the conventional zircaloy clad. Erbia (Er₂O₃) is introduced as a burnable absorber with two-fold goals to lower the critical boron concentration in the long-cycle LEU + loaded core as well as to handle the LEU + fuel in the existing front-end fuel facilities without renewing the license. Two types of fuel assemblies with different loading of gadolinia (Gd₂O₃) are considered to control both the reactivity and the core radial power distribution. The erbia burnable absorber is uniformly admixed with UO₂ in all fuel pins except for the gadolinia-bearing ones. In this study, two core designs were devised with different erbia loading, and core performance and safety parameters were evaluated for each case in comparison with a core design without any burnable absorbers. The core analysis was done using the two-step method. First, cross-sections are generated by the SERPENT 2 Monte Carlo code, and the 3-D neutronic analysis is performed with an in-house multi-physics nodal code KANT.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권4호
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• pp.1439-1447
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• 2023

The fuel cycle characteristics of the IVG.1M reactor were studied within the framework of the research reactor conversion program to modernize the IVG.1M reactor. Optimum use of the nuclear fuel and reactor was achieved through routine methods which included partial fuel reloading combined with scheduled maintenance operations. Since, the additional problem in planning the fuel cycle of the IVG.1M reactor was the poisoning of the beryllium parts of the core, reflector, and control system. An assessment of the residual power and composition of spent fuel is necessary for the selection and justification of the technology for its subsequent management. Computational studies were performed using the MCNP6.1 program and the neutronics model of the IVG.1M reactor. The proposed scheme of annual partial fuel reloading allows for maintaining a high reactor reactivity margin, stabilizing it within 2-4 β_eff for 20 years, and achieving a burnup of 9.9-10.8 MW × day/kg U in the steady state mode of fuel reloading. Spent fuel immediately after unloading from the reactor can be placed in a transport packaging cask for shipping or safely stored in dry storage at the research reactor site.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권3호
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• pp.469-476
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• 2020

Research reactors in-core experimental facilities are designed to provide the highest steady state flux for user's irradiation requirements. However, fuel conversion from highly enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU) driven by the ongoing effort to diminish proliferation risk, will impact reactor physics parameters. Preserving the reactor capability to produce the needed flux to perform its intended research functions, determines the conversion feasibility. This study investigates the neutron flux in the central experimental facility of two material test reactors (MTR), the IAEA generic10 MW benchmark reactor and the 22 MW s Egyptian Test and Research Reactor (ETRR-2). A 3D full core model with three uranium enrichment of 93%, 45%, and 20% was constructed utilizing the OpenMC particle transport Monte Carlo code. Neutronics calculations were performed for fresh fuel, the beginning of life cycle (BOL) and end of life cycle (EOL) for each of the three enrichments for both the IAEA 10 MW generic reactor and core 1/98 of the ETRR-2 reactor. Criticality calculations of the effective multiplication factor (K_eff) were executed for each of the twelve cases; results show a reasonable agreement with published benchmark values for both reactors. The thermal, epithermal and fast neutron fluxes were tallied across the core, utilizing the mesh tally capability of the code and are presented here. The axial flux in the central experimental facility was tallied at 1 cm intervals, for each of the cases; results for IAEA 10 MW show a maximum reduction of 14.32% in the thermal flux of LEU to that of the HEU, at EOL. The reduction of the thermal flux for fresh fuel was between 5.81% and 9.62%, with an average drop of 8.1%. At the BOL the thermal flux showed a larger reduction range of 6.92%-13.58% with an average drop of 10.73%. Furthermore, the fission reaction rate was calculated, results showed an increase in the peak fission rate of the LEU case compared to the HEU case. Results for the ETRR-2 reactor show an average increase of 62.31% in the thermal flux of LEU to that of the HEU due to the effect of spectrum hardening. The fission rate density increased with enrichment, resulting in 34% maximum increase in the HEU case compared to the LEU case at the assemblies surrounding the flux trap.

• 한국분말야금학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국분말야금학회 2001년도 추계학술강연 및 발표대회
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• pp.49-50
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• 2001

• 방사성폐기물학회지
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• 제13권2호
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• pp.155-161
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• 2015

몰리브덴-99의 붕괴에 의해 생산되는 테크네튬-99m 은 방사선 진단에 중요한 역할을 담당하고 있다. 몰리브덴-99 는 주로 우라늄-235의 핵분열에 의해 생산되고 있으며, 이를 위해 고농축 우라늄 표적 또는 저농축 우라늄 표적이 연구로에서 조사된다. 현재는 고농축 우라늄의 사용에 따른 핵확산 문제를 저감하기 위해 저농축 우라늄 표적의 사용이 권장되고 있다. 본 연구는 몰리브덴-99 생산 시설의 계획 단계에서 방사성 폐기물 관리 전략을 정의하기 위하여 저농축 우라늄의 사용이 방사성 폐기물의 흐름에 미치는 영향을 분석하였다. 저농축 우라늄 표적 사용 시 우라늄 함유 폐기물의 부피가 6배 이상 증가하기 때문에 우라늄 고밀도 표적의 사용과 고온 정수압 압축법의 활용이 제안되었다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권3호
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• pp.499-507
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• 2020

Research reactors for radioisotope production, fuel and material testing and research activities are designed, constructed and operated based on the society's needs. In this study, neutronic and thermal hydraulic design of a high neutron flux research reactor core for radioisotope production is presented. Main parameters including core excess reactivity, reactivity variations, power and flux distribution during the cycle, axial and radial power peaking factors (PPF), Pu₂₃₉ production and minimum DNBR are calculated by nuclear deterministic codes. Core calculations performed by deterministic codes are validated with Monte Carlo code. Comparison of the neutronic parameters obtained from deterministic and Monte Carlo codes indicates good agreement. Finally, subchannel analysis performed for the hot channel to evaluate the maximum fuel and clad temperatures. The results show that the average thermal neutron flux at the beginning of cycle (BOC) is 1.0811 × 10¹⁴ n/㎠-s and at the end of cycle (EOC) is 1.229 × 10¹⁴ n/㎠-s. Total Plutonium (Pu₂₃₉) production at the EOC evaluated to be 0.9487 Kg with 83.64% grade when LEU (UO₂ with 3.7% enrichment) used as fuel. This designed reactor which uses LEU fuel and has high neutron flux and low plutonium production could be used for peaceful nuclear activities based on nuclear non-proliferation treaty concepts.

• 한국자동차공학회논문집
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• 제11권5호
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• pp.83-88
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• 2003

Measurements on the combustion characteristics of dimethyl ether(DME:$CH_3$O$CH_3$) as compared with LPC in constant volume combustion chamber have been conducted. The DME is a good alternative fuel having oxygen component in fuel. To elucidate the combustion characteristics of dimethyl ether as a fuel, the combustion pressures, combustion durations, and pollutants(NOx, $CO_2$, CO) are measured with equivalence ratios(Ø), and initial Pressures of fuel-air mixture. In the case of DME, the NOx concentration peaks in leu flame Ø = 0.85~0.9, and $CO_2$ concentration peaks at Ø=1.1, while the CO concentration abruptly rises at the condition of fuel-rich mixtures.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권7호
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• pp.2660-2669
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• 2022

The attractiveness for weapons usage of the proposed fuel cycle for the PT-SCWR was evaluated in this study using the Figure-of-Merit methodology. It was compared to the attractiveness of other fuel cycles namely, Low Enriched Uranium (LEU), U/Th, Re-enriched Reprocessed Uranium (RepU), and Pu/Th/U. The optimal content of natural uranium, which can be added to Pu/Th to render the produced U-233 unattractive, was found to be 9%. A ranking system to compare the attractiveness of the various fuel cycles is proposed. RepU was found to be the most proliferation resistant fuel cycle for the first 100 years,while, the least proliferation resistant fuel cycle was the originally proposed Pu/Th one. The reactivity feedback coefficients were calculated for all proposed fuel cycles. All studied reactivity coefficients have the same sign implying that all the fuel cycles will behave neutronically in a similar way. The Pu/Th/U fuel was found to have the most negative value of the Coolant Void Reactivity which will help to restore the core to a safe status faster in case of a loss-of-coolant accident. The fuel and moderator temperature coefficients did not show significant differences between the fuels studied.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제48권2호
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• pp.330-338
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• 2016

The U-Zr or U-TRU-Zr cylindrical metallic fuel slug used in fast reactors is known to swell significantly and to grow during irradiation. In neutronics simulations of metallic-fueled fast reactors, it is assumed that the slug has swollen and contacted cladding, and the bonding sodium has been removed from the fuel region. In this research, a realistic burnup-dependent fuel-swelling simulation was performed using Monte Carlo code McCARD for a single-batch compact sodium-cooled breed-and-burn reactor by considering the fuel-swelling behavior reported from the irradiation test results in EBR-II. The impacts of the realistic burnup-dependent fuel swelling are identified in terms of the reactor neutronics performance, such as core lifetime, conversion ratio, axial power distribution, and local burnup distributions. It was found that axial fuel growth significantly deteriorated the neutron economy of a breed-and-burn reactor and consequently impaired its neutronics performance. The bonding sodium also impaired neutron economy, because it stayed longer in the blanket region until the fuel slug reached 2% burnup.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제31권4호
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• pp.365-374
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• 1999

A nuclear design of fission moly production targets for a research reactor, HANARO was peformed. It was found that the use of MCNP-4A, ORIGEN-2 code was reliable for the analysis of production characteristics of $^{99}$ Mo in a target fuel at an irradiation holes. A parametric study was done for the optimization of target location, target dimension, target shape and fuel materials. It was shown that a fuel thickness was the most sensitive parameters and electro-deposited target gave the highest 99Mo yield ratio. A pellet target with vibro-compaction powder, however, showed the largest production capacity and better engineering feasibility even with less yield ratio. Ten kinds of optimized target design for both LEU and HEU satisfied all the given design constraints. The most favorable design was the HEU ring-shaped electro-deposited target, considered the safety limit, production yield, chemical process easiness, yield ratio, and amount of radioactive waste.