• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.907-915
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• 2024

Various core designs with multi-batch fuel management (FM) are proposed and optimized for an innovative small modular reactor (iSMR), focusing on enhancing the inherent safety and neutronic performance. To achieve soluble-boron-free (SBF) operation, cylindrical centrally-shielded burnable absorbers (CSBAs) are utilized, reducing the burnup reactivity swing in both two- and three-batch FMs. All 69 fuel assemblies (FAs) are loaded with 2-cylindrical CSBA. Furthermore, the neutron economy is improved by deploying a truly-optimized PWR (TOP) lattice with a smaller fuel radius, optimized for neutron moderation under the SBF condition. The fuel shuffling and CSBA loading patterns are proposed for both 2- and 3-batch FM with the aim to lower the core leakage and achieve favorable power profiles. Numerical results show that both FM configurations achieve a small reactivity swing of about 1000 pcm and the power distributions are within the design criteria. The average discharge burnup in the two-batch core is comparable to three-batch commercial PWR like APR-1400. The proposed checker-board CR pattern with extended fingers effectively assures cold shutdown in the two-batch FM scenario, while in the three-batch FM, three N-1 scenarios are failed. The whole evaluation process is conducted using Monte Carlo Serpent 2 code in conjunction with ENDF/B-VII.1 nuclear library.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.1385-1397
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• 2024

Bentonite is a recommended material for the multiple barriers in the final disposal of low-level radioactive waste (LLW) to prevent groundwater intrusion and nuclear species migration. However, after drying-wetting cycling during the repository construction stage and ion exchange with the concrete barrier in the long-term repository, the bentonite mechanical behaviors, including swelling capacity and hydraulic conductivity, would be further influenced by the groundwater intrusion, resulting in radioactive leakage. To comprehensively examine the factors on the mechanical characteristics of bentonite, this study presented scenarios involving MX-80 and KV-1 bentonites subjected to drying-wetting cycling and accelerated ion migration. The experiments subsequently measured free swelling, swelling pressure, and hydraulic conductivity of bentonites with intrusions of seawater, high pH, and low pH solutions. The results indicated that the solutions caused a reduction in swelling volume and pressure, and an increase in hydraulic conductivity. Specifically, the swelling capability of bentonite with drying-wetting cycling in the seawater decreased significantly by 60%, while hydraulic conductivity increased by more than three times. Therefore, the study suggested minimizing drying-wetting cycling and preventing seawater intrusion, ensuring a long service life of the multiple barriers in the LLW repository.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.599-607
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• 2017

Since 2015, small and medium domestic enterprises that treat more than a certain quantity of chemical substances in accordance with the Chemical Substance Control Act are obliged to submit an off-site impact assessment and risk management plan. In order to reduce the administrative and economic burden of the risk assessment, its impact was determined. Toxic leaks of nitric acid, methanol, and acetic acid were estimated and the correlations (between them?) were calculated. In addition, the correlations of this study were used to compare the KORA results according to the accident scenarios of the actual workplace and the extent of the damage as a function of distance in the case of toxic leaks. In this study, the correlation formula of the materials can be used to quickly determine the damage distance in the event of the accidental leakage of materials in the road or workplace, and to prepare emergency plans and respond to emergencies more quickly.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.12-18
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• 2023

The effective evacuation strategy according to the accident scenario is crucial to minimize human casualties in the event of toxic gas leak accidents. In this study, the effect of the direction of a building and the location of an industrial complex on the increase in indoor concentration and outdoor diffusion was examined under the same leakage conditions, and effective evacuation criteria were established. In addition, the guidelines for building directions were suggested when constructing buildings that would mitigate human damage caused by chemical accidents. Three scenarios where buildings faced the front, side, and rear of the leakage direction were investigated through CFD simulations. The results revealed that when the building faced the industrial complex, both indoor and outdoor average gas concentrations increased significantly, reaching up to 120 times higher than the other two orientations. Moreover, the indoor space was filled with toxic gas substances more than twice in the same time due to the rapid increase of indoor concentration rate. In cases where the building's windows were positioned at the front, toxic gas stagnation occurred around the building due to pressure differences and reduced flow velocities. Based on our findings, the implementation of these guidelines will contribute to safeguarding residents by minimizing exposure to toxic gas during chemical accidents.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.307-319
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• 2009

Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology has been regarded as one of the most possible and practical option to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide ($CO_2$) and consequently to mitigate the climate change. Korean government also have started a 10-year R&D project on $CO_2$ storage in sea-bed geological structure including gas field and deep saline aquifer since 2005. Various relevant researches are carried out to cover the initial survey of suitable geological structure storage site, monitoring of the stored $CO_2$ behavior, basic design of $CO_2$ transport and storage process and the risk assessment and management related to $CO_2$ leakage from engineered and geological processes. Leakage of $CO_2$ to the marine environment can change the chemistry of seawater including the pH and carbonate composition and also influence adversely on the diverse living organisms in ecosystems. Recently, IMO (International Maritime Organization) have developed the risk assessment and management framework for the $CO_2$ sequestration in sub-seabed geological structures (CS-SSGS) and considered the sequestration as a waste management option to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. This framework for CS-SSGS aims to provide generic guidance to the Contracting Parties to the London Convention and Protocol, in order to characterize the risks to the marine environment from CS-SSGS on a site-specific basis and also to collect the necessary information to develop a management strategy to address uncertainties and any residual risks. The environmental risk assessment (ERA) plan for $CO_2$ storage work should include site selection and characterization, exposure assessment with probable leak scenario, risk assessment from direct and in-direct impact to the living organisms and risk management strategy. Domestic trial of the $CO_2$ capture and sequestration in to the marine geologic formation also should be accomplished through risk management with specified ERA approaches based on the IMO framework. The risk assessment procedure for $CO_2$ marine storage should contain the following components; 1) prediction of leakage probabilities with the reliable leakage scenarios from both engineered and geological part, 2) understanding on physio-chemical fate of $CO_2$ in marine environment especially for the candidate sites, 3) exposure assessment methods for various receptors in marine environments, 4) database production on the toxic effect of $CO_2$ to the ecologically and economically important species, and finally 5) development of surveillance procedures on the environmental changes with adequate monitoring techniques.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.40 no.2 s.183
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• pp.209-221
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• 2007

Numerical analysis was performed to investigate the effect of heavy metal contamination on neighboring environment in case a dam is constructed by using rockfill materials contaminated by heavy metals. The numerical simulation carried out in this research includes both subsurface flow and contaminant transport in the inside of the CFRD(Concrete Faced Rockfill Dam), using two commercial programs, SEEP2D and FEMWATER. The three representative cases of scenarios were chosen to consider a variety of cases occurring in a dam site; (1) Scenario 1 : no crack in the concrete face slab, (2) Scenario 2 : a crack In the upper part of face slab, and (3) Scenario 3 : a crack between plinth and face slab in the lower part of face slab. As a result of seepage analysis, the amount of seepage in scenario 2 was calculated as $14.31\sim14.924m^3/day$ per unit width, corresponding to the 1,000 times higher value than that in other scenarios. Also, in the simulation of contaminant transport by using FEMWATER, specified contaminant concentration of 13 ppb in main rockfill zone was set to consider continuous leakage from the rock materials. Through the analysis of contaminant transport, we found that elapsed times to take for the contaminant concentration of about 2 ppb to arrive at the end of a dam are as follows. Scenario 1 has the elapsed time of 55,000 years. In Scenario 2. it is 50 years. Finally, scenario 3 has 27,000 years. The rapid transport of the contaminant in scenario 2 was attributed to greater seepage flow by 500 times than other scenarios. Although, in case of upper crack in the face slab, it was identified that the contaminant might transport to the end of a dam within 100 years with about 2 ppb concentration, however, it happened that the contaminant was hardly transported out of the dam in other scenarios, which correspond to either no crack or a crack between plinth and face slab. In conclusion, the numerical analysis showed that the alternative usage of the contaminated sand and gravel as the dam embankment material can be one of the feasible methods with the assumption that the cracks in a face slab could be controlled adequately.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.242-256
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• 2017

In this paper, dispersion scenarios concerning various meteorological conditions and real urban structures were made to estimate the impacts of hazardous substance leakage accidents and to reduce damages. Based on the scenario of the hazardous substance dispersion, the characteristics of the risk in the pedestrian environment were analyzed in Gangnam, Seoul. The scenarios are composed of 48 cases according to the meteorological conditions of wind direction and wind speed. In order to analyze the dispersion characteristics of the hazardous substances, simulations were conducted using a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model with hydrogen fluoride releases. The validation for the simulated wind was conducted at a specific period, and all the calculated verification indices were within the valid range. As a result of simulated dispersion field at pedestrian level, it was found that the dispersion pattern was influenced by the flow, which was affected by the artificial obstacles. Also, in the case of the weakest wind speed of the inflow, the dispersion of the hazardous substance appeared in the direction of the windward side at the pedestrian level due to the reverse flow occurred at lower layers. Through this study, it can be seen that the artificial structures forming the city have a major impact on the flow formed in urban areas. The proposed approach can be used to simulate the dispersion of the hazardous substances and to assess the risk to pedestrians in the industrial complexes dealing with actual hazardous substances in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.29-34
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• 2015

Accidents in laboratory dealing with chemicals have constantly occurred. In the case of a gas explosion or an accident related to leakage of chemical materials, the damage is much greater, thereby leading to a serious accident. Especially, the safety of laboratory in University is important because students build up knowledge and skills and accumulate experience as the main researchers. In this paper, 5 gases(CO, $NH_3$, $H_2$, $CH_4$, $N_2$) are selected to model since they are often used in university laboratories. From the scenarios where the gases are released, the diffusion process is estimated and analyzed to predict damage degree by PHAST v.6.7. Internal diffusion process is modeled through FLUENT which is Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) tool. Also, we compare indoor damage with outdoor one when discharged to the outside through the laboratory's window. In the modeling results, the outdoor damages for accident scenarios in the results are far less than then of real plants since the vessel usually used in laboratory(i.e. the capacity of the cylinder; 47 L or less) is significantly less than workplace's one(using ton measure). However as shown in the results small amount can have high consequences for indoor accidents.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.13-30
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• 2013

Increase of pore fluid pressure resulting from injection of $CO_2$ may reactivate pre-existing faults, and the induced seismic activities can raise the safety issues such as seal integrity, restoration of storage capacity, and, in the worst case, removal of previously injected $CO_2$. Thus, fault stability and potential for $CO_2$ leakage need to be assessed at the stage of site selection and planning of injection pressure, based on the results of large-scale site investigations and numerical modeling for various scenarios. In this report, studies on the assessment of fault stability during injection of $CO_2$ were reviewed. The seismic activities associated with an artificial injection of fluids or a release of naturally trapped high-pressure fluids were first examined, and then site investigation methods for the magnitude and orientation of in situ stresses, the distribution and change of pore fluid pressure, and the location of faults were generally summarized. Recent research cases on possibility estimation of fault reactivation, prediction of seismic magnitude, and modeling of $CO_2$ leakage through a reactivated fault were presented.

• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.23-32
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• 2016

Today the issue of deterioration of industrial complexes that are located close to life space of residents has been raised as a cause of threats to the safety of local communities. In this study, in order to improve the current risk analysis and scope of community notification, simulated threat zones were comparatively analyzed by utilizing the threat zones of alternative accident scenarios and modes of seasonal weather, and the area with a high probability of damage upon the leakage of toxic substances was predicted by examining wind directions observed at each time slot for each season. In addition, limit evacuation time and minimum separation distance to minimize casualties were suggested, and a proposal to enable more reasonable safety measures for on-site workers and nearby residents made by reviewing the risk management plan currently utilized for emergency response.