• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.1236-1249
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• 2021

Although there are still controversial opinions and uncertainty on application of SiC_f/SiC composite cladding as next-generation cladding material for its great oxidation resistance in high temperature steam environment and other outstanding advantages, it cannot deny that SiC_f/SiC cladding is a potential accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding with high research priority and still in the engineering design stage for now. However, considering its disadvantages, such as low irradiated thermal conductivity, ductility that barely not exist, further evaluations of its in-pile behaviors are still necessary. Based on the self-developed code we recently updated, relevant thermohydraulic and mechanical models in FROBA-ATF were applied to simulate the cladding behaviors under normal and accident conditions in this paper. Even through steady-state performance analysis revealed that this kind of cladding material could greatly reduce the oxidation thickness, the thermal performance of UO₂-SiC was poor due to its low inpile thermal conductivity and creep rate. Besides, the risk of failure exists when reactor power decreased. With geometry optimization and dopant addition in pellets, the steady-state performance of UO₂-SiC was enhanced and the failure risk was reduced. The thermal and mechanical performance of the improved UO₂-SiC was further evaluated under Loss of coolant accident (LOCA) and Reactivity Initiated Accident (RIA) conditions. Transient results showed that the optimized ATF had better thermal performance, lower cladding hoop stress, and could provide more coping time under accident conditions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.54-70
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• 2017

The accumulator is a passive safety injection device for emergency core cooling systems. As an important safety feature for providing a high-speed injection flow to the core by compressed nitrogen gas pressure during a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA), the accumulator injects its precharged nitrogen into the system after its coolant has been emptied. Attention has been drawn to the possible negative effects caused by such a nitrogen injection in passive safety nuclear power plants. Although some experimental work on the nitrogen injection has been done, there have been no comparative tests in which the effects on the system responses and the core safety have been clearly assessed. In this study, a new thermal hydraulic integral test facility-the advanced core-cooling mechanism experiment (ACME)-was designed and constructed to support the CAP1400 safety review. The ACME test facility was used to study the nitrogen injection effects on the system responses to the small break loss-of-coolant accident LOCA (SBLOCA) transient. Two comparison test groups-a 2-inch cold leg break and a double-ended direct-vessel-injection (DEDVI) line break-were conducted. Each group consists of a nitrogen injection test and a nitrogen isolation comparison test with the same break conditions. To assess the nitrogen injection effects, the experimental data that are representative of the system responses and the core safety were compared and analyzed. The results of the comparison show that the effects of nitrogen injection on system responses and core safety are significantly different between the 2-inch and DEDVI breaks. The mechanisms of the different effects on the transient were also investigated. The amount of nitrogen injected, along with its heat absorption, was likewise evaluated in order to assess its effect on the system depressurization process. The results of the comparison and analyses in this study are important for recognizing and understanding the potential negative effects on the passive core cooling performance caused by nitrogen injection during the SBLOCA transient.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.1518-1527
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• 2023

A method was proposed for in-situ evaluating the thickness and resistivity of the oxide/hydroxide film formed on the surface of aluminum alloy exposed to sump water formed in the containment after a loss-of-coolant accident. The evaluation entailed fitting a model for the film impedance, which has film thickness and other variables describing the resistivity profile of the film along its thickness direction as fitting parameters, to the practically measured electrochemical impedance data. The obtained resistivity profiles implied that the films formed at pHs_25℃ 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 all had a duplex structure; compared to the outer layer in contact with the solution, the inner layer of the film had a much higher resistivity and was inferred to be denser and provide most of the protectiveness of the film. Both the thickness and the total resistance of the film decreased with the increasing solution pH_25℃, suggesting that the films formed in more alkaline solutions had less protectiveness against corrosion, consistent with the increasing aluminum alloy corrosion rates previously identified.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.37-41
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• 2020

The Nuclear containment building is a main safety-related structure that performs shielding and conservation functions to prevent highly radioactive materials from leakage to the outside environment in the case of various environmental conditions and postulated accidents. The containment building contains a reactor, steam generator, pressurizer, tank, reactor coolant system, auxiliary system and engineering safety system, and is designed so that highly radioactive materials above the limits specified in 10 CFR 100 do not escape to the outside environment in the case of LOCA(Loss of Coolant Accident) for instance. The containment metal liner plate(CLP) is a carbon steel plate with a nominal plate thickness of 6 mm, which functions as a mold for the wall and dome of the containment building when concrete is filled, fulfills airtightness to prevent leakage of seriously radioactive materials. In recent years, backside corrosion was found on the liner plate in some domestic nuclear power plants. The main cause of backside corrosion was unfilled concrete. In this paper, an inspection technique of assessing filling suitability for CLP backside concrete is developed. Results show that the validity of inspection technique for CLP backside concrete using vibration sensor is successfully verified.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.12
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• pp.4003-4013
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• 2021

During the long-term cooling (LTC) phase of a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) in a pressurized water reactor (PWR), water is supplied from the containment sump to the reactor coolant system (RCS) by the flooded sump water to the Reactor Vessel (RV) through the broken pipes. As part of the technical efforts for resolving GSI-191 [( Reid and Crytzer, May. 2007) 1, consideration is needed for the consequences of debris penetrating the sump screen and propagating downstream into the RV. Injection of debris (fiberglass) into the RV during the LTC recirculation phase needs special attention to assure that reactor core cooling is maintained. The point of concern is the potential for debris to adversely affect the reactor core flow paths or heat transfer [2]. However, all the experiments for proving the coolability of RV have been done with the assumption of the most of debris would be transferred to the RV and the bottom nozzle of the FAs. The purpose of the tests is to quantify the amount of the debris that would be accumulated at the lower plenum and the debris that passes through the FAs since non-conservatism of other researches assumptions that have been used in the past experimental or analytical programs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.142-152
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• 2004

The liquid entrainment and vapor pull-through offtake model of RELAP5/MOD3 had been developed for SBLOCA (Small Break Loss of Coolant Accident). The RELAP5/MOD3 model for horizontal volumes accounts for the phase separation phenomena and computes the flux of mass and energy through a branch when stratified conditions occur in the horizontal pipe. In the case of CANDU reactor, this model should be used in the coolant flow of 95 feeders connected to the reactor header component under the horizontal stratification in header. The current RELAP5 model can treat the only 3 directions junctions; vertical upward, downward, and side oriented junctions, and thus improvements for the liquid entrainment and vapor pull-through model were needed for considering the exact angles. The RELAP5 off-take model was modified and generalized by considering the geometric effect of branching angles. Based on the previous experimental results, the critical height correlation was reconstructed by use of the branch line connection angle and validation analyses were also performed using SET. The new model can be applied to vertical upward, downward and angled branch, and the accuracy of the new correlations is more improved than that of RELAP5.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.129-134
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• 2016

Standard design of APR+(advanced power reactor plus) was certified at 2014 by Korea regulatory body. Based on the experience gained from OPR1000 and APR1400, the APR1400 was being developed as a 1,500MWe class reactor using Korean technologies for design code, reactor coolant pump, and man-machine interface system. APR+ has been basically designed to have the seismic design basis of safe shutdown earthquake (SSE) 0.3g, a 4-train safety concept based on N+2 design philosophy, and a passive auxiliary feedwater system (PAFS). Also, safety issues on the Fukushima-type accidents have been extensively reviewed and applied to enhance APR+ safety. APR+ provides higher reliability and safety against tsunami and earthquake. The purpose of this paper is to implement probabilistic safety assessment considering these design features and to analyze sensitivity of core damage frequency for large loss of coolant accident of APR+.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.7
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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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.38-46
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• 2020

The accurate measurement of critical heat flux (CHF) in flow boiling is important for the safety requirement of the nuclear power plant to prevent sharp degradation of the convective heat transfer between the surface of the fuel rod cladding and the reactor coolant. In this paper, a System Engineering approach is used to develop a model that predicts the CHF using machine learning. The model is built using artificial neural network (ANN). The model is then trained, tested and validated using pre-existing database for different flow conditions. The Talos library is used to tune the model by optimizing the hyper parameters and selecting the best network architecture. Once developed, the ANN model can predict the CHF based solely on a set of input parameters (pressure, mass flux, quality and hydraulic diameter) without resorting to any physics-based model. It is intended to use the developed model to predict the DNBR under a large break loss of coolant accident (LBLOCA) in APR1400. The System Engineering approach proved very helpful in facilitating the planning and management of the current work both efficiently and effectively.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.265-273
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• 2023

To effectively and safely manage the radiation exposure to nuclear power plant (NPP) workers in accidents, major overseas NPP operators such as the United States, Germany, and France have developed and applied realistic 3D model radiation dose assessment software for workers. Continuous research and development have recently been conducted, such as performing NPP accident management using 3D-VR based on As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA) planning tool. In line with this global trend, it is also required to secure technology to manage radiation exposure of workers in Korea efficiently. Therefore, in this paper, it is described the application method and assessment results of radiation exposure scenarios for workers in response to accidents assessment technology, which is one of the fundamental technologies for constructing a realistic platform to be utilized for radiation exposure prediction, diagnosis, management, and training simulations following accidents. First, the post-accident sampling after the Loss of Coolant Accident(LOCA) was selected as the accident and response scenario, and the assessment area related to this work was established. Subsequently, the structures within the assessment area were modeled using MCNP, and the radiation source of the equipment was inputted. Based on this, the radiation dose distribution in the assessment area was assessed. Afterward, considering the three principles of external radiation protection (time, distance, and shielding) detailed work scenarios were developed by varying the number of workers, the presence or absence of a shield, and the location of the shield. The radiation exposure doses received by workers were compared and analyzed for each scenario, and based on the results, the optimal accident response scenario was derived. The results of this study plan to be utilized as a fundamental technology to ensure the safety of workers through simulations targeting various reactor types and accident response scenarios in the future. Furthermore, it is expected to secure the possibility of developing a data-based ALARA decision support system for predicting radiation exposure dose at NPP sites.