• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권2호
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• pp.248-257
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• 2020

This study presents an initial design for a novel system consisting in a coupled nuclear reactor and a phase change material-based thermal energy storage (TES) component, which acts as a buffer and regulator of heat transfer between the primary and secondary loops. The goal of this concept is to enhance the capacity factor of nuclear power plants (NPPs) in the case of high integration of renewable energy sources into the electric grid. Hence, this system could support in elevating the economics of NPPs in current competitive markets, especially with subsidized solar and wind energy sources, and relatively low oil and gas prices. Furthermore, utilizing a prismatic-core advanced high temperature reactor (PAHTR) cooled by a molten salt with a high melting point, have the potential in increasing the system efficiency due to its high operating temperature, and providing the baseline requirements for coupling other process heat applications. The present research studies the neutronics and thermal hydraulics (TH) of the PAHTR as well as TH calculations for the TES which consists of 300 blocks with a total heat storage capacity of 150 MWd. SERPENT Monte Carlo and MCNP5 codes carried out the neutronics analysis of the PAHTR which is sized to have a 5-year refueling cycle and rated power of 300 MW_th. The PAHTR has 10 metric tons of heavy metal with 19.75 wt% enriched UO₂ TRISO fuel, a hot clean excess reactivity and shutdown margin of $33.70 and -$115.68; respectively, negative temperature feedback coefficients, and an axial flux peaking factor of 1.68. Star-CCM + code predicted the correct convective heat transfer coefficient variations for both the reactor and the storage. TH analysis results show that the flow in the primary loop (in the reactor and TES) remains in the developing mixed convection regime while it reaches a fully developed flow in the secondary loop.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권7호
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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.

• 비파괴검사학회지
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• 제23권5호
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• pp.520-525
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• 2003

Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) is a 40MW (thermal) / 13.2MW (electrical), Plutonium - Uranium mixed carbide fuelled, sodium cooled, loop type nuclear reactor operating at Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam. Its main aim is to generate experience in operation of fast reactors and sodium systems and to serve as an irradiation facility for development of fuels and structural materials fur fast reactors. Nuclear reactors pose difficulties to the NDT techniques used to monitor the conditions of the internal components. Sodium cooled fast breeder reactors have their own typical difficulties in using the NDT techniques. These are due to the need for operation in aggressive environment of nuclear radiation and sodium (molten/vapour), as well as the need to maintain leak tightness of a very high order during all states of reactor operation and shutdown for fuel handling, maintenance and remote inspection. This paper discusses the following NDT techniques, which have been successfully used for the past 15 years in FBTR: (i) Periscope and Projector, (ii) Core Co-ordinate Measuring Device and, (iii) Optical fiberscope. The inspection using these techniques have given confidence for further reactor operation at high power by giving useful data on the conditions of the components inside the reactor vessel.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제22권5호
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• pp.596-606
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• 1998

Thermophysical properties and the compressive strength of concrete used in nuclear power plants in Korea were measured. The chemical composition of the concrete was also analyzed. The measured thermophysical properties include the density, the thermal conductivity, the thermal diffusivity and the specific heat for a wide temperature range of 20.deg. C to 1100.deg. C. The chemical composition of Korean concrete is similar to that of US basaltic concrete and the thermophysical properties are strongly temperature dependent. The density, the conductivity and the diffusivity decrease with an increase in temperature, and particularly the conductivity and the diffusivity are a 50-perdent decrease at 900.deg. C as compared with these values at room temperature. The specific heat increases until 500.deg. C, decreases from 700.deg. C to 900 .deg. C, and then increases again when temperature is above 900.deg. C. The measurement beyond 1100.deg. C is not acceptably accurate because the concrete decomposes to a liquid phase from a solid phase at that temperature. The results of this study can be applied, for example, to an analysis of the molten core-concrete interaction (MCCI) phenomenon of concrete structures at high temperature will also require those property data, especially for high temperature ranges.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제25권2호
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• pp.215-221
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• 1993

중대 사고에 이어 형성 될 수 있는 용융 핵연료와 냉각수의 혼합체는 그 후에 일어날 수 있는 증기 폭발의 초기 조건을 이루게 되며, 또한 이러한 혼합의 정도는 증기 폭발의 강도를 결정하는 주요 요인이 된다. 본 연구는 간단한 일차원 과도 상태 모형을 이용하여 용융 핵연료와 냉각수의 혼합의 한계를 결정하였으며, 용융 핵연료의 분쇄 과정을 모사 하기 위하여 동적 분쇄모형과 순간 파열 모형을 각각 적용하여 그 결과를 비교하였다. 계산 결과에서는 용융 핵연료의 온도. 압력. 수조의 깊이, 혼합 상태에서의 분쇄물 직경 그리고 용융 핵연료 입사 직경등이 혼합량에 영향을 미치는 주요한 인자들로 나타났다.

• 한국전산유체공학회지
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• 제21권1호
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• pp.110-116
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• 2016

The present study numerically investigated the deformation of the interface of two-phase fluids flow in a blast furnace. To simulate three-dimensional(3D) incompressible viscous two-phase flow in the furnace filled with the air and molten iron, the volume of fluid(VOF) method based on the finite volume method has been utilized. In addition, the porous medium with the porosity has been considered as the bed of the particles such as cokes and char etc. For the comparison, the single phase flow and the two-phase flow without the porosity have been simulated. The two-phase flow without porosity condition revealed the smooth parabolic profile of the free surface near the outlet. However, the free surface under the porosity condition formed the viscous finger when the free surface was close to the outlet. This viscous finger accelerated the velocity of the free surface falling and the outflow velocity of the fluids near the outlet.

• 대한기계학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한기계학회 2001년도 춘계학술대회논문집A
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• pp.782-787
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• 2001

This paper is concerned with the global rupture of a nuclear reactor pressure vessel(RPV) in a severe accident. During the severe reactor accident of molten core, the temperature and the pressure in the nuclear reactor rise to a certain level depending on the initial and subsequent condition of a severe accident. While the rise of the temperature cause the thermal softening of RPV material, the rise of the internal pressure could cause failure of the RPV lower head. The global rupture of an RPV is simulated by finite element limit analysis for the collapse pressure and mode and this analysis results have been compared with a variation of the internal pressure of RPV. The finite element limit method is a systematic tool to secure the safety criteria of a nuclear reactor and to evaluate the in-vessel corium retention.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제48권1호
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• pp.72-86
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• 2016

A steam explosion may occur during a severe accident, when the molten core comes into contact with water. The pressurized water reactor and boiling water reactor ex-vessel steam explosion study, which was carried out with the multicomponent three-dimensional Eulerian fuel-coolant interaction code under the conditions of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Steam Explosion Resolution for Nuclear Applications project reactor exercise, is presented and discussed. In reactor calculations, the largest uncertainties in the prediction of the steam explosion strength are expected to be caused by the large uncertainties related to the jet breakup. To obtain some insight into these uncertainties, premixing simulations were performed with both available jet breakup models, i.e., the global and the local models. The simulations revealed that weaker explosions are predicted by the local model, compared to the global model, due to the predicted smaller melt droplet size, resulting in increased melt solidification and increased void buildup, both reducing the explosion strength. Despite the lower active melt mass predicted for the pressurized water reactor case, pressure loads at the cavity walls are typically higher than that for the boiling water reactor case. This is because of the significantly larger boiling water reactor cavity, where the explosion pressure wave originating from the premixture in the center of the cavity has already been significantly weakened on reaching the distant cavity wall.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제28권3호
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• pp.290-298
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• 1996

Direct Containment Heating, DCH, is supposed to occur during a core melt-down accident if the primary system pressure is still high at the time of vessel breach in a Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). In this case, DCH is considered to be one of very important severe phenomena during postulated severe accident scenario because of the fast heat transfer rate to atmosphere and the sharp pressure increase in a containment. To reduce the effect of this DCH phenomena, the capture volume wes designed at Ulchin NPP units 3 and 4. But, the effect of this has not been studied extensively. This work consists of experimental and numerical analyses of the effects of capture volume in the cavity on DCH phenomena. The experimental model is a 1/30 scaled-down model of Ulchin NPP units 3 and 4. We used three types of capture volumes to investigate the effect of size. Numerical analysis using CONTAIN 1.2 is performed with the correlation for the dispersed fraction of molten corium from the cavity into the containment derived from the experimental data to examine the effect of capture volume on DCH phenomena in full scale of Ulchin NPP units 3 and 4.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권1호
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• pp.177-185
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• 2022

Hydrogen risk in the containment filtered venting system (CFVS) vessel was analyzed, considering operation pressure and modes with the effect of PAR and accident scenarios. The CFVS is to depressurize the containment by venting the containment atmosphere through the filtering system. The CFVS could be subject to hydrogen risk due to the change of atmospheric conditions while the containment atmosphere passes through the CFVS. It was found that hydrogen risk increased as the CFVS opening pressure was set higher because more combustible gases generated by Molten Core Concrete Interaction flowed into the CFVS. Hydrogen risk was independent of operation modes and found only at the early phase of venting both for continuous and cyclic operation modes. With PAR, hydrogen risk appeared only at the 0.9 MPa opening pressure for Station Black-Out accidents. Without PAR, however, hydrogen risk appeared even with the CFVS opening set-point of 0.5 MPa. In a slow accident like SBO, hydrogen risk was more threatening than a fast accident like Large Break Loss-of-Coolant Accident. Through this study, it is recommended to set the CFVS opening pressure lower than 0.9 MPa and to operate it in the cyclic mode to keep the CFVS available as long as possible.