• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 제어로봇시스템학회 2005년도 ICCAS
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• pp.2331-2336
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• 2005

This paper proposes a new haptic device using a parallel mechanism with gimbal type actuators. This device has three legs actuated by 2-DOF gimbal mechanisms, which make the device simple and light by fixing all the actuators to the base. Three extra sensors are placed at passive joints to obtain a unique solution of the forward kinematics problem. The proposed haptic device is developed for an operator to use it on a desktop in due consideration of the size of an average Korean. The proposed haptic device has a small workspace for on operator to use it on a desktop and more sensitivity than a serial type haptic device. Therefore, the motors of the proposed haptic device are fixed at the base plate so that the proposed haptic device has a better dynamic bandwidth due to a low moving inertia. With this conceptual design, optimization of the design parameters is carried out. The objective function is defined by the fuzzy minimum of the global design indices, global force/moment isotropy index, global force/moment payload index, and workspace. Each global index is calculated by a SVD (singular value decomposition) of the force and moment parts of the jacobian matrix. Division of the jacobian matrix assures a consistency of the units in the matrix. Due to the nonlinearity of this objective function, Genetic algorithms are adopted for a global optimization.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권5호
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• pp.1679-1686
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• 2024

Graphite material plays an important role in nuclear reactors especially the high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) by its outstanding comprehensive nuclear properties. The structural integrity of graphite pebble fuel elements is the first barrier to core safety under any circumstances. The correct knowledge of the stiffness coefficient of the graphite pebble fuel element inside the reactor's core is significant to ensure the valid design and inherent safety. In this research, a vertical extrusion device was set up to measure the stiffness coefficient of the graphite pebble fuel element by the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology (INET) of Tsinghua University in China. The stiffness coefficient equations of graphite pebble fuel elements at different temperatures are given (in a helium atmosphere). The result first provides the data on the high-temperature stiffness coefficient of pebbles in helium gas. The result will be helpful for the engineering safety analysis of pebble-bed nuclear reactors.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제50권6호
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• pp.937-943
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• 2018

Background: This work presents the performance of a novel electronic brachytherapy (EBT) device and radiotherapy (RT) experiments on both skin cancer cells and animals using the device. Methods and materials: The performance of the EBT device was evaluated by measuring and analyzing the dosimetric characteristics of X-rays generated from the device. The apoptosis of skin cancer cells was analyzed using B16F10 melanoma cancer cells. Animal experiments were performed using C57BL/6 mice. Results: The X-ray characteristics of the EBT device satisfied the accepted tolerance level for RT. The results of the RT experiments on the skin cancer cells show that a significant apoptosis induction occurred after irradiation with 50 kVp X-rays generated from the EBT device. Furthermore, the results of the animal RT experiments demonstrate that the superficial X-rays significantly delay the tumor growth and that the tumor growth delay induced by irradiation with low-energy X-rays was almost the same as that induced by irradiation with a high-energy electron beam. Conclusions: The developed new EBT device has almost the same therapeutic effect on the skin cancer with a conventional linear accelerator. Consequently, the EBT device can be practically used for human skin cancer treatment in the near future.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권6호
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• pp.2412-2420
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• 2024

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mandates safeguards to ensure non-proliferation of nuclear materials. Among inspection techniques used to detect partial defects within spent nuclear fuel (SNF), gamma emission tomography (GET) has been reported to be reliable for detection of partial defects on a pin-by-pin level. Conventional GET, however, is limited by low detection efficiency due to the high density of nuclear fuel rods and self-absorption. This paper proposes a new type of GET named Spent Fuel Internal Tomography (SFIT), which can acquire sinograms at the guide tube. The proposed device consists of the housing, shielding, C-shaped collimator, reflector, and gadolinium aluminum gallium garnet (GAGG) scintillator. For accurate attenuation correction, the source-distinguishable range of the SFIT device was determined using MC simulation to the region away from the proposed device to the second layer. For enhanced inspection accuracy, a proposed specific source-discrimination algorithm was applied. With this, the SFIT device successfully distinguished all source locations. The comparison of images of the existing and proposed inspection methods showed that the proposed method, having successfully distinguished all sources, afforded a 150 % inspection accuracy improvement.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제39권4호
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• pp.299-312
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• 2007

The program on thermal-hydraulic evaluation by testing and analysis (THETA) for the development and licensing of the new design features in the APR1400 (Advanced Power Reactor-1400) is briefly introduced with a presentation on the research motivation and typical results of the separate effect tests and analyses of the major design features. The first part deals with multi-dimensional phenomena related to the safety analysis of the APR1400. One research area is related to the multidimensional behavior of the safety injection (SI) water in a reactor pressure vessel downcomer that uses a direct vessel injection type of SI system. The other area is associated with the condensation of steam jets and the resultant thermal mixing in a water pool; these phenomena are relevant to the depressurization of a reactor coolant system (RCS). The second part describes our efforts to develop new components for safety enhancements, such as a fluidic device as a passive SI flow controller and a sparger to depressurize the RCS. This work contributes to an understanding of the new thermal-hydraulic phenomena that are relevant to advanced reactor system designs; it also improves the prediction capabilities of analysis tools for multi-dimensional flow behavior, especially in complicated geometries.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권11호
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• pp.4329-4337
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• 2022

Jet impinging device is designed for decay heat removal on horizontal fuel rods in a low temperature heating reactor. An experimental system with a fuel rod simulator is established and experiments are performed to evaluate water film covering capacity, within 0.0287-0.0444 kg/ms mass flow rate, 0-164.1 kW/m² heating flux and 13.8-91.4℃ feeding water temperature. An effective method to obtain the film coverage rate by infrared equipment is proposed. Water film flowing patterns are recoded and the film coverage rates at different circumference angles are measured. It is found the film coverage rate decreases with heating flux during single-phase convection, while increases after onset of nucleate boiling. Besides, film coverage rate is found affected by Marangoni effect and film accelerating effect, and surface wetting is significantly facilitated by bubble behavior. Based on the observed phenomenon and physical mechanism, dry-out depth and initial dry-out rate are proposed to evaluate film covering potential on a heating surface. A model to predict film coverage rate is proposed based on the data. The findings would have reliable guide and important implications for further evaluation and design of decay heat removal system of new reactors, and could be helpful for passive containment cooling research.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• 제21권2호
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• pp.298-302
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• 2016

In bone density examinations, a change in the measured BMD occurs owing to the differences between the measured areas. To address this problem, we aimed to develop a new auxiliary device that could be rotated by $15^{\circ}$ by fixing the ankle to the distal femur neck. Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) of BMD examinations were performed once a year, but 10 patients were examined over three sessions to analyze the area for measuring the femur neck BMD. The goal of this test was to determine the device's reliability, and the results were expressed in terms of the standard deviation of measurements. After performing bone density measurements using the new auxiliary device on 10 normal patients, with three measurements for each patient, the obtained standard deviation was 0.03. The standard deviation of the measured BMD was 0.19 when using the currently existing auxiliary device, while the standard deviation of the measured BMD was 0.03 when using the new auxiliary device. By using the new auxiliary device, the standard deviation could be reduced by ~80%. Accurate rotation of the femur neck was possible in all examinations, and the standard deviation of BMD measurements could be reduced by up to 80% compared with the measurements performed using the currently existing auxiliary device. We hope that this advantageous new design can be used as a standard auxiliary device for measuring the femur neck BMD.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제44권6호
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• pp.697-708
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• 2012

The majority of instrumentation and control (I&C) systems in today's nuclear power plants (NPPs) are based on analog technology. Thus, most existing I&C systems now face obsolescence problems. Existing NPPs have difficulty in repairing and replacing devices and boards during maintenance because manufacturers no longer produce the analog devices and boards used in the implemented I&C systems. Therefore, existing NPPs are replacing the obsolete analog I&C systems with advanced digital systems. New NPPs are also adopting digital I&C systems because the economic efficiencies and usability of the systems are higher than the analog I&C systems. Digital I&C systems are based on two technologies: a microprocessor based system in which software programs manage the required functions and a programmable logic device (PLD) based system in which programmable logic devices, such as field programmable gate arrays, manage the required functions. PLD based systems provide higher levels of performance compared with microprocessor based systems because PLD systems can process the data in parallel while microprocessor based systems process the data sequentially. In this research, a bistable trip logic in a reactor protection system (RPS) was developed using very high speed integrated circuits hardware description language (VHDL), which is a hardware description language used in electronic design to describe the behavior of the digital system. Functional verifications were also performed in order to verify that the bistable trip logic was designed correctly and satisfied the required specifications. For the functional verification, a random testing technique was adopted to generate test inputs for the bistable trip logic.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권6호
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• pp.2215-2221
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• 2023

In order to further meet the requirements of weight, volume, and dose minimization for new nuclear energy devices, the bare-bones multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm is used to automatically and iteratively optimize the design parameters of radiation shielding system material, thickness, and structure. The radiation shielding optimization program based on the bare-bones particle swarm optimization algorithm is developed and coupled into the reactor radiation shielding multi-objective intelligent optimization platform, and the code is verified by using the Savannah benchmark model. The material type and thickness of Savannah model were optimized by using the BBMOPSO algorithm to call the dose calculation code, the integrated optimized data showed that the weight decreased by 78.77%, the volume decreased by 23.10% and the dose rate decreased by 72.41% compared with the initial solution. The results show that the method can get the best radiation shielding solution that meets a lot of different goals. This shows that the method is both effective and feasible, and it makes up for the lack of manual optimization.

• 한국정밀공학회지
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• 제30권2호
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• pp.223-230
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• 2013

When a new nuclear fuel is developed, an irradiation test needs to be carried out in the research reactor to analyze the performance of the new nuclear fuel. In order to check the performance of a nuclear fuel during the irradiation test in the test loop of a research reactor, sensors need to be attached in and out of the fuel rod and connect them with instrumentation cables to the measuring device located outside of the reactor pool. In particular, to check the temporary temperature change at the center of a nuclear fuel during the irradiation test, a thermocouple should be instrumented at the center of the fuel rod. Therefore, a hole needs to be made at the center of fuel pellet to put in the thermocouple. However, because the hardness and the density of a sintered $UO_2$ pellet are very high, it is difficult to make a small fine hole on a sintered $UO_2$ pellet using a simple drilling machine even though we use a diamond drill bit made by electro deposition. In this study, an automated drilling machine using a CVD diamond drill has been developed to make a fine hole in a fuel pellet without changing tools or breakage of workpiece. A sintered alumina ($Al_2O_3$) block which has a higher hardness than a sintered $UO_2$ pellet is used as a test specimen. Then, it is verified that a precise hole can be drilled off without breakage of the drill bit in a short time.