• 에너지공학
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• 제13권4호
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• pp.242-258
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• 2004

한국원자력연구소에서는 기존의 일체형 가연성 독봉과 다른 이중구조로 된 가연성독봉 개념을 제시하였다. 이중구조 가연성독봉(Erbia Duplex BP)은 내부에 Natural U+Gd$_2$O$_3$, 외부에는 Enriched $UO_2$+Er$_2$O$_3$를 배열시킨 구조이다. 이러한 독봉은 장주기 노심에서 기존의 Gadolinia BP과 동일한 반응도제어를 할 수 있을 것이라 예상된다. 이중구조 가연성독봉의 핵적 타당성을 확인하기 위해 24개월 주기용 한국표준형원자로를 비교대상으로 선정하였으며, 기존 연구된 여러 가지 독봉설계안들과 4가지 핵특성에 대하여 비교 분석하였다. 핵특성 평가 결과, 이중구조가연성 독봉은 비교대상보다 무한증배계수, 첨두봉출력인자, 반응도억제가, 감속재온도계수측면에서 모두 유리한 경향을 보였다. 설계변수에 따른 민감도분석을 통해 도출한 최적화된 핵연료집합체를 이용하여 노심적용 타당성을 확인하였다. 주기길이, 첨두출력 및 감속재온도 계수를 비교하였으며 전 노심해석결과 주기길이가 비고대상보다 4-7일 길게 나타났다. 이러한 결과는 등가의 독봉집합체를 설계했음에도 불구하고 노심에 장전되는 우라늄의 양이 서로 달라서 생기는 현상으로 판단된다. 하지만 전체적인 핵특성을 비교해보면 이중구조 가연성독봉을 장전한 노심이 비교대상노심보다 다소 유리하면서도 거의 비슷함을 알 수 있었다. 마지막으로 경제성 평가를 통해 장주기 노심에서의 이중구조 가연성독봉의 제조 가능성 및 적용 타당성이 충분히 확인되었다.

• 방사성폐기물학회지
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• 제18권spc호
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• pp.1-19
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• 2020

Based on the current high-level radioactive waste management basic plan and the analysis results of spent nuclear fuel characteristics, such as dimensions and decay heat, an improved geological disposal concept for spent nuclear fuel from domestic nuclear power plants was proposed in this study. To this end, disposal container concepts for spent nuclear fuel from two types of reactors, pressurized water reactor (PWR) and Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU), considering the dimensions and interim storage method, were derived. In addition, considering the cooling time of the spent nuclear fuel at the time of disposal, according to the current basic plan-based scenarios, the amount of decay heat capacity for a disposal container was determined. Furthermore, improved disposal concepts for each disposal container were proposed, and analyses were conducted to determine whether the design requirements for the temperature limit were satisfied. Then, the disposal efficiencies of these disposal concepts were compared with those of the existing disposal concepts. The results indicated that the disposal area was reduced by approximately 20%, and the disposal density was increased by more than 20%.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권3호
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• pp.741-751
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• 2021

There has been a deep interest in trying to find better-performing fuel clad motivated by the desire to decrease the likelihood of the reactor barrier failure like what happened in Fukushima in recent years. In this study, the effect of move towards accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding as the most attracting concept for improving reactor safety is investigated for SMART modular reactor. These reactors have less production cost, short construction time, better safety and higher power density. The SiC and FeCrAl materials are considered as the most potential candidate for ATF cladding, and the results are compared with Zircaloy cladding material from reactor physics point of view. In this paper, the calculations are performed by generating PMAX library by DRAGON lattice physics code to be used for further reactor core analysis by PARCS code. The differential and integral worth of control and safety rods, reactivity coefficient, power and temperature distributions, and boric acid concentration during the cycle are analyzed and compared from the conventional fuel cladding. The rod ejection accident (REA) is also performed to study how the power changed in response to presence of the ATF cladding in the reactor core. The key quantitative finding can be summarized as: 20 ℃ (3%) decrease in average fuel temperature, 33 pcm (3%) increase in integral rod worth and cycle length, 1.26 pcm/℃ (50%) and 1.05 pcm/℃ (16%) increase in reactivity coefficient of fuel and moderator, respectively.

• 한국방사성폐기물학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국방사성폐기물학회 2011년도 추계학술논문요약집
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• pp.77-78
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• 2011

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제30권3호
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• pp.273-286
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• 1998

As there has arisen a concern that failure of the high burnup fuel under the reactivity-insertion accident(RIA) may occur at the energy lower than the expected, fuel behavior under the rod ejection accident in a typical Westinghouse-designed 950 MWe PWR was analyzed by using the three dimensional nodal transient neutronics code, PANBOX2 and the transient fuel rod performance analysis code, FRAP-T6. Fuel failure criteria versus the burnup was conservatively derived taking into account available test data and the possible fuel failure mechanisms. The high burnup and longer cycle length fuel loading scheme of a peak rod turnup of 68 MWD/kgU was selected for the analysis. Except three dimensional core neutronics calculation, the analysis used the same core conditions and assumptions as the conventional zero dimensional analysis. Results of three dimensional analysis showed that the peak fuel enthalpy during the rod ejection accident is less than one third of that calculated by the conventional zero dimensional analysis methodology and the fraction of fuel failure in the core is less than 4 %. Therefore, it can be said that the current design limit of less than 10 percent fuel failure and maintaining the core coolable geometry would be adequately satisfied under the rod ejection accident, even though the conservative fuel failure criteria derived from the test data are applied.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권4호
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• pp.674-680
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• 2020

We used MCNP6 computer code to model HTR-10 core reactor. We used two types of fuel; UO₂ and (Th+Pu)O₂ mixture. We determined the critical height at which the reactor approached criticality in both two cases. The neutronic and burnup parameters were investigated. The results indicated that the core fueled with mixed (Th+Pu)O₂, achieved about 24% higher fuel cycle length than the UO₂ case. It also enhanced safeguard security by burning Pu isotopes. The results were compared with previously published papers and good agreements were found.

• 방사성폐기물학회지
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• 제2권1호
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• pp.13-22
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• 2004

This study presents the thermal analyses of a spent fuel dry storage cask under normal and off-normal conditions. The environmental temperature is assumed to be 15 $^{\circ}C$ under the normal condition. The off-normal condition has an environmental temperature of 38 $^{\circ}C$. An additional off-normal condition is considered as a partial blockage of the air inlet ducts. Two of the four air inlet ducts are assumed to be completely blocked. The significant thermal design feature of the storage cask is the air flow path used to remove the decay heat from the spent fuel. Natural circulation of the air inside the cask allows the concrete and fuel cladding temperatures to be maintained below the allowable values. The finite volume computational fluid dynamics code FLUENT was used for the thermal analysis. The maximum temperatures of the fuel rod and concrete overpack were lower than the allowable values under the normal and off-normal conditions.

• 방사성폐기물학회지
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• 제21권4호
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• pp.517-529
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• 2023

The objectives of this paper are: (1) to conduct the thermal analyses of the disposal cell using COMSOL Multiphysics; (2) to determine whether the design of the disposal cell satisfies the thermal design requirement; and (3) to evaluate the effect of design modifications on the temperature of the disposal cell. Specifically, the analysis incorporated a heterogeneous model of 236 fuel rod heat sources of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) to improve the reality of the modeling. In the reference case, the design, featuring 8 m between deposition holes and 30 m between deposition tunnels for 40 years of the SNF cooling time, did not meet the design requirement. For the first modified case, the designs with 9 m and 10 m between the deposition holes for the cooling time of 40 years and five spacings for 50 and 60 years were found to meet the requirement. For the second modified case, the designs with 35 m and 40 m between the deposition tunnels for 40 years, 25 m to 40 m for 50 years and five spacings for 60 years also met the requirement. This study contributes to the advancement of the thermal analysis technique of a disposal cell.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제31권4호
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• pp.391-400
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• 1999

A conceptual core design of the 1,300MWe KNGR (Korean Next Generation Reactor) without using soluble boron for reactivity control was developed to determine whether it is technically feasible to implement SBF (Soluble Boron Free) operation. Based on the borated KNGR core design, the fuel assembly and control rod configuration were modified for extensive use of burnable poison rods and control rods. A new fuel rod, in which Pu-238 had been substituted for a small amount of U-238 in fuel composition, was introduced to assist the reactivity control by burnable poison rods. Since Pu-238 has a considerably large thermal neutron capture cross section, the new fuel assembly showed good reactivity suppression capability throughout the entire cycle turnup, especially at BOC (Beginning of Cycle). Moreover, relatively uniform control of power distribution was possible since the new fuel assemblies were loaded throughout the core. In this study, core excess reactivity was limited to 2.0 %$\delta$$\rho$ for the minimal use of control rods. The analysis results of the SBF KNGR core showed that axial power distribution control can be achieved by using the simplest zoning scheme of the fuel assembly Furthermore, the sufficient shutdown margin and the stability against axial xenon oscillations were secured in this SBF core. It is, therefore, concluded that a SBF operation is technically feasible for a large sized LWR (Light Water Reactor).

• 방사성폐기물학회지
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• 제16권3호
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• pp.369-376
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• 2018

The ability to recover the nearly limitless supply of uranium contained within the world's oceans would provide supply security to uranium based fuel cycles. Therefore, in addition to U.S. national laboratories conducting R&D on a system capable of harvesting seawater uranium, a number of collaborative university partners have developed alternative technologies to complement the national laboratory scheme. This works summarizes the systems analysis of such novel uranium recovery technologies along with their potential impacts on seawater uranium recovery. While implementation of some recent developments can reduce the cost of seawater uranium by up to 30%, other researchers have sought to address a weakness while maintaining cost competitiveness.