• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.537-556
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• 2005

A primary-pipe rupture accident is one of the design-basis accidents of a High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR). When the primary-pipe rupture accident occurs, air is expected to enter the reactor core from the breach and oxidize in-core graphite structures. This paper describes an experiment and analysis of the air ingress phenomena and the method fur the prevention of air ingress into the reactor during the primary-pipe rupture accident. The numerical results are in good agreement with the experimental ones regarding the density of the gas mixture, the concentration of each gas species produced by the graphite oxidation reaction and the onset time of the natural circulation of air. A hydrogen production system connected to the High-Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) Is being designed to be able to produce hydrogen by themo-chemical iodine-Sulfur process, using a nuclear heat of 10 MW supplied by the HTTR. The HTTR hydrogen production system is first connected to a nuclear reactor in the world; hence a permeation test of hydrogen isotopes through heat exchanger is carried out to obtain detailed data for safety review and development of analytical codes. This paper also describes an overview of the hydrogen permeation test and permeability of hydrogen and deuterium of Hastelloy XR.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.114-121
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• 2010

Traditionally Nuclear Research and Development (R&D) result has been big influence on other industries and societies and it requires large scale investments and study period. So it is essential to apply Quality Assurance (QA) for systematic R&D management. This paper investigates QA System for U.S. Nuclear R&D and reviews QA elements. Based on this investigation, we applied QA requirements to Nuclear Hydrogen R&D project, and the scope of application be enlarged as R&D stage in progress. We also present QA system improvement way through consideration for Nuclear Hydrogen Project's QA application. As the need for QA in R&D is expected to increase in the future, it is necessary to prepare guidelines for R&D QA.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.8
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• pp.1939-1950
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• 2019

The MELCOR code useful for a plant-specific hydrogen risk analysis has inevitable limitations in prediction of a turbulent flow of a hydrogen mixture. To investigate the accuracy of the hydrogen risk analysis by the MELCOR code, results for the turbulent gas behavior at pipe rupture accident were compared with CFX results which were verified by the American National Standard Institute (ANSI) model. The postulated accident scenario was selected to be surge line failure induced by station blackout of an Optimized Power Reactor 1000 MWe (OPR1000). When the surge line failure occurred, the flow out of the surgeline was strongly turbulent, from which the MELCOR code predicted that a substantial amount of hydrogen could be released. Nevertheless, the results indicated nonflammable mixtures owing to the high steam concentration released before the failure. On the other hand, the CFX code solving the three-dimensional fluid dynamics by incorporating the turbulence closure model predicted that the flammable area continuously existed at the jet interface even in the rising hydrogen mixtures. In conclusion, this study confirmed that the MELCOR code, which has limitations in turbulence analysis, could underestimate the existence of local combustible gas at pipe rupture accident. This clear comparison between two codes can contribute to establishing a guideline for computational hydrogen risk analysis.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.139-147
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• 2015

Recently, severe accidents in nuclear power plants (NPPs) have become a global concern. The aim of this paper is to predict the hydrogen buildup within containment resulting from severe accidents. The prediction was based on NPPs of an optimized power reactor 1,000. The increase in the hydrogen concentration in severe accidents is one of the major factors that threaten the integrity of the containment. A method using a fuzzy neural network (FNN) was applied to predict the hydrogen concentration in the containment. The FNN model was developed and verified based on simulation data acquired by simulating MAAP4 code for optimized power reactor 1,000. The FNN model is expected to assist operators to prevent a hydrogen explosion in severe accident situations and manage the accident properly because they are able to predict the changes in the trend of hydrogen concentration at the beginning of real accidents by using the developed FNN model.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.1174-1183
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• 2016

Hydrogen release during severe accidents poses a serious threat to containment integrity. Mitigating procedures are necessary to prevent global or local explosions, especially in large steel shell containments. The management of hydrogen safety and prevention of over-pressurization could be implemented through a hydrogen reduction system and spray system. During the course of the hypothetical large break loss-of-coolant accident in a nuclear power plant, hydrogen is generated by a reaction between steam and the fuel-cladding inside the reactor pressure vessel and also core concrete interaction after ejection of melt into the cavity. The MELCOR 1.8.6 was used to assess core degradation and containment behavior during the large break loss-of-coolant accident without the actuation of the safety injection system except for accumulators in Beznau nuclear power plant. Also, hydrogen distribution in containment and performance of hydrogen reduction system were investigated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.3286-3297
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• 2021

The released hydrogen can be ignited even with weak ignition sources. This emphasizes the importance of the hydrogen flammability evaluation to prevent catastrophic failure in hydrogen related facilities including a nuclear power plant. Historically numerous attempts have been made to determine the flammability limit of hydrogen mixtures including several diluents. However, no analytical model has been developed to accurately predict the limit concentration for mixtures containing radiating gases. In this study, the effect of H₂O and CO₂ on flammability limit was investigated through a numerical simulation of lean limit hydrogen flames. The previous flammability limit model was improved based on the mechanistic investigation, with which the amount of indirect radiation heat loss could be estimated by the optically thin approximation. As a result, the sharp increase in limit concentration by H₂O could be explained by high thermal diffusivity and radiation rate. Despite the high radiation rate, however, CO₂ with the lower thermal diffusivity than the threshold cannot produce a noticeable increase in heat loss and ultimately limit concentration. We concluded that the proposed mechanistic analysis successfully explained the experimental results even including radiating gases. The accuracy of the improved model was verified through several flammability experiments for H₂-air-diluent.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.401-414
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• 2013

HTR50S is a small modular reactor system based on HTGR. It is designed for a triad of applications to be implemented in successive stages. In the first stage, a base plant for heat and power is constructed of the fuel proven in JAEA's $950^{\circ}C$, 30MWt test reactor HTTR and a conventional steam turbine to minimize development risk. While the outlet temperature is lowered to $750^{\circ}C$ for the steam turbine, thermal power is raised to 50MWt by enabling 40% greater power density in 20% taller core than the HTTR. However the fuel temperature limit and reactor pressure vessel diameter are kept. In second stage, a new fuel that is currently under development at JAEA will allow the core outlet temperature to be raised to $900^{\circ}C$ for the purpose of demonstrating more efficient gas turbine power generation and high temperature heat supply. The third stage adds a demonstration of nuclear-heated hydrogen production by a thermochemical process. A licensing approach to coupling high temperature industrial process to nuclear reactor will be developed. The low initial risk and the high longer-term potential for performance expansion attract development of the HTR50S as a multipurpose industrial or distributed energy source.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.2850-2855
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• 2008

Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) has been selected as a high energy heat source for a nuclear hydrogen generation. The VHTR heat is transferred to a thermo-chemical hydrogen production process through an intermediate loop. Both Process Heat Exchanger and sulfuric acid evaporator provide the coupled components between the VHTR intermediate loop and hydrogen production module. A small scaled Compact Nuclear Hydrogen Coupled Components test loop is developed to simulate the VHTR intermediate loop and hydrogen production module. Main objective of the loop is to screening the candidates of NHDD (Nuclear Hydrogen Development and Demonstration) coupled components. The operating condition of the gas loop is a temperature up to $950^{\circ}C$ and a pressure up to 6.0MPa. The thermal and fluid dynamic design of the loop is dependent on the structures that enclose the gas flow, especially primary side that has fast gas velocity. We designed and constructed a small scale sulfuric acid experimental system which can simulate a part of the hydrogen production module also.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.474-483
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• 2021

To establish the exclusive role of hydrogen on burst behaviour of Zircaloy-4 during loss-of-coolant accident transients, an extensive single-rod burst tests were conducted on both unirradiated as-received and hydrogenated Zircaloy-4 cladding tubes at different heating rates and internal overpressures. The visual observations of cladding tubes during bursting as well as post-burst are presented in detail to understand the effect of hydrogen concentration, heating rate, and internal pressure. Impact of hydrogen on burst parameters-burst stress, burst strain, burst temperature-during loss-of-coolant accident transients are compared and discussed. Rupture at multiple locations for hydrogenated cladding at lower internal pressure and higher heating rate is reported for the very first time. A novel burst criterion accounting hydrogen concentration in nuclear fuel cladding is proposed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.142-147
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• 2021

Hydrogen peroxide is a radiolysis product of water formed under gamma-irradiation; therefore, its reliable detection is crucial in the nuclear industry for spent fuel management and coolant chemistry. This study proposes an electrochemical sensor for hydrogen peroxide detection. Cysteamine (CYST), gold nanoparticles (GNPs), and horseradish peroxidase (HRP) were used in the modification of a gold electrode for fabricating Au/CYST/GNP/HRP sensor. Each modification step of the electrode was investigated through electrochemical and physical methods. The sensor exhibited strong sensitivity and stability for the detection and measurement of hydrogen peroxide with a linear range of 1-9 mM. In addition, the Michaelis-Menten kinetic equation was applied to predict the reaction curve, and a quantitative method to define the dynamic range is suggested. The sensor is highly sensitive to H₂O₂ and can be applied as an electrochemical H₂O₂-sensor in the nuclear industry.