• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2012

Hydrogen isotopes accountancy and storage are important functions in a nuclear fusion fuel cycle. The hydrogen isotopes are safely stored in metal hydride beds. The tritium inventory of the bed is determined from the decay heat of tritium. The decay heat is measured by circulating helium through the metal hydride bed and measuring the resultant temperature increase of the helium flow. We are reporting our preliminary experimental results on the hydrogen isotopes accountancy and storage performance in a metal hydride bed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.05b
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• pp.663-668
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• 1996

A two-dimensional continuum model for the prediction of the hydrogen mixing phenomena in the containment compartment under the severe accident conditions is developed. The model could predict well the distribution of time-dependent hydrogen concentration for selected HEDL Experiment. For a simulation of these experiments, the hydrogen is mixed uniform over the test compartment. To predict the extent of non-uniform distribution, the dominant factors such as the geometrical shape of obstacle and velocity of source injection in mixing phenomena are investigated. If the obstacle disturbing the flow of gas mixture exists in the compartment, the uniform distribution of hydrogen may be not guaranteed. The convective circulation of gas flow is separately formed up and down of the obstacle position, which makes a difference of hydrogen concentration between the upper and lower region of the compartment. The recirculation flow must have a considerable mass flow rate relative to velocity of the source injection to sustain the well-mixed conditions of hydrogen.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.1288-1294
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• 2022

Hydrogen as an environmentally friendly energy carrier has received special attention to solving uncertainty about the presence of renewable energy and its dependence on time and weather conditions. This material can be prepared from different sources and in various ways. In previous studies, fossil fuels have been used in hydrogen production, but due to several limitations, especially the limitation of the access to this material in the not-too-distant future and the great problem of greenhouse gas emissions during hydrogen production methods. New methods based on renewable and green energy sources as energy drivers of hydrogen production have been considered. In these methods, water or biomass materials are used as the raw material for hydrogen production. In this article, after a brief review of different hydrogen production methods concerning the required raw material, these methods are examined and ranked from different aspects of economic, social, environmental, and energy and exergy analysis sustainability. In the following, the current position of hydrogen production is discussed. Finally, according to the introduced methods, their advantages, and disadvantages, solar electrolysis as a method of hydrogen production on a small scale and hydrogen production by thermochemical method on a large scale are introduced as the preferred methods.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.12
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• pp.4382-4394
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• 2023

Passive auto-catalytic recombiners (PARs) are widely used to mitigate a hydrogen hazard. The first step to evaluate the hydrogen safety by PARs is to obtain qualified test data of the PARs for validation of their analytical model. SPARC PAR tests SP8 and SP9 were conducted to evaluate the hydrogen recombination characteristics of a honeycomb-shaped catalyst PAR. To obtain the hydrogen recombination rate from the PAR test data, two methods, Method-1 and Method-2, introduced by the THAI project, were applied. Since a large gradient of hydrogen concentration developed during hydrogen injection can cause a large error in the hydrogen mass obtained by integrating the measured hydrogen concentrations, a gate was installed at the PAR inlet to homogenize hydrogen in the test vessel before the PAR operation in the tests. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code with a PAR model was also applied to evaluate the characteristics of the PAR recombination according to the PAR inlet conditions, and the results were compared with those from Method-1 and Method-2. It was confirmed that the recombination rates from Method-1 require a correction factor to be compatible with results from Method-2 and the CFD simulation in the case of the SPARC-PAR tests.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.1514-1524
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• 2019

Hydrogen-steam gas mixture may be injected into containment with flow regime varying both spatially and transiently due to wall effect and pressure difference between primary loop and containment in severe accidents induced by loss of coolant accident. Preliminary CFD analysis is conducted to gain information about the helium flow regime transition process from jet to buoyancy plume for forthcoming experimental study. Physical models of impinging jet and wall condensation are validated using separated effect experimental data, firstly. Then helium transportation is analyzed with the effect of jet momentum, buoyancy and wall cooling discussed. Result shows that helium distribution is totally dominated by impinging jet in the beginning, high concentration appears near gas source and wall where jet momentum is strong. With the jet weakening, stable light gas layer without recirculating eddy is established by buoyancy. Transient reversed helium distribution appears due to natural convection resulted from wall cooling, which delays the stratification. It is necessary to concern about hydrogen accumulation in lower space under the containment external cooling strategy. From the perspective of experiment design, measurement point should be set at the height of connecting pipe and near the wall for stratification stability criterion and impinging jet modelling validation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.617-648
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• 2009

Under the government supported long-term nuclear R&D program, the severe accident research program at KAERI is directed to investigate unresolved severe accident issues such as core debris coolability, steam explosions, and hydrogen combustion both experimentally and numerically. Extensive studies have been performed to evaluate the in-vessel retention of core debris through external reactor vessel cooling concept for APR1400 as a severe accident management strategy. Additionally, an improvement of the insulator design outside the vessel was investigated. To address steam explosions, a series of experiments using a prototypic material was performed in the TROI facility. Major parameters such as material composition and void fraction as well as the relevant physics affecting the energetics of steam explosions were investigated. For hydrogen control in Korean nuclear power plants, evaluation of the hydrogen concentration and the possibility of deflagration-to-detonation transition occurrence in the containment using three-dimensional analysis code, GASFLOW, were performed. Finally, the integrated severe accident analysis code, MIDAS, has been developed for domestication based on MELCOR. The data transfer scheme using pointers was restructured with the modules and the derived-type direct variables using FORTRAN90. New models were implemented to extend the capability of MIDAS.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.124.2-124.2
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• 2010

Generally, a coolant of the nuclear power plant is manufactured by electrolyzing the sea water near the plant for making the sodium hypochlorite(NaOCl), which is used for sterilizing the bacteria and the shellfishes sticking to the drains or the pumps at the outlet of the cooling system due to $8-10^{\circ}C$ warmer temperature than the inlet sea water. During manufacturing the sodium hypochlorite, the hydrogen with the high purity is also produced at the anode side of the electrolyzer. This paper describes a novel power plant system combined with the polymer electrolyte membrane(PEM) fuel cell, the wasted hydrogen from the sea water electrolyzer and the wasted heat of the nuclear power plant. The present status over the exhausted hydrogen at twenty nuclear power plants in Korea was investigated in this study, from which an available power generation is estimated. Furthermore, the economic feasibility of the PEM fuel cell power plant is also evaluated by a current regulations over the power production and exchange using a renewable energy shown in Korea Power Exchange(KRX).

• Journal of Korean Vacuum Science & Technology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.46-50
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• 2002

C-SiC films with different content of SiC on stainless steel substrate were prepared with ion beam mixing. It was found that hydrogen concentrations in C-SiC coatings was higher than that in stainless steel after H$\^$+/ ion implantation followed by thermal annealing. Infrared (IR) transmission measurement was used to study the mechanism of hydrogen retention by C-SiC films. The vibrational features in the range between 400 and 3200 cm$\^$-1/ in IR transmission spectra show the Si-CH$_3$, Si-CH$_2$, Si-H, CH$_2$and CH$_3$bonds, which are responsible for retaining hydrogen.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.8
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• pp.1650-1660
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• 2020

Comparing with the large containment, the gas can not flow freely within the local compartment due to the small volume of the compartment in case of serious accident, which affects the hydrogen flow distribution, and it will determines the location where high concentration occurs in compartment. In this paper, hydrogen distribution and possible hydrogen risk in the vessel under the different conditions are investigated. The results show that when the initial gas momentum is increased, the ability of gas enters into the upper region of the vessel will be strengthened, and the hydrogen volume fraction in the upper region of the vessel is higher. Comparing with horizontal source direction, when source direction is vertically towards upper space, hydrogen is more likely to accumulate in the upper region of the vessel. With the increasing of steam mass flow, the dilution effect of steam on the hydrogen volume fraction will be strengthened, while the pressure in the vessel is also increased. When steam flow is decreased, the hydrogen explosion risk is higher in the vessel. The experiment data can provide technical support for the validation of the CFD software and the mitigation of hydrogen risk in the containment compartment.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.411-419
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• 1994

The containment failure probability due to hydrogen burning during severe accidents proceeding in a low pressure sequence is calculated using Monte Carlo method. The probability distribution functions for this Monte Carlo calculation is obtained from the statistical method. The calculations are performed for Kori unit 2, and the sensitivity studies on the input variables-the amount of hydrogen generated at SFD, cerium diameter, cerium length, oxidation rate at FCI, and the amount of hydrogen generated during MCCI-are also performed. It is revealed that SFD is the main factor in hydrogen generation, but the other sources also cannot be neglected. The containment failure probability due to the hydrogen burning lies within 6% in case of Kori unit 2.