• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.133-140
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• 2016

Backgrounds: The accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), March 2011, caused serious radioactive contamination over wide area in east Japan. Therefore, it is important to know the effect of the accident and the status of NPP. Materials and Methods: This paper provides a review on the status of radiation dose and radioactive contamination caused by the accident on the basis of publicized information. Results and Discussion: Monitoring of radiation dose and exposure dose of residents has been conducted extensively by the governments and various organizations. The effective dose of general residents due to the accident proved to be less than a mSv both for external and internal dose. The equivalent committed dose of thyroid was evaluated to be a few mSv in mean value and less than 50 mSv even for children. Monitoring of radioactivity concentration has been carried out on food ingredients, milk and tap water, and actual meal. These studies indicated the percentage of foods above the regulation standard was over 10% in 2011 but decreasing steadily with time. The internal dose due to foods proved to be tens of ${\mu}Sv$ and much less than that due to natural $^{40}K$ even in the Fukushima area and decreasing steadily, although high level concentration is still observed in wild plants, wild mushrooms, animals and some kind of fishes. Conclusion: According to extensive studies, not only the effect of the accident but also the pathway and countermeasures against radioactive contamination have been revealed, and they are applied very effectively for restoration of environment and reconstruction of the area.

• 한국정보통신설비학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.08a
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• pp.54-58
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• 2009

In this paper, the ECT(eddy current testing) signal analysis of eddy current array probe for inspection of SG(steam generator) tube in NPP(nuclear power plant) using electromagnetic FEM(finite element method) was performed. To obtain the electromagnetic characteristics of probes, the governing equation was derived from Maxwell's equation, and the problem was solved by using the 3-dimensional FEM. The types of defects were FBH(flat bottomed hole) and OD groove, Spiral groove, natural defects(pitting, SCC, multiple SCC, wear). The depth of FBH defects were 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100 of SG tube thickness, and it was assumed that the defects were located on the tube outside. And the operation frequency of 100kHz, 300kHz and 400kHz were used. Material of specimen was Inconel 600 which is usually used for SG tubes in NPP. The signal difference could be observed according to the variation of size and depth on FBH defects and operation frequencies. The results in this paper can be helpful when the ECT signals from EC array probe are evaluated and analyzed.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics B
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• v.32B no.9
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• pp.1215-1230
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• 1995

The purpose of this paper is to build a computer vision system that endows an autonomous mobile robot the ability of automatic measuring of the analog and digital meters installed in nuclear power plant(NPP). This computer vision system takes a significant part in the organization of automatic surveillance and measurement system having the instruments and gadzets in NPP under automatic control situation. In the meter image captured by the camera, the meter area is sorted out using mainly the thresholding and the region labeling and the meter value recognition process follows. The positions and the angles of the needles in analog meter images are detected using the projection based method. In the case of digital meters, digits and points are extracted and finally recognized through the neural network classifier. To use available database containing relevant information about meters and to build fully automatic meter recognition system, the segmentation and recognition of the function-name in the meter printed around the meter area should be achieved for enhancing identification reliability. For thus, the function- name of the meter needs to be identified and furthermore the scale distributions and values are also required to be analyzed for building the more sophisticated system and making the meter recognition fully automatic.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.179-189
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• 2021

Conditional spectra (CS) are applied to the seismic fragility assessment of a nuclear power plant (NPP) containment building for comparison with a relevant conventional uniform hazard response spectrum (UHRS). Three different control frequencies are considered in developing conditional spectra. The contribution of diverse magnitudes and epicentral distances is identified from deaggregation for the UHRS at a control frequency and incorporated into the conditional spectra. A total of 30 ground motion records are selected and scaled to simulate the probability distribution of each conditional spectra, respectively. A set of lumped mass stick models for the containment building are built considering nonlinear bending and shear deformation and uncertainty in modeling parameters using the Latin hypercube sampling technique. Incremental dynamic analysis is conducted for different seismic input models in order to estimate seismic fragility functions. The seismic fragility functions and high confidence of low probability of failure (HCLPF) are calculated for different seismic input models and analyzed comparatively.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.167-174
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• 2020

Many researches have been conducted to utilize recycled aggregates in Korea, but since most sources of recycled aggregates are not clear, there is a lot of uncertainty in applying the existing research results on recycle of aggregates generated from nuclear power plants. In this study, therefore, in order to investigate the possibility of recycling coarse aggregates generated through dismantling of nuclear power plants in Korea, recycled coarse aggregates were produced from concrete simulating nuclear power plants in Korea. Using the recycled coarse aggregates, concrete was mixed in consideration of the mixing ratio of the recycled coarse aggregates, and the mechanical properties were experimentally investigated. From the test results, as the mixing ratio of recycled coarse aggregates increased. concrete compressive strength, tensile strength, and elastic modulus generally decreased up to 36, 37, and 27% from the mechanical properties of normal concrete, respectively. Therefore, it can be concluded that limitation on the mixing ratio of recycled coarse aggregates is necessary when coarse aggregates are recycled through dismantling of nuclear power plants.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.70-74
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• 2012

Silicon carbide (SiC) is a promising material for neutron detection at harsh environments because of its capability to withstand strong radiation fields and high temperatures. Two PIN-type SiC semiconductor neutron detectors, which can be used for nuclear power plant (NPP) applications, such as in-core reactor neutron flux monitoring and measurement, were designed and fabricated. As a preliminary test, MCNPX simulations were performed to estimate reaction probabilities with respect to neutron energies. In the experiment, I-V curves were measured to confirm the diode characteristic of the detectors, and pulse height spectra were measured for neutron responses by using a $^{252}Cf$ neutron source at KRISS (Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science), and a Tandem accelerator at KIGAM (Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources). The neutron counts of the detector were linearly increased as the incident neutron flux got larger.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.11-26
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• 2014

The analyses carried out within the Seismic Probabilistic Risk Assessments (SPRAs) of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) are affected by significant aleatory and epistemic uncertainties. These uncertainties have to be represented and quantified coherently with the data, information and knowledge available, to provide reasonable assurance that related decisions can be taken robustly and with confidence. The amount of data, information and knowledge available for seismic risk assessment is typically limited, so that the analysis must strongly rely on expert judgments. In this paper, a Dempster-Shafer Theory (DST) framework for handling uncertainties in NPP SPRAs is proposed and applied to an example case study. The main contributions of this paper are two: (i) applying the complete DST framework to SPRA models, showing how to build the Dempster-Shafer structures of the uncertainty parameters based on industry generic data, and (ii) embedding Bayesian updating based on plant specific data into the framework. The results of the application to a case study show that the approach is feasible and effective in (i) describing and jointly propagating aleatory and epistemic uncertainties in SPRA models and (ii) providing 'conservative' bounds on the safety quantities of interest (i.e. Core Damage Frequency, CDF) that reflect the (limited) state of knowledge of the experts about the system of interest.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.75-85
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• 1994

As we enter the 2000s, there are four nuclear power units of the pressurized heavy water reactor-type in the commercial operation at the Wolsung Nuclear Power Plant(NPP) site where a larger amount of tritium ($\^$3/H) is released inevitably to the site environment. This radioctive nuclide is easily distributed throghout our environment because of its ubiquitous form as tritiated water (HTO) and its persistence in the environment. Tritum has certain characterisitics that present unique challenges for beta radiation dosimety and health risk assesment. In this paper, therefore, a variety of matters on tritium are considered and reviewed in terms of its characteristics and sources, metabolism and dosimetry, microdosimetry, radiobiology, risk assessment, and transport and cycling in the environment, etc.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.95-106
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• 2019

The decommissioning of nuclear power plants should be prepared by quantitative and qualitative risk assessment. Radiological and non-radiological hazards arising during decommissioning activities must be assessed to ensure the safety of decommissioning workers and the public. Decommissioning experiences by U.S. operators have mainly focused on deterministic risk assessment, which is standardized by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory commission (NRC) and focuses only on the consequences of risk. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has suggested an alternative to the deterministic approach, called the risk matrix technique. The risk matrix technique considers both the consequence and likelihood of risk. In this study, decommissioning stages, processes, and activities are organized under a work breakdown structure. Potential accidents in the decommissioning process of NPPs are analyzed using the composite risk matrix to assess both radiological and non-radiological hazards. The levels of risk for all potential accidents considered by U.S. NPP operators who have performed decommissioning were estimated based on their consequences and likelihood of events.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2013

Wall thinning of pipeline in power plants occurs mainly by flow acceleration corrosion (FAC), cavitation erosion (C/E), liquid droplet impingement erosion (LDIE). Wall thinning by FAC and C/E has been well investigated; however, LDIE in plant industries has rarely been studied due to the experimental difficulty of setting up a long injection of highly-pressurized air. In this study, we designed a long-term experimental system for LDIE and investigate the behavior of LDIE for three kinds of materials (A106B, SS400, A6061). The main control parameter was the air-water ratio (${\alpha}$), which was defined as the volumetric ratio of water to air (0.79, 1.00, 1.72). In order to clearly understand LDIE, the spraying velocity (${\nu}$) of liquid droplets was controled larger then 160 m/s and the experiments were performed for 15 days. Therefore, this research focuses relation between erosion rate and air-water ratio on the various pipe-flow materials. NPP(nuclear power plant)'s LDIE prediction theory and management technique were drawn from the obtained data.