• Title/Summary/Keyword: Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs)

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A Study on Mesoscale Atmospheric Dispersion of Radioactive Particles Released from Nuclear Power Plants (원전부지 주변 국지순환에 따른 방사성 물질의 대기확산 특성 연구)

  • Lee, Gab-Bock;Lee, Myung-Chan;Song, Young-I1
    • Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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    • v.22 no.4
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    • pp.273-288
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    • 1997
  • A three dimensional sea-land breeze model and Lagrangian particle dispersion model have been employed for the study on the mesoscale atmospheric dispersion of radioactive materials released from Wolsung NPPs. In this study, atmospheric dispersion simulations are carried out under two synoptic weather conditions : the geostrophic flow is a weak northerly wind(CASE 1) and a strong northerly wind(CASE 2) on a clear day in spring. The results show that atmospheric dispersion is affected by sea-land breeze and the recirculation of particles by the change of wind direction between sea breeze and land breeze plays an important role in atmospheric concentration distribution of radoactive materials.

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Study on the Synthesis Method of Simulated CRUD for Chemical Decontamination in NPPs (원전 화학제염을 위한 모의크러드 제조방법 연구)

  • Kang, Duk-Won;Kim, Jin-Kil;Kim, Kyeong-Sook
    • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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    • v.8 no.2
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    • pp.91-97
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    • 2010
  • As nuclear power plants are getting older, interests on a decontaminating process are increasingly attracting more attention. Chemical decontamination is crucial to lower the production of radioactive waste and radiation dose rate. Prior to this, oxidizers and detergents for target material should be chosen so as to decontaminate major systems and components of a nuclear power plant chemically. In order to decontaminate it properly, it is crucial to have information about the chemical composition and crystalline structure of CRUD, analyzing its samples from the target or the decontamination system with components. However, there is no program which enables the extraction of samples directly from the object or the decontamination system with components carrying genuine radioactivity. Therefore, it is limited to samples from corrosion products carrying partial radioactivity as a resource. The composition of CRUD varies considerably depending on refueling cycle because it is closely related to the constituent of basic material. After settling a target, it is crucial to analyze and obtain analytical information about CRUD as a decontamination target. In this paper, various technologies for manufacturing simulated CRUD are introduced as alternatives to unattained samples. A metal oxide or metal hydroxide was used to synthesize simulated cruds having chemical compositions and crystalline stricture similar to the actual one by 12 different methods. CRUD 4(metal oxides in the autoclave vessel) and CRUD 10(metal oxides in a crucible after hydrazing pretreatment)were chosen as the best method for Type 1 and Type 2.respectively. As these CRUD can be synthesized easily without using any specialized equipment or reagents in a short time and in large quantities, they are expected to stimulate the development of decontaminating agents and processes.

An Experimental Evaluation on Human Error Hazards of Task using Digital Device (디지털 기기 기반 직무 수행 시 인적오류위험성에 대한 실험적 평가)

  • Oh, Yeon Ju;Jang, Tong Il;Lee, Yong Hee
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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    • v.29 no.1
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    • pp.47-53
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    • 2014
  • The application of advanced Main Control Room(MCR) is accompanied with lots of changes and different forms and features through the virtue of new digital technologies. The characteristics of these digital technologies and devices give many opportunities to the interface management, and can be integrated into a compact single workstation in advanced MCR so that workers can operate the plant with minimum physical burden under any operation conditions. However, these devices may introduce new types of human errors and thus a means to evaluate and prevent such errors is needed, especially those related to characteristics of digital devices. This paper reviewed the new type of human error hazards of tasks based on digital devices and surveyed researches on physiological assessment related to human error. An experiment was performed to verify human error hazards by physiological responses such as EEG which was measured to evaluate the cognitive workload of operators. And also, the performances of four tasks which are representative in human error hazard tasks based on digital devices were compared. Response time, ${\beta}$ power spectrum rate of each task by EEG, and mental workload by NASA-TLX were evaluated. In the results of the experiment, the rate of the ${\beta}$ power was increased in the task 1 and task 4 which are searching and navigating task and memory task of hierarchical information, respectively. In case of the mental workload, in most of evaluation items, task 1 and 4 were highly rated comparatively. In this paper, human error hazards might be identified by highly cognitive workload. Conclusively, it was concluded that the predictive method which is utilized in this paper and an experimental verification can be used to ensure the safety when applying the digital devices in Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs).

Numerical Simulations of Water Circulation and Pollutant Transport near a Coastal Area of Wolsung NPPs (월성원전 연안역 해수유동 및 오염물 이동 수치실험)

  • Park, Geon-Hyeong;Kim, Ki-Chul;Min, Byung-Il;Lee, Jung-Lyul;Suh, Kyung-Suk
    • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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    • v.10 no.4
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    • pp.255-262
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    • 2012
  • Numerical simulations were performed to evaluate the dispersion characteristics of the pollutant around a Wolsung coastal area at located nuclear power plants. Numerical experiments by using EFDC(Environmental Fluid Dynamics Code) showed good agreements by comparison with the time series and harmonic analysis of the tidal elevations. The released pollutants moved in north direction at flood tide and in south direction at ebb tide. The calculated salinity and temperatures showed good agreements with the observed results by NFRDI(National Fisheries Research & Development Institute). The water circulation due to the variations of the temperature, salinity and tidal components were analyzed to estimate the dispersion characteristics of the pollutant.

A Review on the Recycling of the Concrete Waste Generate from the Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Plants (원전 해체 콘크리트 폐기물의 재활용에 대한 고찰)

  • Jeon, Ji-Hun;Lee, Woo-Chun;Lee, Sang-Woo;Kim, Soon-Oh
    • Economic and Environmental Geology
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    • v.54 no.2
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    • pp.285-297
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    • 2021
  • Globally, nuclear-decommissioning facilities have been increased in number, and thereby hundreds of thousands of wastes, such as concrete, soil, and metal, have been generated. For this reason, there have been numerous efforts and researches on the development of technology for volume reduction and recycling of solid radioactive wastes, and this study reviewed and examined thoroughly such previous studies. The waste concrete powder is rehydrated by other processes such as grinding and sintering, and the processes rendered aluminate (C3A), C4AF, C3S, and ��-C2S, which are the significant compounds controlling the hydration reaction of concrete and the compressive strength of the solidified matrix. The review of the previous studies confirmed that waste concretes could be used as recycling cement, but there remain problems with the decreasing strength of solidified matrix due to mingling with aggregates. There have been further efforts to improve the performance of recycling concrete via mixing with reactive agents using industrial by-products, such as blast furnace slag and fly ash. As a result, the compressive strength of the solidified matrix was proved to be enhanced. On the contrary, there have been few kinds of researches on manufacturing recycled concretes using soil wastes. Illite and zeolite in soil waste show the high adsorption capacity on radioactive nuclides, and they can be recycled as solidification agents. If the soil wastes are recycled as much as possible, the volume of wastes generated from the decommissioning of nuclear power plants (NPPs) is not only significantly reduced, but collateral benefits also are received because radioactive wastes are safely disposed of by solidification agents made from such soil wastes. Thus, it is required to study the production of non-sintered cement using clay minerals in soil wastes. This paper reviewed related domestic and foreign researches to consider the sustainable recycling of concrete waste from NPPs as recycling cement and utilizing clay minerals in soil waste to produce unsintered cement.

Revaluation of Inelastic Structural Response Factor for Seismic Fragility Evaluation of Equipment (기기의 지진취약도 평가를 위한 구조물 비탄성구조응답계수의 재평가)

  • Park, Junhee;Choi, In-Kil
    • Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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    • v.28 no.3
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    • pp.241-248
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    • 2015
  • There are a lot of equipment related to safety and electric power production in nuclear power plants. The structure and equipment in NPPs were generally designed considering a high safety factor to remain in the elastic zone under earthquake load. However it is needed to revaluate the seismic capacity of the structure and equipment as the magnitude of earthquake was recently increased. In this study the floor response due to the nonlinear behaviors of structure was analyzed and the inelastic structural response factor was calculated by the nonlinear time history analysis. The inelastic structural response factor was calculated by the EPRI method and the nonlinear analysis method to realistically evaluate the seismic fragility for the equipment. According to the analysis result, it was represented that the inelastic structural response factor was affected by the natural frequency of equipment, the location of equipment and the dynamic property of structure.

A Field Test Assessment on the Extremity Doses of Highly-Exposed Radiation Workers During Maintenance Periods at Nuclear Power Plants in Korea (원전 계획예방정비기간 고피폭 접촉작업에서 방사선작업종사자의 말단선량 평가 현장시험)

  • Kim, Hee-Geun;Kong, Tae-Young
    • Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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    • v.35 no.2
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    • pp.57-62
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    • 2010
  • Maintenance on the water chamber of steam generator, the change of pressurizer heater, the removal of pressure tube feeder, and so on during outage in nuclear power plants (NPPs) has a likelihood of high radiation exposure to whole body of workers even short time period due to the high radiation exposure rates. In particular, it is expected that hands would receive the highest radiation exposure because of its contact with radiation materials. In this study, field tests on extremity dose assessment of radiation workers for contact works with high radiation exposure were conducted during the maintenance periods in Korean pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs). In this field test, radiation workers were required to wear additional TLDs on the back and wrist, and an extremity dosimeter on fingers including a main TLD on the chest, while performing maintenance. As a result, it was found that the equivalent dose for fingers was distributed in the fixed range of deep dose and the equivalent dose for wrists.

A Shaking Table Test for an Re-evaluation of Seismic Fragility of Electrical Cabinet in NPP (원전 전기캐비넷의 지진취약도 재평가를 위한 진동대 실험)

  • Kim, Min-Kyu;Choi, In-Kil
    • Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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    • v.24 no.3
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    • pp.295-305
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    • 2011
  • In this study, a seismic behavior of electrical cabinet system in Nuclear Power Plants(NPPs) was evaluated by the shaking table test. A 480V Motor Control Centers(MCCs) was selected for the shaking table test, and a real MCC cabinet for the Korea Nuclear Power Plant site was rented by manufactured company. For the shaking table tests, three kinds of seismic input motions were used, which were a US NRC Reg. guide 1.60 design spectrum, a UHS spectrum and PAB 165' floor response spectrum(FRS). Especially, the UHS input motion was selected for an evaluation of structural seismic amplification effects, three directional accelerations were measured at three points outside on the cabinet system and also that of the incabinet response amplification, accelerations were measure at two points which were mounted in electrical equipment such as relay. Seismic amplification effect is determined at the outside and inside of a cabinet as input seismic motion, and compared to the results which are calculated by analytical method based on NUREG/CR-5203.

A Study on the Selection of Optimal Counting Geometry for Whole Body Counter (WBC) (인체 내부방사능 측정용 전신계측기의 최적 검출 모드 선정에 관한 연구)

  • Ko, Jong Hyun;Kim, Hee Geun;Kong, Tae Young;Lee, Goung Jin
    • Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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    • v.39 no.1
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    • pp.1-6
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    • 2014
  • A whole body counter (WBC) is used in nuclear power plants (NPP) to identify and measure internal radioactivity of workers who is likely to ingest or inhale radionuclides. WBC has several counting geometry, i.e. the thyroid, lung, whole body and gastrointestinal tract, considered with the location where radionuclides are deposited in the body. But only whole body geometry is used to detect internal radioactivity during whole body counting at NPPs. It is overestimated internal exposure dose because this measured values are indicated as the most conservative radioactivity values among the them of others geometry. In this study, experiments to measure radioactivity depending on the counting geometry of WBC were carried out using a WBC, a phantom, and standard radiation sources in order to improve overestimated internal exposure dose. Quantitative criteria, could be selected counting geometry according to ratio of count rates of the upper and lower detectors of the WBC, are provided through statistical analysis method.

Evaluation of Structural Integrity of Crossover Leg Piping System with Dynamic Whip Restraints (원자로냉각재계통 중간배관과 동적거동 구속장치와의 접촉으로 인한 배관 건전성 평가)

  • Yang, J.S.;Kim, B.N.;Oh, S.K.;Oh, C.H.;Lee, D.H.
    • Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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    • 2001.06a
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    • pp.636-643
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    • 2001
  • Interference between the crossover leg of the reactor coolant system (RCS) and the pipe whip restraints (PWR) has brought a degradation issue of the integrity of the Reactor Coolant System in Westinghouse type nuclear power plants (NPPs) of Korea. According to the gap Inspect ion carried out during planned overhaul (Year 2000), interference between the crossover leg and the PWR was found in each RCS loop. This plant has had the high vibration problem on the RC pump 'B'. The reason for the high vibration in the RC pump 'B' had been massively surveyed and it was found that the crossover leg of RCS contacted with the PWR in hot condition. Since the contact between the crossover leg and the PWR changes the dynamic characteristics of the piping system for the RCS, this is considered as one reason for the high vibration. And a possibility of overstress on the crossover leg due to the contact with the PWR should be evaluated. Through performing RCS integrity analyses, subsequent actions were initiated to increase the gap between those parts. As the results of the appropriate separation between two parts, it was reported that there was no unusual noise or vibration during plant heat-up. In this paper, the evaluations for the gap between the crossover leg and the PWR and the structural integrity due to loop binding is described.

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