• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.131-148
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• 2005

In a nuclear emergency, protective actions for the public should be taken in time. It is internationally proposed that generic intervention levels (GILs) and generic action levels, determined based on cost-benefit analyses, be used as the decision criteria for protective actions. Operational intervention levels (OILs) are directly or easily measurable quantities corresponding to these generic levels. To assess the necessity of protective actions in a nuclear emergency, it is important that the environmental monitoring data required for applying and revising OILs should be promptly produced. It is discussed what and how to do for this task in the course of the emergency response. For an emergency environmental monitoring to be performed effectively, a thorough preparedness has to be made including maintenance of the organization and equipments, establishment of various procedure manuals, development of a supporting computer system and periodical training and exercises. It is pointed out that Korean legal provisions concerning GILs and OILs need to be amended or newly established.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.571-581
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• 1995

The generation, verification and validation of Emergency Procedures for Nuclear Power Plant is a difficult and complex process. Atomic Energy Control Board(AECB) requires that emergency procedure and plan be produced before obtaining the Operating License, that is, detailed plans and procedures to handle emergency situations for both on-site actions and off-site actions be developed. In this report Emergency Operating Procedures Standard for Canadian Nuclear Utilities which makes reference to U. S. practices and the current direction of emergency procedures for CAN-DU reactors are reviewed and compared based on scope(events covered), methodology (event-oriented or symptom-oriented or hybrid) and format(method of presentation) preponderantly, and an attempt is made to integrate these procedures and as a result the recommended strategy for Wolsong unit 2, 3, & 4 is presented as event-specific procedures, generic procedures(when event is not diagnosed) and whose format is combination of logic diagram and text.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.1979-1990
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• 2021

Evacuation Time Estimate (ETE) can provide decision-makers with a likelihood to implement evacuation of a population with radiation exposure risk by a nuclear power plant. Thus, the ETE is essential for developing an emergency response preparedness. However, studies on ETE have not been conducted adequately in Korea to date. In this study, different cohorts were selected based on assumptions. Existing local data were collected to construct a multi-model network by TSIS-CORSIM code. Furthermore, several links were aggregated to make simple calculations, and post-processing was conducted for dealing with the stochastic property of TSIS-CORSIM. The average speed of each cohort was calculated by the link aggregation and post-processing, and the evacuation time was estimated. As a result, the average cohort-based evacuation time was estimated as 2.4-6.8 h, and the average clearance time from ten simulations in 26 km was calculated as 27.3 h. Through this study, uncertainty factors to ETE results, such as classifying cohorts, degree of model complexity, traffic volume outside of the network, were identified. Various studies related to these factors will be needed to improve ETE's methodology and obtain the reliability of ETE results.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.1470-1476
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• 2019

The nuclear power plants in South Korea have been designed in accordance with the U.S. Regulatory Guide 1.60 (R.G 1.60) design spectrum of which the peak frequency range is 2-10 Hz. The characteristics of the earthquakes at the Korea nuclear power plant sites were observed to be closer to that of Central and Eastern United States (CEUS) than the R.G 1.60, which is a lower amplification in a low frequency range, and a higher amplification in a high frequency range. The possibility of failure for sensitive power plant components in the high frequency range has been considered and evaluated. In this study, in order to improve the reliability of nuclear plant and administrative control procedures, seismic tests of an emergency diesel generator (EDG) were conducted using a shaking table under both high and low frequency ranges. From the tests, oil/lubricant leaks from the bolt connections, the fuel filter and the fuel inlet were observed. Therefore, the check list of nuclear plant components after an earthquake should include bolt connections of EDG as well as anchor bolts.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.2377-2386
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• 2021

To model the atmospheric dispersion of radionuclides released from nuclear accident is very important for nuclear emergency. But the uncertainty of model parameters, such as source term and meteorological data, may significantly affect the prediction accuracy. Data assimilation (DA) is usually used to improve the model prediction with the measurements. The paper proposed a parameter bias transformation method combined with Lagrangian puff model to perform DA. The method uses the transformation of coordinates to approximate the effect of parameters bias. The uncertainty of four model parameters is considered in the paper: release rate, wind speed, wind direction and plume height. And particle swarm optimization is used for searching the optimal parameters. Twin experiment and Kincaid experiment are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method can effectively increase the reliability of model prediction and estimate the parameters. It has the advantage of clear concept and simple calculation. It will be useful for improving the result of atmospheric dispersion model at the early stage of nuclear emergency.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.231-238
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• 2006

Whole-body exposure to high-dose radiation causes injury involving multiple organs that depends on their sensitivity to radiation. This acute radiation syndrome (ARS) is caused by a brief exposure of a major part of the body to radiation at a relatively high dose rate. ARS is characterized by an initial prodromal stage, a latent symptom-free period, a critical or manifestation phase that usually takes one of four forms (three forms): hematologic, gastrointestinal, or cardiovascular and neurological (neurovascular), depending upon the exposure dose, and a recovery phase or death. One of the most important factors in treating victims exposed to radiation is the estimation of the exposure dose. When high-dose exposure is considered, initial dose estimation must be performed in order to make strategy decisions for treatment as soon as possible. Dose estimation can be based on onset and severity of prodromal symptoms, decline in absolute lymphocyte count post exposure, and chromosomal analysis of peripheral blood lymphocytes. Moreover, dose assessment on the basis of calculation from reconstruction of the radiation event may be required. Experience of a criticality accident occurring in 1999 at Tokai-mura, Japan, showed that ARS led to multiple organ failure (MOF). This article will review ARS and discuss the possible mechanisms of MOF developing from ARS.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.123-131
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• 2024

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) dosimetry for a tooth from an individual exposed is well known as retrospective dosimetry in radiological accidents. A major constraint of the conventional X-band tooth-EPR dosimetry is the necessity to extract the tooth of the exposed patient for dose assessment. In this study, to conduct the dose assessments of exposed patients through part-extraction of tooth enamel, the minimum detectable dose (MDD) of the tooth enamel was evaluated based on the amount of mass. Further, a field test was conducted via intercomparison using various dose assessment methods to verify the feasibility of X-band tooth-EPR dosimetry using the minimum mass of tooth enamel. The intercomparison results demonstrated that effective dose determination via X-band tooth-EPR dosimetry is reliable. Consequently, it was determined that the minimum mass of tooth enamel required to evaluate an absorbed dose above 0.5 Gy is 15 mg. Thus, EPR dosimetry using 15 mg of tooth enamel can be applied in the triage and initial medical response stages for patients exposed during radiological accidents. This approach represents an advancement in managing radiological accidents by offering a more efficient and less invasive method of dose assessment.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.89-94
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• 2002

Intervention levels for foodstuff restriction in a radiological emergency in Korea are suggested based on the justification and the optimization through the cost-benefit approach method from IAEA Safty Series 109 recommendation. Intervention levels are specified for three broad groups of radionuclides with similar values of committed effective dose per unit intake and specified for two broad categories of foodstuff grouped according to value per kg. It is also discussed on the applicability of revised intervention levels for foodstuff restriction.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.143-145
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• 2007

The development of excitation control system (ECS) for emergency diesel generator in nuclear power plant is the replacement project of existing control system to resolve the maintenance problems caused by aging and obsolescence, The excitation control system is classified as a safety-related system. To guarantee the performance of developing excitation control system is equal to or higher than that of other systems, establishing the quality assurance scheme, doing software verification and validation activities, and planning equipment qualification. In this paper, we'd like to introduce the equipment qualification of excitation control system.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.217-222
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• 2007

An Emergency Diesel Generator (EDG) is one of the safety related equipments of a Nuclear Power Plant. The seismic capacity of an EDG in nuclear power plants influences the seismic safety of the plants significantly. A recent study showed that the increase of the seismic capacity of the EDG could reduce the core damage frequency (CDF) remarkably. It is known that the major failure mode of the EDG is a concrete coning failure due to a pulling out of the anchor bolts. The use of base isolators instead of anchor bolts can increase the seismic capacity of the EDG without any major problems. This study introduces a seismic risk analysis method and presents sample results about the seismically isolated and conventional EDG system.