• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.411-422
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• 2016

Recently, because the wet pool storage facilities of NPPs in Korea has become saturated, there has been much active R&D on an interim dry storage system using a transportation and storage cask. Generally, the shielding evaluation for the design of a spent fuel transportation and storage cask is performed by the design basis fuel, which selects the most conservative fuel among the fuels to be loaded into the cask. However, the loading of actual spent fuel into the transportation metal cask is not limited to the design basis fuel used in the shielding evaluation; the loading feasibility of actual spent fuel is determined by the shielding evaluation that considers the characteristics of the initial enrichment, the maximum burnup and the minimum cooling period. This study describes a shielding analysis method for determining the minimum cooling period of spent fuel that meets the domestic transportation standard of the dual purpose metal cask. In particular, the spent fuel of 3.0~4.5wt% initial enrichment, which has a large amount of release, was evaluated by segmented shielding calculations for efficient improvement of the results. The shielding evaluation revealed that about 81% of generated spent fuel from the domestic nuclear power plants until 2008 could be transported by the dual purpose metal cask. The results of this study will be helpful in establishing a technical basis for developing operating procedures for transportation of the dual purpose metal cask.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.179-188
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• 2007

In this work $^{14}C\;and\;^3H$ distribution characteristics of spent resins from nuclear power plants(NPPs), pressurized water reactors(PWRs), was investigated. It was found that the recovery percent of $^{14}C$ by the wet oxidation-acid stripping was $81%{\sim}100%$ for the added activity range of $^{14}C,\;0.72\;Bq{\sim}460\;Bq$, and it was not affected by the kinds of stripping acids, 3N-HCl, $3\;N-HNO_3\;and\;3\;N-H_2SO_4$. And the recovery percent of $^3H$ by distillation using the same apparatus was $81%{\sim}101%$ for the added activity range of $^3H,\;0.60\;Bq{\sim}435\;Bq$. Among the tested stripping acids, 3\;N-HCl, $3\;N-HNO_3\;and\;3\;N-H_2SO_4$, only the trapped $^3H$ solution by distillation in $3\;N-H_2SO_4$ was compatible with the 3H scintillator, Ultimagold XR. Neither of the $^{14}C\;and\;^3H$ trapping solutions from the spent ion exchange resin samples by the wet oxidation-3 $N-H_2SO_4$ stripping contained gamma nuclides. However, some gamma nuclides, $^{60}Co,\;^{134}Cs,\;^{137}Cs\;and\;^{54}Mn$, were found in the trapped $^3H$ solutions of the spent resins by the wet oxidation-3 N-HCl stripping. It was the same for the $^3H$ trapping solutions of the spent resins by Sample Oxidizer(PACKARD MODEL 307). Meanwhile only two nuclides, $^{134}Cs,\;and\;^{134}Cs$, were found in the $^{14}C$ trapping solutions of the spent resins by Sample Oxidizer(PACKARD MODEL 307). It was found that most of the $^{14}C$ in the spent resins existed as inorganic carbon form, more than about 70% of the total $^{14}C$ content. Among the analyzed 30 spent ion exchange resin samples, the average concentration of $^{14}C$ and $^3C$ for the high radioactive samples, 8 samples, was $19000\;Bq/g{\pm}41000\;Bq/g,\;670\;Bq/g{\pm}460\;Bq/g$ and that for the low radioactive samples, 22 samples, was $4.2\;Bq/g{\pm}4.3\;Bq/g,\;6.0\;Bq/g{\pm}5.3\;Bq/g$, respectively. And the average $^{14}C/^3H$ ratio for the high radioactive samples, was higher, 28, than that of low radioactive samples, 0.70. Some linear relationship trend was found between the activity concentrations of $^{14}C\;and\;^3H$.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.271-279
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• 2003

Soil blocks were taken into culture boxes from 12 paddy fields within 5 km radii of Yonggwang and Ulchin NPPs and $^{90}Sr$ was applied to the surface water at a pre-transplanting stage and $1{\sim}2$ days before the start of heading. Following the pre-transplanting application, transfer factors were investigated for $2{\sim}4$ years. In the year of application, transfer factors $(m^2\;kg^{-1}-dry)\;of\;^{90}Sr$ applied before transplanting, showing no regionally distinguishable trend, varied with soils by a factor of about 2 with averages of $2.6{\times}10^{-4}$ for hulled seeds and $1.3{\times}10^{-2}$ for straw Transfer factors of $^{90}Sr$ applied shortly before heading were about 2 times greater than those applied before transplanting. Transfer factors tended to decrease with increasing soil pH and exchangeable Ca. Generic values of $^{90}Sr$ transfer factors in the year of deposition were proposed for the Korean paddy fields. In the second year compared with the first year, the transfer factor decreased more in Ulchin soils, which were on the whole higher in sand content, than in Yonggwang soils. For Yonggwang soils as a whole, the annual decrease in transfer factor was well described by an exponential equation with a half-life of about 2.2 years.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.90-98
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• 2006

Signals captured from a Combo calibration standard tube paly a crucial role in the evaluation of motorized rotating pancake coil (MRPC) probe signals from steam generator (SG) tubes in nuclear power plants (NPPs). Therefore, the Combo tube signals should be consistent and accurate. However, MRPC probe signals are very easily affected by various factors around the tubes so that they can be distorted in their amplitudes and phase angles which are the values specifically used in the evaluation. To overcome this problem, in this study, we explored possibility of simulation to be used as a practical calibration tool far the evaluation of real field signals. For this purpose, we investigated the characteristics of a MRPC probe and a Combo tube. And then using commercial software (VIC-3D) we simulated a set of calibration signals and compared to the experimental signals. From this comparison, we verified the accuracy of the simulated signals. Finally, we evaluated two defects using the simulated Combo tube signals, and the results were compared with those obtained using the actual field calibration signals.