• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.8
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• pp.1025-1044
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• 2009

Systematic research has been conducted by KAERI to develop a supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle energy conversion system coupled with a sodium cooled fast reactor. For the development of the supercritical $CO_2$ Brayton cycle ECS, KAERI researched four major fields, separately. For the system development, computer codes were developed to design and analyze the supercritical $CO_2$ Brayton cycle ECS coupled with the KALIMER-600. Computer codes were developed to design and analyze the performance of the major components such as the turbomachinery and the high compactness PCHE heat exchanger. Three dimensional flow analysis was conducted to evaluate their performance. A new configuration for a PCHE heat exchanger was developed by using flow analysis, which showed a very small pressure loss compared with a previous PCHE while maintaining its heat transfer rate. Transient characteristics for the supercritical $CO_2$ Brayton cycle coupled with KALIMER-600 were also analyzed using the developed computer codes. A Na-$CO_2$ pressure boundary failure accident was analyzed with a computer code that included a developed model for the Na-$CO_2$ chemical reaction phenomena. The MMS-LMR code was developed to analyze the system transient and control logic. On the basis of the code, the system behavior was analyzed when a turbine load was changed. This paper contains the current research overview of the supercritical $CO_2$ Brayton cycle coupled to the KALIMER-600 as an alternative energy conversion system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.785-796
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• 2009

A KALIMER-600 concept which is a type of sodium-cooled fast reactor, has been developed at KAERI. It uses sodium as a primary coolant and is a pool-type reactor to enhance safety. Also, a supercritical carbon dioxide ($CO_2$) Brayton cycle is considered as an alternative to an energy conversion system to eliminate the sodium water reaction and to improve efficiency. In this study, a simplified model for analyzing the thermodynamic performance of the KALIMER-600 coupled with a supercritical $CO_2$ Brayton cycle was developed. To develop the analysis model, a commercial modular modeling system (MMS) was adopted as a base engine, which was developed by nHance Technology in USA. It has a convenient graphical user interface and many component modules to model the plant. A new user library for thermodynamic properties of sodium and supercritical $CO_2$ was developed and attached to the MMS. In addition, some component modules in the MMS were modified to be appropriate for analysis of the KALIMER-600 coupled with the supercritical $CO_2$ cycle. Then, a simplified performance analysis code was developed by modeling the KALIMER-600 plant with the modified MMS. After evaluating the developed code with each component data and a steady state of the plant, a simple power reduction and recovery event was evaluated. The results showed an achievable capability for a performance analysis code. The developed code will be used to develop the operational strategy and some control logics for the operation of the KALIMER-600 with a supercritical $CO_2$ Brayton cycle after further studies of analyzing various operational events.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.192-197
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• 1987

Two-point kinetic equations for a compact-core-with-bulky-D$_2$O-reflector system were developed. A unique feature of the system is that certain fission gammas create retarded photoneutrons in the D$_2$O reflector by (ｒ, n) reaction. Coupling effect between the core and the reflector was investigated by simulating power transients with various ramp reactivity insertions. Special attention was paid to the phenomenon associated with spatial separation of photoneutrons and their precursors. Simulations show that accuracy of the two-point model is comparable with that of space-dependent approach. Also it is found that the explicily expressed photoneutron terms in the reflector equation slow down the power transient compared to non-photoneutron expressions. Detectors for reactor power control purpose prefer to be deployed in the core zone to be able to accurately perdict transient power.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.154-158
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• 2016

A CRDM (Control Rod Drive Mechanism) is an electromagnetic device which drives a control rod assembly linearly to regulate the reactivity of a nuclear core. An RPIS (Rod Position Indication System) is used as a position indicator for a control rod assembly of a CRDM of SMART, and an RPIS consists of permanent magnets and reed switches. SMART is designed for the maximum coolant temperature of $350^{\circ}C$, and the permanent magnets are installed inside of the reactor. The reed switches and electrical circuit are installed outside of the reactor on the other hand. Test coil for a reed switch is test equipment for quality verification of a reed switch, and a test coil consists of a coil and core. In this study, magnetic property of test coil and permanent magnet on a reed switch is compared by using finite element electromagnetic simulation.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1999.04a
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• pp.293-298
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• 1999

The crack of concrete induced by the heat of hydration is a serious problem, particularly in concrete structures such as underground box structure, mat-slab of nuclear reactor buildings, dams or large footings, foundations of high rise buildings, etc.. As a result of the temperature rise and restriction condition of foundation, the thermal stress which may induce the cracks can occur. Therefore the various techniques of the thermal stress control in massive concrete have been widely used. One of them is prediction of the thermal stress, besides low-heat cement which mitigates the temperature rise, pre-cooling which lowers the initial temperature of fresh concrete with ice flake, pipe cooling which cools the temperature of concrete with flowing water, design change which considers steel bar reinforcement, operation control and so on. The objective of this paper is largely two folded. Firstly we introduce the cracks control technique by employing low-heat cement mix and thermal stress analysis. Secondly it show the application condition of the cracks control technique like the subway structure in Seoul.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.38-44
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• 2012

The purpose of fire protection for the nuclear power plants (NPPs) is to ensure safe shutdown state of the reactor, to minimize the release of radioactive materials to the environment, to provide physical safety of the on-site personnel, and to limit the property damage. Fire protection and extinguishing equipments are one of the important protection measures based on the defense-in-depth concept, which can promptly detect and control and extinguish those fires that do occur, thereby limiting fire damage. However, a separate evaluation process might be additionally necessary for the construction permit and operating license because the fire protection laws of the NEMA for installation standards of the fire protection systems is not fully characterized for the NPPs. It is also not easy to implement the regulations such as the performance based design concept for fire protection system of the NPPs which are characterized for a relatively low density of employee. This study suggests a guideline for the improvement of the technical standards for fire protection systems of the NPPs by evaluating the fundamental problems drawn by reviewing laws and regulatory guides relevant to fire protection and by evaluating the applicability of the KEPIC FPN in domestic nuclear power plants.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.590-597
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• 2010

HTGR using a TRISO coated particles as nuclear raw fuel material can be used to produce clean hydrogen gas and process heat for a next-generation energy source. For these purposes, a TRISO coated particle was prepared with 3 pyro-carbon (buffer, IPyC, and OPyC) layers and 1 silicone carbide (SiC) layer using a CVD technique on a spherical $UO_2$ kernel surface as a fissile material. In this study, a spherical $UO_2$ particle was prepared using a modified sol-gel method with a vibrating nozzle system, and TRISO coating fabrication was carried out using a fluidized bed reactor with coating gases, such as acetylene, propylene, and methyltrichlorosilane (MTS). As the results of this study, a spherical $UO_2$ kernel with a sphericity of 1+0.06 was obtained, and the main process parameters in the $UO_2$ kernel preparation were the well-formed nature of the spherical ADU liquid droplets and the suitable temperature control in the thermal treatment of intermediate compounds in the ADU, $UO_3$, and $UO_2$ conversions. Also, the important parameters for the TRISO coating procedure were the coating temperature and feed rate of the feeding gas in the PyC layer coating, the coating temperature, and the volume fraction of the reactant and inert gases in the SiC deposition.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.57-65
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• 2018

In this study, a post-fire safe shutdown analysis (PFSSA) including multiple spurious operation (MSO) treatments for cables was conducted with an imaginary nuclear power plant for training using a deterministic fire analysis code. The imaginary nuclear power plant for the training consisted of a reactor containment building and an auxiliary building, including a total of 22 fire areas. The equipment including valves, pumps, emergency diesel generators, switch gears, motor control centers, and logic controllers were located in each fire area of the imaginary plant. It was assumed that each equipment is connected with two cables and that each cable passes through the fire areas along the cable trays. A database containing the information on the equipment and cables for the imaginary plant was constructed for the fire area analysis. The fire area analysis was performed for several assumed MSO scenarios, equipment logics, and cable logics. A mitigation measure using a three hour rated wrap was applied to the failed cables and cable trays after the fire area analysis.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.608-616
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• 2022

Power peaking factors (PPF) is an important parameter for safe and efficient reactor operation. There are several methods to calculate the PPF at TRIGA research reactors such as MCNP and TRIGLAV codes. However, these methods are time-consuming and required high specifications of a computer system. To overcome these limitations, artificial intelligence was introduced for parameter prediction. Previous studies applied the neural network method to predict the PPF, but the publications using the ANFIS method are not well developed yet. In this paper, the prediction of PPF using the ANFIS was conducted. Two input variables, control rod position, and neutron flux were collected while the PPF was calculated using TRIGLAV code as the data output. These input-output datasets were used for ANFIS model generation, training, and testing. In this study, four ANFIS model with two types of input space partitioning methods shows good predictive performances with R² values in the range of 96%-97%, reveals the strong relationship between the predicted and actual PPF values. The RMSE calculated also near zero. From this statistical analysis, it is proven that the ANFIS could predict the PPF accurately and can be used as an alternative method to develop a real-time monitoring system at TRIGA research reactors.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.229-244
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• 2024

Recently, supply chain attacks against nuclear facilities such as "Evil PLC" are increasing due to the application of digital technology in nuclear power plants such as the APR1400 reactor. Nuclear supply chain security requires a asset management system that can systematically manage a large number of providers due to the nature of the industry. However, due to the nature of the control system, there is a problem of inconsistent management of attribute information due to the long lifecycle of software assets. In addition, due to the availability of the operational technology, the introduction of automated configuration management is insufficient, and limitations such as input errors exist. This study proposes a systematic asset management system using SBOM(Software Bill Of Materials) and an improvement for input errors using natural language processing techniques.