• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1996년도 춘계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.21-27
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• 1996

KAERI has recently developed the nuclear design code MASTER for the application to reactor physics analyses for pressurized water reactors. Its neutronics model solves the space-time dependent neutron diffusion equations with the advanced nodal methods. The major calculation categories of MASTER consist of microscopic depletion, steady-state and transient solution, xenon dynamics, adjoint solution and pin power and burnup reconstruction. The MASTER validation analyses, which are in progress aiming to submit the Uncertainty Topical Report to KINS in the first half of 1996, include global reactivity calculations and detailed pin-by-pin power distributions as well as in-core detector reaction rate calculations. The objective of this paper is to give an overall description of the CASMO/MASTER code system whose verification results are in details presented in the separate papers.

• 에너지공학
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• 제16권4호
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• pp.155-163
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• 2007

원자로의 안전성 확보를 위해 재장전 기간 동안 수행되는 노물리 시험에서 제어봉의 반응도가(reactivity worth) 산출을 위해 노심의 임계도를 측정해야 하고, 기동운전 시에도 반응도 사고를 대비하여 미임계도가 감시되어야 한다. 미임계도나 제어봉가 측정을 위한 연구가 국내외적으로 지속되어 왔으며, 최근에는 일본에서 "개선된 중성자 선원 증배법(Modified Neutron Source Multiplication Method, MNSM)"이 제안되어 기존의 중성자 선원 증배법의 한계를 극복하였다. 본 연구에서는 MNSM을 경희대 교육용원자로 AGN-201에 적용하여 미임계도를 계산하고 새로운 방법의 타당성을 평가하였다. MNSM의 적용을 위해 AGN-201 원자로에 적합한 핵자료집과 중성자수송 전산코드인 TRANSX - PARTISN 체계를 구축하였고, 유효증배계수와 중성자속(flux) 분포, 수반 중성자속(adjoint flux) 분포 등을 계산하여 제어봉위치에 따른 보정인자들을 산출하였다. 원자로의 미임계도 측정값은 $BF_3$ 비례계수관으로 측정한 중성자계수율을 사용하여 확보하였다. 연구 결과로서 MNSM을 사용하여 평가한 미임계도가 전산코드로 계산하여 얻어진 이론적인 미임계도 값에 근접하고 계산된 보정인자도 유효함을 확인하였다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권10호
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• pp.3648-3658
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• 2023

The early localization of a fuel subassembly with a failed (wet rupture) fuel pin is very important in reactors to limit the associated radiological and operational consequences. This requires a fast and reliable system for failure detection and their localization in the core. In the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, the system specially designed for this purpose is Failed Fuel Location Modules (FFLM) housed in the control plug region. It identifies a failed sub-assembly by detecting the presence of delayed neutrons in the sodium from a failed sub-assembly. During the commissioning phase of PFBR, it is mandatory to demonstrate the FFLM effectiveness. The paper highlights the engineering and physics design aspects of FFLM and the integrated simulation towards its function demonstration with a source assembly containing a perforated metallic fuel pin. This test pin mimics a MOX pin of 1 cm² of geometrical defect area. At 10% power and 20% sodium flow rate, the counts rate in the BCCs of FFLM system range from 75 cps to 145 cps depending upon the position of DN source assembly. The model developed for the counts simulation is applicable to both metal and MOX pins with proper values of k-factor and escape coefficient.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권4호
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• pp.943-948
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• 2019

In this study, investigation of spent fuel was performed using six group delayed neutron parameters. Three used fuels (F1, F2, and F11) which are burnt over the years in the core of Missouri University of Science and Technology Reactor (MSTR), were investigated. F16 fresh fuel was used as plutonium free fuel element and compared with irradiated used fuels to develop burnup and Pu discrimination method. The fast fission factor of the MSTR was calculated to be 1.071 which was used for burnup calculations. Burnup values of F2 and F11 fuel elements were estimated to be 1.98 g and 2.7 g, respectively. $^{239}Pu$ conversion was calculated to be 0.36 g and 0.50 g for F2 and F11 elements, respectively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권9호
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• pp.3488-3493
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• 2022

Accelerator driven subcritical systems have long been discussed as facilities which can be used for solving the nuclear waste problem. The physics of these systems is very different from conventional reactors and new techniques had to be developed for reactivity monitoring. One such technique is the Area Ratio Method which studies the response of a subcritical system upon insertion of a large number of neutron pulses. An issue associated with this technique is the spatial dependence of measured reactivity which is intrinsic to the sub criticality of the system since the reactor does not operate on the fundamental mode and measured reactivity depends on the detector position. This is generally addressed by defining Bell-Glasstone spatial correction factor. This factor upon multiplication with measured reactivity gives the correct reactivity which is independent of detector location. Monte Carlo Methods are used for evaluating these factors. This paper presents a complete three dimensional map of spatial correction factors for BRAHMMA subcritical system. In addition, the dataset obtained also helps in identifying detector locations where the correction factor is close to unity, thereby implying no correction if the detector is used at those locations.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제48권1호
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• pp.274-284
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• 2016

Purpose: The purpose of this work is to describe the spectrometric analysis of gaseous cloud formation over reactor mixed uranium-and-plutonium (UP) fuel $(U_{0.8}Pu_{0.2})O_2$ samples heated to a temperature $>2,000^{\circ}C$, and thus forecast and evaluate radiation hazards threatening humans who cope with the consequences of any accident at a fission reactor loaded by UP mixed oxide $(U_{0.8}Pu_{0.2})O_2$, such as a mixture of 80% U and 20% Pu in weight. Materials and methods: The UP nuclear fuel samples were heated up to a temperature of over $2,000^{\circ}C$ in a suitable assembly (apparatus) at out-of-pile experiments' implementation, the experimental in-depth study of metabolism of active materials in living organisms by means of artificial irradiation of pigs by plutonium. Spectrometric measurements were carried out on the different exposed organs and tissues of pigs for the further estimation of human internal exposure by nuclear materials released from the core of a fission reactor fueled with UP mixed oxide. Results: The main results of the research described are the following: (1) following the research on the influence of mixed fuel fission products (radioactive isotopes being formed during reactor operation as a result of nuclear decay of elements included into the fuel composition) on living organisms, the authors determined the quantities of plutonium dioxide ($PuO_2$) that penetrated into blood and lay in the pulmonary region, liver, skeleton and other tissues; and (2) experiments confirmed that the output speed of plutonium out of the basic precipitation locations is very small. On the strength of the experimental evidence, the authors suggest that the biological output of plutonium can be disregarded in the process of evaluation of the internal irradiation doses.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권1호
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• pp.13-30
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• 2019

This paper presents the recent improvements in the DeCART code for HTGR analysis. A new 190-group DeCART cross-section library based on ENDF/B-VII.0 was generated using the KAERI library processing system for HTGR. Two methods for the eigen-mode adjoint flux calculation were implemented. An azimuthal angle discretization method based on the Gaussian quadrature was implemented to reduce the error from the azimuthal angle discretization. A two-level parallelization using MPI and OpenMP was adopted for massive parallel computations. A quadratic depletion solver was implemented to reduce the error involved in the Gd depletion. A module to generate equivalent group constants was implemented for the nodal codes. The capabilities of the DeCART code were improved for geometry handling including an approximate treatment of a cylindrical outer boundary, an explicit border model, the R-G-B checker-board model, and a super-cell model for a hexagonal geometry. The newly improved and implemented functionalities were verified against various numerical benchmarks such as OECD/MHTGR-350 benchmark phase III problems, two-dimensional high temperature gas cooled reactor benchmark problems derived from the MHTGR-350 reference design, and numerical benchmark problems based on the compact nuclear power source experiment by comparing the DeCART solutions with the Monte-Carlo reference solutions obtained using the McCARD code.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제50권8호
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• pp.1266-1276
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• 2018

In this paper, three-dimensional neutronic calculations were performed in order to calculate the dependency of CRW on the temperature of fuel and moderator and the moderator void. Calculations were performed using the known MTR_PC computer codes in the core configuration 61 of TRR. The dependency of CRW on the fuel temperature in the range of $20-340^{\circ}C$ and the moderator temperature of each control rods were studied. Based on the positions of the control rods, the calculations were performed in three different cases, named case A, B and C. By the results, the worth of each control rods increases by increasing of the coolant temperature in all methods, however, the total CRW is somewhat independent of the fuel temperature. In addition, the results showed that the variation of CRW versus density depends on the positions of the control rods and the most change in CRW in the coolant temperature, $20-100^{\circ}C$ (279 pcm), belongs to SR4. Finally the effect of void on CRW was studied for different void fraction in coolant. The most worth change is about $2 for 40% void fraction related to SR1 and SR3 in case B. For 40% void fraction, the total CRW increases about $7.5, $6 and $7 in cases, A, B and C, respectively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제47권6호
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• pp.700-711
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• 2015

Sodium-cooled fast breeder reactors use liquid sodium as a moderator and coolant to transfer heat from the reactor core. The main hazard associated with sodium is its rapid reaction with water. Sodium-water reaction (SWR) takes place when water or vapor leak into the sodium side through a crack on a heat-transfer tube in a steam generator. If the SWR continues for some time, the SWR will damage the surface of the defective area, causing it to enlarge. This self-enlargement of the crack is called "self-wastage phenomena." A stepwise numerical evaluation model of the self-wastage phenomena was devised using a computational code of multicomponent multiphase flow involving a sodium-water chemical reaction: sodiumwater reaction analysis physics of interdisciplinary multiphase flow (SERAPHIM). The temperature of gas mixture and the concentration of NaOH at the surface of the tube wall are obtained by a numerical calculation using SERAPHIM. Averaged thermophysical properties are used to assess the local wastage depth at the tube surface. By reflecting the wastage depth to the computational grid, the self-wastage phenomena are evaluated. A two-dimensional benchmark analysis of an SWAT (Sodium-Water reAction Test rig) experiment is carried out to evaluate the feasibility of the numerical model. Numerical results show that the geometry and scale of enlarged cracks show good agreement with the experimental result. Enlarged cracks appear to taper inward to a significantly smaller opening on the inside of the tube wall. The enlarged outer diameter of the crack is 4.72 mm, which shows good agreement with the experimental data (4.96 mm).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제19권4호
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• pp.317-324
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• 1987

본 논문은 가압 경수형 원자로의 제어봉 이탈사고와 같이 공간 의존적 과도특성 해석에 필히 요구되는 가상적 사고 분석을 위한 핵적 동특성 코드의 개발을 위한 것이다. 본 논문에서는 1.5군 중성자 화산 방정식에 의거한 수정형 Borresen 모형을 핵적 동특성 모델로 잡고 이를 공간의존적 과도특성해석에 응용할 수 있도록 수식화 하여 고리 1호기 초기 노심의 가상적인 제어봉 이탈 사고해석에 응용했다. 본 사고 해석에 채택한 수정형 Borresen 모형에 대한 계산 정밀도의 검증을 위해 출력 분포 및 제어봉가등 계산결과를 고리 1호기 초기 노심의 노물리 실험자료와 비교했고 공간의존적 사고해석에 있어서 중시되는 핵적 동특성 방정식의 계산 효율성을 검토했다. 그리고 이 결과를 토대로 수정형 Borresen 모형이 제어봉 이탈사고, 증기관 파탄사고 등과 같은 공간의존적 사고해석에 유용하게 이용될 수 있다는 것을 보였다.