• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.285-292
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• 2016

Reactor neutrinos have been detected in the past 50 years by various detectors for different purposes. Beginning in the 1980s, neutrino physicists have tried to use neutrinos to monitor reactors and develop an optimized detector for nuclear safeguards. Recently, motivated by neutrino oscillation physics, the technology and scale of reactor neutrino detection have progressed considerably. In this review, I will give an overview of the detection technology for reactor neutrinos, and describe the issues related to further improvements in optimized detectors for reactor monitoring.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.426-441
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• 2003

A reactor inlet header break experiment, B9401, performed in the RD-14M multi channel test facility was analyzed using RELAP5/MOD3.2 and RELAP5/CANDU[1]. The RELAP5 has been developed for the use in the analysis of the transient behavior of the pressurized water reactor. A recent study showed that the RELAP5 could be feasible even for the simulation of the thermal hydraulic behavior of CANDU reactors. However, some deficiencies in the prediction of fuel sheath temperature and transient behavior in athe headers were identified in the RELAP5 assessments. The RELAP5/CANDU has been developing to resolve the deficiencies in the RELAP5 and to improve the predictability of the thermal-hydraulic behaviors of the CANDU reactors. In the RELAP5/CANDU, critical heat flux model, horizontal flow regime map, heat transfer model in horizontal channel, etc. were modified or added to the RELAP5/MOD3.2. This study aims to identify the applicability of both codes, in particular, in the multi-channel simulation of the CANDU reactors. The RELAP5/MOD3.2 and the RELAP5/CANDU analyses demonstrate the code's capability to predict reasonably the major phenomena occurred during the transient. The thermal-hydraulic behaviors of both codes are almost identical, however, the RELAP5/CANDU predicts better the heater sheath temperature than the RELAP5/MOD3.2. Pressure differences between headers govern the flow characteristics through the heated sections, particularly after the ECI. In determining header pressure, there are many uncertainties arisen from the complicated effects including steady state pressure distribution. Therefore, it would be concluded that further works are required to reduce these uncertainties, and consequently predict appropriately thermal-hydraulic behaviors in the reactor coolant system during LOCA analyses.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.625-636
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• 2013

Pressing demands of economic competitiveness, the need for large-scale deployment, minimizing the need of human intervention, and experience from the past events and incidents at operating reactors have guided the evolution and innovations in reactor technologies. Indian innovative reactor 'AHWR' is a pressure-tube type natural circulation based boiling water reactor that is designed to meet such requirements, which essentially reflect the needs of next generation reactors. The reactor employs various passive features to prevent and mitigate accidental conditions, like a slightly negative void reactivity coefficient, passive poison injection to scram the reactor in event of failure of the wired shutdown systems, a large elevated pool of water as a heat sink inside the containment, passive decay heat removal based on natural circulation and passive valves, passive ECC injection, etc. It is designed to meet the fundamental safety requirements of safe shutdown, safe decay heat removal and confinement of activity with no impact in public domain, and hence, no need for emergency planning under all conceivable scenarios. This paper examines the role of the various passive safety systems in prevention and mitigation of severe plant conditions that may arise in event of multiple failures. For the purpose of demonstration of the effectiveness of its passive features, postulated scenarios on the lines of three major severe accidents in the history of nuclear power reactors are considered, namely; the Three Mile Island (TMI), Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents. Severe plant conditions along the lines of these scenarios are postulated to the extent conceivable in the reactor under consideration and analyzed using best estimate system thermal-hydraulics code RELAP5/Mod3.2. It is found that the various passive systems incorporated enable the reactor to tolerate the postulated accident conditions without causing severe plant conditions and core degradation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.618-625
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• 2019

When newcomer countries consider a nuclear power programme, it is recognized that the most important organizations are the Nuclear Energy Programme Implementing Organization (NEPIO), the regulator, and an operating organization. Concerning the number of construction delays these days, one of the essential organizations is an Authorized Inspection Agency (AIA). According to World Nuclear Industry Status Report, all of the reactors under construction in eight out of the thirteen countries have experienced delays. Globally, the Flamanville 3 project and Sanmen Unit 1 are 6.5 years and 5 years late respectively. One of the major reasons of delay is due to inappropriate manufacturing and inspection on safety class components. The recommendations are made to develop such an organization: (i) find existing inspection organizations in relevant industries, (ii) contract with expatriates who have experience on nuclear inspection, (iii) develop a legislative framework to authorize the inspection organization with enforcement, (iv) include a contract clause in the BIS for developing the AIA, (v) hold training programmes from vendor country, (vi) during manufacturing and construction, domestic AIA shall be involved.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2018.11a
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• pp.104-104
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• 2018

Kori Unit 1 is the first permanent shutdown nuclear power plant in Korea and it is on June 18th, 2017. Spent fuel assemblies began to be discharged from the reactor core to the spent fuel pool(SFP) within one week after shutdown of Kori unit 1 and the campaign was completed on June 27th, 2017. The total number of spent nuclear fuel assemblies in SFP of Kori Unit-1 is 485 and their discharging date is different respectively. So, decay heat was evaluated considering the actual enrichment, operation history and cooling time of the spent fuel assemblies stored in SFP of the Kori Unit-1. The code used in the evaluation is the ORIGEN-based CAREPOOL system developed by KHNP. Decay heat calculation of PWR fuel is based on ANSI/ANS 5.1-2005, "Decay heat power in light water reactors" and ISO-10645, "Nuclear energy - Light water reactors - Calculation of the decay heat power in nuclear fuels. Also, we considered the contribution of fission products, actinide nuclides, neutron capture and radioactive material in decay heat calculation. CAREPOOL system calculates the individual and total decay heat of all of the spent fuel assemblies in SFP of Kori Unit-1. As a result, the total decay heat generated in SFP on June 28th, 2017 when the spent fuel assemblies were discharged from the reactor core, is estimated to be about 4,185.8 kw and to be about 609.5 kw on September 1st, 2018. It was also estimated that 119.6 kw is generated in 2050 when it is 32 years after the permanent shutdown. Figure 1 shows the trend of total decay heat in SFP of Kori Unit-1.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.127-134
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• 1980

Shielding problems associated with neutron streaming through the reactor vessel cavity of pressurized water reactors are discussed to a certain extent with the actual examples in the currently operating reactors. Various remedial techniques are proposed herein to mitigate the tedious neutron streaming phenomena including piling up in heaps of temporary boron-containing bags and the installation of permanent shield structure making use of a certain refractory materials. In conclusion, optimum cavity shielding design concepts are presented with special emphasis on such major factors as the identification of major neutron streaming path, selection of necessary shielding materials with acceptable constraints, detailed design characteristics and physical configuration as well as the formulation of dependable mathematical tools to predict the final outcome of each design concept proposed in the context.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.19-30
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• 2014

The leading countries in nuclear technology development are concentrating their efforts on the development of Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor, which is one of the Generation-IV nuclear reactor systems characterized by a sustainability, an enhanced safety, proliferation resistance, and improved economics. Especially, the Republic of Korea is developing a Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor equipped with metallic-fuel. This type of fast reactor has superior inherent safety and passive safety characteristics. Further, sodium-cooled fast reactors enable the reuse of spent fuel and the closing of fuel cycle, thus, it increases the sustainability of nuclear energy. Many countries are planning the deployment of sodium-cooled fast reactors before 2050 in their energy mix.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.198-204
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• 1987

A plant simulation code, MCSIM (Micro-Computer SIMulator), has been developed to simulate plant transient accidents for pressurized water reactors. Reactor coolant system is modeled using decoupled energy and momentum equations, drift flux two-phase flow model and integral momentum equation. A two-fluid pressurizer model is used to simulate the pressurizer dynamics. Pot Boiler model is used for steam generator, steady-state decoupled energy and momentum equations for secondary side system, and point kinetics equations for nuclear power calculation. For test of the present version of MCSIM, complete loss of flow and RCCA withdrawal accidents are calculated with MCSIM. The results are compared with those in FSAR of KNU 5 & 6.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.498-508
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• 2021

Micro reactors are increasingly being considered for utilization as distributed power sources. Hence, the probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) of a direct supercritical-CO₂-cooled fast reactor, called micro modular reactor (MMR), was performed in this study; this reactor was developed using innovative design concepts. It adopted a modular design and passive safety systems to minimize site constraints. As the MMR is in its conceptual design phase, design weaknesses and valuable safety insights could be identified during PSA. Level 1 internal event PSA was carried out involving literature survey, system characterization, identification of initiating events, transient analyses, development of event trees and fault trees, and quantification. The initiating events and scenarios significantly contributing to core damage frequency (CDF) were determined to identify design weaknesses in MMR. The most significant initiating event category contributing to CDF was the transients with the power conversion system initially available category, owing to its relatively high occurrence frequency. Further, an importance analysis revealed that the safety of MMR can be significantly improved by improving the reliability of reactor trip and passive decay heat removal system operation. The findings presented in this paper are expected to contribute toward future applications of PSA for assessing unconventional nuclear reactors in their conceptual design phases.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.1279-1288
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• 2019

The vortex-type fluidic diode (FD) is a key safety component for inherent safety in various advanced reactors such as the sodium fast reactor (SFR) and the molten salt reactor (MSR). In this study, topology optimization is conducted to optimize the design of the vortex-type fluidic diode. The optimization domain is simplified to 2-dimensional geometry for a tangential port and chamber. As a result, a design with a circular chamber and a restrictor at the tangential port is obtained. To verify the new design, experimental study and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis were conducted for inlet Reynolds numbers between 2000 and 6000. However, the results show that the performance of the new design is no better than the original reference design. To analyze the cause of this result, detailed analysis is performed on the velocity and pressure field using flow visualization experiments and 3-D CFD analysis. The results show that the discrepancy between the optimization results in 2-D and the experimental results in 3-D originated from exclusion of an important pressure loss contributor in the optimization process. This study also concludes that the junction design of the axial port and chamber offers potential for improvement of fluidic diode performance.