• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.109-111
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• 2005

Nuclear fuel assemblies for pressurized water reactors(PWR) are loaded in the reactor core throughout the residence time of three to five years. A spacer grid assembly, which is an interconnected array of slotted grid straps and is welded at the intersections to form an egg crate structure, is one of the main structural components of the nuclear fuel assembly. The spacer grid assembly is structurally required to have enough buckling strength under various kinds of lateral loads acting on the nuclear fuel assembly so as to keep the nuclear fuel assembly straight. To meet this requirement, it is necessary to weld the welding parts carefully and precisely. In this study, laser welding qualities of the spacer grid assembly welded by several welding companies, such as weld strength, weld penetration depth, and weld bead size, are examined and compared.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2427-2444
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• 2021

The lack of plant-side energy storage analysis to support nuclear power plants (NPP), has setup this research endeavor to understand the characteristics and role of specific storage technologies and the integration to an NPP. The paper provides a qualitative review of a wide range of configurations for integrating the energy storage system (ESS) to an operating NPP with pressurized water reactor (PWR). The role of ESS technologies most suitable for large-scale storage are evaluated, including thermal energy storage, compressed gas energy storage, and liquid air energy storage. The methods of integration to the NPP steam cycle are introduced and categorized as electrical, mechanical, and thermal, with a review on developments in the integration of ESS with an operating PWR. By adopting simplified off-design modeling for the steam turbines and heat exchangers, the results show the performance of the PWR steam cycle changes with respect to steam bypass rate for thermal and mechanical storage integration options. Analysis of the integrated system characteristics of proposed concepts for three different ESS suggests that certain storage technologies could support steady operation of an NPP. After having reviewed what have been accomplished through the years, the research team presents a list of possible future works.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.3 no.5
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• pp.337-349
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• 1991

Heat and mass transfer rates to spray water droplets for spray transients in a high pressure vessel have been predicted by two different droplet models: the complete mixing model and the non-mixing model. In this process, the ambient fluid surrounding the droplets is a real-gas mixture composed of saturated steam and noncondensable hydrogen gas at high pressure. The physical properties of the mixture are estimated by applying the concept of compressibility factor and using appropriate correlations. A computer program, DROPHMT, to calculate the heat and mass transfer rates for two different droplet models has been developed. As an illustrative application of the computer program to engineering practices, heat and mass transfer rates to spray water droplets for spray transients in a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) pressurizer have been calculated, and the typical results have been provided.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.89-103
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• 2016

Due to safety of the plant, it became very clear the importance of study occurrence reactor coolant system (RCS) issues specially the primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC). The Systems Engineering (SE) approach is characterized by the application of a structured engineering methodology for the design of a complex system or component. Robotic devices have been used for internal inspection, maintenance and performing remote welding and inspection in high-radiation areas. In this paper, PWSCC overview and inlay and over lay welding methodology introduced, concept of robotic device that can be inserted into the piping via Steam Generator (SG) main way to access to primary piping of pressurized water reactor (PWR) is developed based on SE methodology. A 3D model of the inspection system was developed along with the APR1400 (Advanced Power Reactor)reactor coolant systems (RCS) and internals with virtual 3D simulation of the operation for visualization to prove the validity of the concept.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.878-888
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• 2020

This paper presents the validation of UNIST in-house Monte Carlo code MCS used for the high-fidelity simulation of commercial pressurized water reactors (PWRs). Its focus is on the accurate, spatially detailed neutronic analyses of startup physics tests for the initial core of the Watts Bar Nuclear 1 reactor, which is a vital step in evaluating core phenomena in an operating nuclear power reactor. The MCS solutions for the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA) core physics benchmark progression problems 1 to 5 were verified with KENO-VI and Serpent 2 solutions for geometries ranging from a single-pin cell to a full core. MCS was also validated by comparing with results of reactor zero-power physics tests in a full-core simulation. MCS exhibits an excellent consistency against the measured data with a bias of ±3 pcm at the initial criticality whole-core problem. Furthermore, MCS solutions for rod worth are consistent with measured data, and reasonable agreement is obtained for the isothermal temperature coefficient and soluble boron worth. This favorable comparison with measured parameters exhibited by MCS continues to broaden its validation basis. These results provide confidence in MCS's capability in high-fidelity calculations for practical PWR cores.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.145-154
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• 1988

This paper is a study on an accurate and computationally efficient method for reconstructing pointwise power distributions from coarse-mesh nodal calculations. The modern nodal codes can calculate global reactor power shapes and criticality very efficiently and accurately. But inherent in the nodal procedures, there is inevitable loss of information on local heterogeneous quantities. In this study, an improved form function method which reflects the exponential transition of the thermal flux near the assembly surface is developed for the reconstruction of the heterogeneous fluxes. Use of the new form function method in several pressurized water reactor (PWR) benchmark problems reduces the maximum errors in the reconstructed thermal flux to those in the reconstructed fast flux. Even for assemblies adjacent to the steel baffle in realistic PWR cores, use of this method also results in improved pointwise power reconstruction.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.7-13
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• 2012

A spacer grid which is one of the most important structural components in a pressurized water reactor fuel is an interconnected array of slotted grid straps, welded at the intersections to form an egg-crate structure. The spacer grid is required to not only protect fuel rods stably but also have sufficient lateral crush strength for the sake of enabling shut-down of the nuclear reactor during abnormal operating environments. Then, the lateral crush strength of the spacer grid is closely related with welding quality of the spacer grid. Previous research on the crush strength analysis of the spacer grid had been performed using only parent material properties. In this study, to investigate the effect on the crush strength of the spacer grid when used mechanical properties in weld zone instead of parent material properties, crush strength analysis considering mechanical properties in weld zone obtained from the instrumented indentation technique was performed and compared the results with the previous research.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.1085-1097
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• 2022

A printed circuit steam generator (PCSG) is being considered as the component for pressurized water reactor (PWR) type small modular reactor (SMR) that can further reduce the physical size of the system. Since a steam generator in many PWR-type SMR generates superheated steam, it is expected that dryout front oscillation can potentially cause thermal fatigue failure due to cyclic thermal stresses induced by the transition in boiling regimes between convective evaporation and film boiling. To investigate the fatigue issue of a PCSG, a reference PCSG is designed in this study first using an in-house PCSG design tool. For the stress analysis, a finite element method analysis model is developed to obtain the temperature and stress fields of the designed PCSG. Fatigue estimation is performed based on ASME Boiler and pressure vessel code to identify the major parameters influencing the fatigue life time originating from the dryout front oscillation. As a result of this study, the limit on the temperature difference between the hot side and cold side fluids is obtained. Moreover, it is found that the heat transfer coefficient of convective evaporation and film boiling regimes play an essential role in the fatigue life cycle as well as the temperature difference.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.10b
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• pp.104-106
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• 2005

In this work, a PWR reactor core dynamics is identified online by a recursive least squares method. Based on this identified reactor model consisting of the control rod position and the core average coolant temperature, the future average coolant temperature is predicted. A model predictive control method is applied to design an automatic controller for thermal power control in PWRs. The basic concept of the model predictive control is to solve an optimization problem for a finite future at current time and to implement as the current control input only the first optimal control input among the solutions of the finite time steps. At the next time step, the procedure to solve the optimization problem is then repeated. The objectives of the proposed model predictive controller are to minimize both the difference between the predicted core coolant temperature and the desired one, and the variation of the control rod positions. Also, the objectives are subject to maximum and minimum control rod positions and maximum control rod speed. Therefore, the genetic algorithm that is appropriate to accomplish multiple objectives is used to optimize the model predictive controller. A 3-dimensional nuclear reactor analysis code, MASTER that was developed by Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), is used to verify the proposed controller for a nuclear reactor. From results of numerical simulation to check the performance of the proposed controller at the 5%/min ramp increase or decrease of a desired load and its 10% step increase or decrease which are design requirements, it was found that the nuclear power level controlled by the proposed controller could track the desired power level very well.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.1173-1183
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• 2018

Transient fluid velocity and pressure fields in a pressurized water reactor (PWR) steam generator (SG) secondary side during the blowdown period of a feedwater line break (FWLB) accident were numerically simulated employing the saturated water flashing model. This model is based on the assumption that compressed water in the SG is saturated at the beginning and decompresses into the two-phase region where saturated vapor forms, creating a mixture of steam bubbles in water by bulk boiling. The numerical calculations were performed for two cases of which the outflow boundary conditions are different from each other; one is specified as the direct blowdown discharge to the atmosphere and the other is specified as the blowdown discharge to an extended calculation domain with atmospheric pressure on its boundary. The present simulation results obtained using the two different outflow boundary conditions were discussed through a comparison with the predictions using a simple non-flashing model neglecting the effects of phase change. In addition, the applicability of each of the non-flashing water discharge and saturated water flashing models for the confirmatory assessments of new SG designs was examined.