• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.201-215
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• 1996

Radiation and radioactive materials serve man in many beneficial ways. Diagnostic X-ray, radiation therapy, and other nuclear medicine uses of radioactivity save thousands of lives each year. Industrial application of radiation, such as radiography, make many manufactured products more reliable and less expensive. Nuclear power plants are producing more electrical power each year and reducing our dependence on imported oil. However, radiation can and dose produce harmful effects particularly as the reault of a radiation accident in which a victim receives as the result of a radiation accident in which a victim receives a large dose. Fortunately such accidents are very rare and recently we need more electric power produced by nuclear power plants. Considering increase of use of radiation or radioactive materials, we have to establish the radiological emergency response system prepared for radiation accidents.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.238-247
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• 2023

The present work represents a technical guideline for decommissioning a disused teletherapy machine model Theratron-780 and contains category one ⁶⁰Co radioactive source. The first section predicts the dose rate from the source in case of normal and radiological emergency situations via FLUKA-MC simulation code. Moreover, the dose assessment for the occupational during the whole process is calculated and compared to the measured values. A suggested cordoned area for safety and security in a radiological emergency is simulated. The second section lists the whole process's technical procedures, including (preview, dismantle, securing, transport and storage) of the disused teletherapy machine. Results show that the maximum obtained accumulated dose for occupational were found to be 24.5 ± 4.9 μSv in the dismantle and securing process in addition to 3.5 ± 1.8 μSv during loading on the transport vehicle and unloading at the storage facility. It was found that the measured accumulated dose for workers is in good agreement with the estimated one by uncertainty not exceeding 5% in normal operating conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.81 no.4
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• pp.806-831
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• 2020

Musculoskeletal injury is the most common cause of children visiting the department of emergency medicine. Since the bone is still developing, pediatric patients have characteristic radiological manifestations, including plastic deformation, greenstick fractures, and buckle (or torus) fractures. Furthermore, growth arrest can occur in those with physeal fractures. Various mechanisms are responsible for pediatric musculoskeletal injury since children have different ranges of activities, depending on their age, such as birth injury and fall and traffic accidents. Some fractures have characteristic locations and radiological manifestations. In this review, we will discuss various radiological manifestations of fractures involving both upper and lower limbs in pediatric patients.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.1368-1375
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• 2016

A radiological safety assessment study was performed for the transportation of low level radioactive wastes which are temporarily stored in Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), Daejeon, Korea. We considered two kinds of wastes: (1) operation wastes generated from the routine operation of facilities; and (2) decommissioning wastes generated from the decommissioning of a research reactor in KAERI. The important part of the radiological safety assessment is related to the exposure dose assessment for the incidentfree (normal) transportation of wastes, i.e., the radiation exposure of transport personnel, radiation workers for loading and unloading of radioactive waste drums, and the general public. The effective doses were estimated based on the detailed information on the transportation plan and on the radiological characteristics of waste packages. We also estimated radiological risks and the effective doses for the general public resulting from accidents such as an impact and a fire caused by the impact during the transportation. According to the results, the effective doses for transport personnel, radiation workers, and the general public are far below the regulatory limits. Therefore, we can secure safety from the viewpoint of radiological safety for all situations during the transportation of radioactive wastes which have been stored temporarily in KAERI.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.89-97
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• 2013

RADCONS Ver. 1.0 (RADiological CONSequence Assessment Program) was developed for radiological risk assessment in this study. A Gaussian plume model was used to analyze the fate and transport of radionuclides released into the air in case of accidents. Both single meterological data and time series meterological data can be used in RADCONS. To assess the radiological risk of the early phase after an accident, ED (Effective Dose) estimated by both deterministic and probabilistic approaches are presented. These EDs by deterministic and probabilistic will be helpful to efficient decision making for decision makers. External doses from deposited materials by time are presented for quantifying the effects of mid and late phases of an accident. A radiological risk assessment was conducted using RADCONS for an accident scenario of 1 Ci of Cs-137. The maximum of ED for radii of 1,000 meters from the accident point was 8.51E-4 mSv. After Monte-Carlo simulation, considering the uncertainty of the breathing rate and dispersion parameters, the average ED was 8.49E-4, and the 95 percentile was 1.10E-3. A data base of the dose coefficients and a sampling module of the meteorological data will be modified to improve the user's convenience in the next version.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.8
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• pp.1277-1288
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• 2018

In this work, the reactor kinetics capability is used to compute the design safety parameters in a PWR due to complete loss of coolant flow during protected and unprotected accidents. A thermal-hydraulic code coupled with a point reactor kinetic model are used for these calculations; where kinetics parameters have been developed from the neutronic SRAC code to provide inputs to RELAP5-3D code to calculate parameters related to safety and guarantee that they meet the regulatory requirements. In RELAP5-3D the reactivity feedback is computed by both separable and tabular models. The results show the importance of the reactivity feedback on calculating the power which is the key parameter that controls the clad and fuel temperatures to maintain them below their melting point and therefore prevent core melt. In addition, extending modeling capability from separable to tabular model has nonremarkable influence on calculated safety parameters.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.2195-2206
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• 2021

In order to mitigate the damage caused by accidents in nuclear power plants (NPPs), evacuation strategies are usually managed on the basis of off-site effects such as the diffusion of radioactive materials and evacuee traffic simulations. However, the interactive behavior between evacuees and the accident environment has a significant effect on the consequential gap. Agent-based modeling (ABM) is a method that can control and observe such interactions by establishing agents (i.e., the evacuees) and patches (i.e., the accident environments). In this paper, a radiological emergency evacuation model is constructed to realistically check the effectiveness of an evacuation strategy using NetLogo, an ABM toolbox. Geographic layers such as radiation sources, roads, buildings, and shelters were downloaded from an official geographic information system (GIS) of Korea, and were modified into respective patches. The dispersion model adopted from the puff equation was also modified to fit the patches on the geographic layer. The evacuees were defined as vehicle agents and a traffic model was implemented by combining the shortest path search (determined by an A ^* algorithm) and a traffic flow model incorporated in the Nagel-Schreckenberg cellular automata model. To evaluate the radiological harm to the evacuees due to the spread of radioactive materials, a simple exposure model was established to calculate the overlap fraction between the agents and the dispersion patches. This paper aims to demonstrate that the potential of ABM can handle disaster evacuation strategies more realistically than previous approaches.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.7
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• pp.2606-2613
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• 2022

Spent resin often exceeds radiation limits for safe disposal, creating a need for commercial-scale treatment techniques to reduce resin radioactivity. In this study, the radiological safety of a commercialized spent resin treatment device with a treatment capacity of 1 ton/day was evaluated. The results confirm that the device is radiologically safe in the event of an accident. This device desorbs ¹⁴C from the spent resin, allowing disposal as low-level waste instead of intermediate-level waste. The device also reduces overall waste by recycling the extracted ¹⁴C. Potential accident scenarios were explored to enable dose assessments for both internal and external exposure while preventing further spillage of the device and processing the spilled resin. The scenarios involved the development of a surface fracture on the resin mixture separator and microwave systems, which were operated under pressure and temperature of 0-6 bar and 0-150 ℃, respectively. In the case of accidents with separator and microwave device, the maximum allowable working time of worker were derived, respectively, considering external and internal exposures. When wearing the respirator corresponding to APF 50, in the case of the microwave device accident scenario, the radiological safety was confirmed when the maximum worker worked within 132.1 h.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.96-102
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• 2014

Urine bioassay has been widely used for internal dosimetry due to simple process of sampling and measurement. In this paper, we participated in the NRIP (NIST Radiochemistry Intercomparison Program) hosted by US NIST to carry out a reliable performance test of urine bioassay and introduced the measurement method and results of NRIP-2013. In customary exercise with 60 days of reporting time, bioassay results of 12 radionuclides in the synthetic urine samples were acceptable based on the performance criteria of ANSI N13.30. In emergency preparedness exercise with 8 hours of reporting time, bioassay results of 9 radionuclides showed that differences ranged from -35% to 45%. However, we concluded that urine bioassay applied for emergency preparedness exercise would be applicable for rapid screening and estimation of internal exposure within a difference of ${\pm}45%$ in the event of radiological accidents.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.11 no.7
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• pp.647-653
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to provide basic data for policy making by understanding preparation plans and awareness of nuclear accidents and radiation terrorism among police officers in the vicinity of nuclear power plants. 221 police officers working in Busan metropolitan city were surveyed and their perception of disaster response was analyzed by organizational structure, command ability, and opinion management. As a result, there was no significant difference in disaster response perception by gender and command class (p>.05). There was statistically significant difference in the ability of command in age and ability according to work experience. As a result of the correlation analysis, there were statistically significant correlations among the three items of organizational structure perception, command ability, and opinion management (+0.5) (p<.01). Overall, it was positive for the police system, and it was well aware of the police work in case of radiation accidents and terrorist attacks. The purpose of this study is to provide basic data for policy making by understanding the coping and awareness of nuclear accidents and radiation terrorism among police officers in the vicinity of nuclear power plants.