• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권4호
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• pp.1253-1260
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• 2022

This paper reports the control method for the core power of the China initiative Accelerator Driven System (CiADS) facility. In the CiADS facility, an intense external neutron source provided by a proton accelerator coupled to a spallation target is used to drive a sub-critical reactor. Without any control rod inside the sub-critical reactor, the core power is controlled by adjusting the proton beam intensity. In order to continuously change the beam intensity, an adjustable aperture is considered to be used at the Low Energy Beam Transport (LEBT) line of the accelerator. The aperture size is adjusted based on the Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controllers, by comparing either the setting beam intensity or the setting core power with the measured value. To evaluate the proposed control method, a CiADS core model is built based on the point reactor kinetics model with six delayed neutron groups. The simulations based on the CiADS core model have indicated that the core power can be controlled stably by adjusting the aperture size. The response time in the adjustment of the core power depends mainly on the adjustment time of the beam intensity.

• 한국압력기기공학회 논문집
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• 제12권1호
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• pp.134-140
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• 2016

The Control Rod Assembly (CRA) controls the reactor power by adjusting its position in the reactor core during normal operation and should be quickly inserted into the reactor core by free drop under scram condition to shut down chain reactions. Therefore, the drop time of the CRA is one of important factors for the safety of the nuclear reactor and must be experimentally verified. This study presents the drop performance test of the CRA which has been conceptually designed for the Proto-type Generation IV Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor. During the test, the CRA was free dropped from a height of 1 m under different flow rate conditions and its drop time was measured. The results showed that the drop time of the CRA increased as the flow rate increased; the average drop times of the CRA were approximately 1.527 seconds, 1.599 seconds and 1.676 seconds at 0%, 100% and 200% of design flow rates, respectively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제37권6호
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• pp.537-556
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• 2005

A primary-pipe rupture accident is one of the design-basis accidents of a High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR). When the primary-pipe rupture accident occurs, air is expected to enter the reactor core from the breach and oxidize in-core graphite structures. This paper describes an experiment and analysis of the air ingress phenomena and the method fur the prevention of air ingress into the reactor during the primary-pipe rupture accident. The numerical results are in good agreement with the experimental ones regarding the density of the gas mixture, the concentration of each gas species produced by the graphite oxidation reaction and the onset time of the natural circulation of air. A hydrogen production system connected to the High-Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) Is being designed to be able to produce hydrogen by themo-chemical iodine-Sulfur process, using a nuclear heat of 10 MW supplied by the HTTR. The HTTR hydrogen production system is first connected to a nuclear reactor in the world; hence a permeation test of hydrogen isotopes through heat exchanger is carried out to obtain detailed data for safety review and development of analytical codes. This paper also describes an overview of the hydrogen permeation test and permeability of hydrogen and deuterium of Hastelloy XR.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권3호
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• pp.877-887
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• 2022

A new reactor concept is described that directly couples a supercritical CO₂ (sCO₂) power cycle with a CO₂-cooled, heavy water moderated pressure tube core. This configuration attains the simplification and economic potential of past direct-cycle sCO₂ concepts, while also providing safety and power density benefits by using the moderator as a heat sink for decay heat removal. A 200 MWe design is described that heavily leverages existing commercial nuclear technologies, including reactor and moderator systems from Canadian CANDU reactors and fuels and materials from UK Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGRs). Descriptions are provided of the power cycle, nuclear island systems, reactor core, and safety systems, and the results of safety analyses are shown illustrating the ability of the design to withstand large-break loss of coolant accidents. The resulting design attains high efficiency while employing considerably fewer systems than current light water reactors and advanced reactor technologies, illustrating its economic promise. Prospects for the design are discussed, including the ability to demonstrate its technologies in a small (~20 MWe) initial system, and avenues for further improvement of the design using advanced technologies.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1997년도 춘계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.495-501
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• 1997

A preliminary and parametric sensitivity study on recriticality risk of fast reactor cores after a hypothetical total core meltdown accident was performed. Only neutronic aspects of the accident were considered, independent of the accident scenario, and efforts were made to estimate the quantity of molten fuel which must be ejected out of the core to assure a sub-critical state after the accident. Two types of parameters were examined : characteristic parameters of molten core such as geometry, molten pool type (homogenized or stratified), fuel temperature, environment, and relative parameters to normal core such as core size(small or large), and fuel type (oxide, nitride, metal). The first type of parameters was found to intervene more directly in the recriticality risk than the second type of parameters.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• 제18권12호
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• pp.2125-2136
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• 2004

In this paper, a numerical application algorithm for applying the CFAM (Consistent Fluid Added Mass) matrix for a core seismic analysis is developed and applied to the 7-ducts core system to investigate the fluid effects on the dynamic characteristics and the seismic time history responses. To this end, three cases such as the in-air condition, the in-water condition without the fluid coupling terms, and the in-water condition with the fluid coupling terms are considered in this paper. From modal analysis, the core duct assemblies revealed strongly coupled out-of-phase vibration modes unlike the other cases with the fluid coupling terms considered. From the results of the seismic time history analysis, it was also verified that the fluid coupling terms in the CFAM matrix can significantly affect the impact responses and the seismic displacement responses of the ducts.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제43권1호
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• pp.89-98
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• 2011

The construction technology for reactor vessel internals (RVI) modularization is one of the most important factors to be considered in reducing the construction period of nuclear power plants. For RVI modularization, gaps between the reactor vessel (RV) core-stabilizing lug and the core support barrel (CSB) snubber lug must be measured using a remote method from outside the RV. In order to measure RVI gaps remotely at nuclear power plant construction sites, certain core technologies must be developed and verified. These include a remote measurement system to measure the gaps between the RV core-stabilizing lug and the CSB snubber lug, an RVI mockup to perform the gap measurement tests, and a new procedure and schedule for RVI installation. A remote measurement system was developed previously, and a gap measurement test was completed successfully using the RVI mockup. We also developed a new procedure and schedule for RVI installation. This paper presents the new and improved installation procedure and schedule for RVI modularization. These are expected to become core technologies that will allow us to shorten the construction period by a minimum of two months compared to the existing installation procedure and schedule.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제50권8호
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• pp.1412-1420
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• 2018

An experiment was performed using the large-scale test facility (LSTF), which simulated a 1% vessel upper head small-break loss-of-coolant accident with an accident management (AM) measure under an assumption of total-failure of high-pressure injection (HPI) system in a pressurized water reactor (PWR). In the LSTF test, liquid level in the upper head affected break flow rate. Coolant was manually injected from the HPI system into cold legs as the AM measure when the maximum core exit temperature reached 623 K. The cladding surface temperature largely increased due to late and slow response of the core exit thermocouples. The AM measure was confirmed to be effective for the core cooling. The RELAP5/MOD3.3 code indicated insufficient prediction of primary coolant distribution. The author conducted uncertainty analysis for the LSTF test employing created phenomena identification and ranking table for each component. The author clarified that peak cladding temperature was largely dependent on the combination of multiple uncertain parameters within the defined uncertain ranges.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권8호
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• pp.3106-3116
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• 2022

The present work presents analysis results of the core design optimizations for an annular, prismatic High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) with passive decay-heat removal features. Its thermal power is 100 MW_t and the operating temperature is 850 ℃ (1123 K). The neutronic calculations are done for the core with heterogeneous distribution of fuel and burnable poison particles (BPPs) to flatten the reactivity swing and power peaking factor (PPF) during the reactor operation as well as for control rod (CR) insertion into the core to restrain a small excess reactivity less than 1$. The next step of the study is done for evaluation of core reactivity coefficient of temperature.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권12호
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• pp.3910-3917
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• 2021

Reactor fuel's power distribution plays a vital role in designing the new generation thermionic Space Reactor Power Systems (SRPS). In this paper, the 1/12th SPACE-R's full reactor core was numerically analyzed with two kinds of different axial power distribution, to identify their impacts on thermal-hydraulic and thermoelectric characteristics. In the benchmark study, the maximum error between numerical results and existing data or design values ranged from 0.2 to 2.2%. Four main conclusions were obtained in the numerical analysis: a) The axial power distribution has less impact on coolant temperature. b) Axial power distribution influenced the emitter temperature distribution a lot, when the core power was cosine distributed, the maximum temperature of the emitter was 194 K higher than that of the uniform power distribution. c) Comparing to the cosine axial power distribution, the uniform axial power distribution would make the maximum temperature in each component of the reactor core much lower, reducing the requirements for core fuel material. d) Voltage and current distribution were similar to the axial electrode temperature distribution, and the axial power distribution has little effect on the output power.