• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.1-8
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to suggest the rupture disk design(size) and application at the two phase(gas-liquid) flow by runaway reaction at batch reactor. The definition of runaway reaction is abnormally exothermic reaction by the uncontrolled cooling water or deviated operating condition. As a result, the temperature of reactor is rapidly increasing. The causes of runaway reaction are either self-heating reaction or sleeper reaction. General methods of rupture disk size or safety valve are not suitable in the runaway reaction, because of temperature and pressure increasing rapidly in the reactor and the phases of relieving fluid is 2-phase flow. This study case of the reactor incident, the depressurization system such as safety valve and vent installed, however, the system did not relieved the pressure of reactor suitably. The orifice size of the safety valve were designed too small because the size had not been considered the phenomena and character of reaction. The batch reactor design should be considered by referring to the possibility of runaway reaction proposed in this study and the size of rupture disk design method considering 2-phase flow.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.54-62
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• 2011

KAERI has developed a KALIMER-600 which is a pool-type sodium-cooled fast reactor with a 600MWe electric generation capacity. For a SFR development, one of the main topics is an enhancement of the reactor system safety. Therefore, we have a long-term plan to design the large sodium experimental facility to evaluate the reactor safety and component performance. In order to extrapolate a thermal hydraulic phenomena in a large sodium reactor, the thermal hydraulics phenomena is under investigation in a 1/$10^{th}$ water-simulant facility for the KALIMER-600. In this paper, we shortly described the experimental facility setup and the measurement of the isothermal global flow behavior. For the flow field measurement, the PIV method was used in a transparent Plexiglas reactor vessel model at around $20^{\circ}C$ water condition.

• International Journal of Safety
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.1-5
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• 2011

The structural integrity assessment of APR1400 (Advanced Power Reactor 1400) reactor vessel internals has been being performed referring the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulatory guide 1.20 comprehensive vibration assessment program prior to commercial operation. The program is composed of a hydraulic and structural analysis, a vibration measurement, and an inspection. This paper describes the hydraulic and structural analysis on the reactor vessel internals due to hydraulic loads caused by the turbulence of reactor coolant. Three-dimensional models were built for the hydraulic and structural analysis and then hydraulic loads and structural responses were predicted for five analysis cases with CFX and ANSYS respectively. The structural responses show that the APR1400 reactor vessel internals have sufficient structural integrity in comparison with the acceptance criteria.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.9
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• pp.855-862
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• 2013

A series of 1/5 scale-down reactor flow distribution tests had been conducted to determine the hydraulic characteristics of an APR+ (Advanced Power Reactor Plus), which were used as the input data for an open core thermal margin analysis code. In this study, to examine the applicability of computational fluid dynamics with the porous model to the analysis of APR+ internal flow, simulations were conducted using the commercial multi-purpose computational fluid dynamics software ANSYS CFX V.14. It was concluded that the porous domain approach for some reactor internal structures could adequately predict the flow characteristics inside a reactor in a qualitative manner. If sufficient computational resources are available, the predicted core inlet flow distribution is expected to be more accurate by considering the real geometry of the internal structures, especially upstream of the core inlet.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.269-278
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• 2013

In this study, in order to examine the applicability of computational fluid dynamics with the porous model to the analysis of APR+ (Advanced Power Reactor Plus) internal flow, simulation was conducted with the commercial multi-purpose computational fluid dynamics software, ANSYS CFX V.14. In addition, among the various reactor internals, the effect of flow skirt geometry on reactor internal flow was investigated. It was concluded that the porous model for some reactor internal structures could adequately predict the hydraulic characteristics inside the reactor in a qualitative manner. If sufficient computation resource is available, the predicted core inlet flow distribution is expected to be more accurate, by considering the real geometry of the internal structures, especially located in the upstream of the core inlet. Finally, depending on the shape of the flow skirt, the flow distribution was somewhat different locally. The standard deviation of the mass flow rate (${\sigma}$) for the original shape of flow skirt was smaller, than that for the modified shape of flow skirt. This means that the original shape of the flow skirt may give a more uniform distribution of mass flow rate at the core inlet plane, which may be more desirable for the core cooling.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.268-273
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• 2016

An innovative safety concept for a light water reactor has been developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. It is a unique concept that adopts both a fast heat transfer mechanism for a small containment and a changing mechanism of the cooling geometry to take advantage of the potential, thermal, and dynamic energies of the cold water in the containment. It can bring about rapid cooling of the containment and long-term cooling of the decay heat. By virtue of this innovative concept, nuclear fuel damage events can be prevented. The ultimate heat transfer mechanism contributes to minimization of the heat exchanger size and containment volume. A small containment can ensure the underground construction, which can use river or seawater as an ultimate heat sink. The changing mechanism of the cooling geometry simplifies several safety systems and unifies diverse functions. Simplicity of the present safety system does not require any operator actions during events or accidents. Therefore, the unique safety concept of PX can realize both economic competitiveness and inherent safety.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.106-115
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• 1984

Core safety limits define reactor operating conditions and parameters that will assure fuel rod and reactor system's integrity. Limiting safety system settings (LSSS) programmed into reactor protection system (RPS) then ensure a rapid reactor trip to prevent or suppress conditions which might violate the core safety limits. Generation of the LSSS must properly take into account uncertainties in both calculated and measured parameters in order to assure, with an appropriate degree of confidence, that the RPS will protect the core safety limits. Reviewed in this report are Westinghouse RPS setpoint generation philosophy, methodology of safety limit development and LSSS generation procedure. The Westinghouse RPS trip setpoint generation methodology has been established based on the calculation of core safety limits and the selection of LSSS allowing appropriate uncertainties in a conservative manner. Such conservative values of setpoint assure a high degree of core protection against fuel melting and occurrence of DNB.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2477-2487
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• 2021

To improve safety analysis technology for a nuclear reactor containment considering an interaction between a reactor coolant system (RCS) and containment, this study aims at an experimental investigation on the integrated simulation of the RCS and containment, with an integral effect test facility, ATLAS-CUBE. For a realistic simulation of a pressure and temperature (P/T) transient, the containment simulation vessel was designed to preserve a volumetric scale equivalently to the RCS volume scale of ATLAS. Three test cases for a steam line break (SLB) transient were conducted with variation of the initial condition of the passive heat sink or the steam flow direction. The test results indicated a stratified behavior of the steam-gas mixture in the containment following a high-temperature steam injection in prior to the spray injection. The test case with a reduced heat transfer on the passive heat sink showed a faster increase of the P/T inside the containment. The effect of the steam flow direction was also investigated with respect to a multi-dimensional distribution of the local heat transfer on the passive heat sink. The integral effect test data obtained in this study will contribute to validating the evaluation methodology for mass and energy (M/E) and P/T transient of the containment.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.178-184
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• 2009

The Nuclear Power Plant(NPP) industry in Korea has been making efforts to reduce the human errors which have largely contributed to about 150 nuclear reactor trips since 2001. Recently, the Crew Resource Management(CRM) training has risen as an alternative countermeasure against the nuclear reactor trips caused by human errors. The effectiveness of CRM training in NPP industry, however, has not been proven to be significant yet. In this study a return on investment(ROI) model is developed to measure the effectiveness of CRM training for the operators in Korean NPP. The model consists of mathematical expressions including multiple variables affecting the CRM training impacts and nuclear reactor trips. Implication of the model is discussed further in detail.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.373-380
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• 2014

Safety-related parameters are very important for confirming the status of a nuclear power plant. In particular, the reactor vessel water level has a direct impact on the safety fortress by confirming reactor core cooling. In this study, the reactor vessel water level under the condition of a severe accident, where the water level could not be measured, was predicted using a fuzzy neural network (FNN). The prediction model was developed using training data, and validated using independent test data. The data was generated from simulations of the optimized power reactor 1000 (OPR1000) using MAAP4 code. The informative data for training the FNN model was selected using the subtractive clustering method. The prediction performance of the reactor vessel water level was quite satisfactory, but a few large errors were occasionally observed. To check the effect of instrument errors, the prediction model was verified using data containing artificially added errors. The developed FNN model was sufficiently accurate to be used to predict the reactor vessel water level in severe accident situations where the integrity of the reactor vessel water level sensor is compromised. Furthermore, if the developed FNN model can be optimized using a variety of data, it should be possible to predict the reactor vessel water level precisely.