• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.145-151
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• 2014

The objectives of this study are to investigate the effect of the concentration ratios of Ni and Fe ions on crud deposition onto the fuel cladding surface in the simulated primary environments of a pressurized water reactor. Crud deposition tests were conducted in the Ni and Fe concentration ratios of 20:20 ppm, 39:1 ppm and 1:39 ppm at $325^{\circ}C$ for 14 days. In the case of the same Ni and Fe ion ratio (20:20), nickel ferrite with a polyhedral shape was formed. Nickel oxide deposits with a needle shape were formed in the condition of high Ni to Fe ion ratio (39:1), While polyhedral iron oxide and needle-like nickel oxide formed in the condition of low Ni to Fe ion ratio (1:39). The amount of deposits increased, when Fe oxides were formed. This indicates that Fe rich oxides stimulated Ni oxide deposition.

• International Journal of Safety
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.52-57
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• 2002

The Decomposition of NO$_2$ (nitrogen dioxide), one of the Hazardous Air Pollutant (HAP), was studied by utilizing the SPCP (Surface induced discharge Plasma Chemical Processing) reactor so as to obtain optimum process variables and maximum decomposition efficiencies. Experimental results showed that for the frequency of 10kHz, the highest deco position efficiency of 84.7% for NO$_2$ was observed at the power consumptions of 20W. The decomposition efficiency of $NO_2$ was found to be: 1) proportional to the residence times, and inversely proportional to the initial concentrations of $NO_2$; 2) the maximum when the electrode diameter was 3mm; 3) influenced by the electrode material, decreasing in the order of W>Cu>Al; and 4) proportional to the $CH_4$ content, due to which the highest efficiency of 98% was obtained with almost all the $NO_2$ removed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.7
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• pp.1462-1470
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• 2020

Reliability in safety-critical systems and equipment is of vital importance, so the probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) has been widely used for many years in the nuclear industry to address reliability in a quantitative manner. As many nuclear power plants (NPPs) become digitalized, evaluating the reliability of safety-critical software has become an emerging issue. Due to a lack of available methods, in many conventional PSA models only hardware reliability is addressed with the assumption that software reliability is perfect or very high compared to hardware reliability. This study focused on developing a new method of safety-critical software reliability quantification, derived from hardware-software integrated environment testing. Since the complexity of hardware and software interaction makes the possible number of test cases for exhaustive testing well beyond a practically achievable range, an importance-oriented testing method that assures the most efficient test coverage was developed. Application to the test of an actual NPP reactor protection system demonstrated the applicability of the developed method and provided insight into complex software-based system reliability.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.459-482
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• 2006

A geochemical approach to the long-term safety of waste disposal is discussed in connection with the significance of actinides, which shall deliver the major radioactivity inventory subsequent to the relatively short-term decay of fission products. Every power reactor generates transuranic (TRU) elements: plutonium and minor actinides (Np, Am, Cm), which consist chiefly of long-lived nuclides emitting alpha radiation. The amount of TRU actinides generated in a fuel life period is found to be relatively small (about 1 wt% or less in spent fuel) but their radioactivity persists many hundred thousands years. Geological confinement of waste containing TRU actinides demands, as a result, fundamental knowledge on the geochemical behavior of actinides in the repository environment for a long period of time. Appraisal of the scientific progress in this subject area is the main objective of the present paper. Following the introductory discussion on natural radioactivities, the nuclear fuel cycle is briefly brought up with reference to actinide generation and waste disposal. As the long-term disposal safety concerns inevitably with actinides, the significance of the aquatic actinide chemistry is summarized in two parts: the fundamental properties relevant to their aquatic behavior and the geochemical reactions in nanoscopic scale. The constrained space of writing allows discussion on some examples only, for which topics of the primary concern are selected, e.g. apparent solubility and colloid generation, colloid-facilitated migration, notable speciation of such processes, etc. Discussion is summed up to end with how to make a geochemical approach available for the long-term disposal safety of nuclear waste or for the performance assessment (PA) as known generally.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.219-225
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• 2015

In this paper, a three-dimensional model for the dynamic analysis of a flywheel based on the finite element method is presented. The static structure analysis for the model provides stress and strain distribution cloud charts. The modal analysis provides the basis of dynamic analysis due to its ability to obtain the natural frequencies and the vibration-made vectors of the first 10 orders. The results show the main faults are attrition and cracks, while also indicating the locations and patterns of faults. The harmonic response simulation was performed to gain the vibration response of the flywheel under operation. In this paper, we present a Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) algorithm for flywheel vibration analysis. The simulation indicated that the proposed flywheel vibration signal analysis method performs well, which means that the method can lay the foundation for the detection and diagnosis in a reactor main coolant pump.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.64-72
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• 2014

This study aimed at assessing the analysis capability of thermal-hydraulic computer code, MARS for the behaviors of the core make-up tank (CMT). The sensitivity study on the nodalization to simulate the CMT was conducted, and the MARS calculations were compared with KAIST experimental data and RELAP5/MOD3.3 calculations. The 12-node model was fixed through a nodalization study to investigate the effect of the number of nodes in the CMT (2-, 4-, 8-, 12-, 16-node). The sensitivity studies on various parameters, such as water subcooling of the CMT, steam pressure, and natural circulation flow were done. MARS calculations were reasonable in the injection time and the effects of several parameters on the CMT behaviors even though the mesh-dependency should be properly treated for reactor applications.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.455-462
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• 2003

According to Korean nuclear code requires Periodic Safety Review(PSR) every 10 years should be perform for operating reactor, and selects the eleven PSR safety factors. Among them the review objective of the environmental impact is to determine whether the operator has an adequate programme for surveillance of the environmental impact of the nuclear power plant based on current safety standards. In this paper, the environmental impact in PSR of Wolsong Unit 1 was reflected current safety standards as of the evaluation date. As a result, all items generally satisfied the standards, and the staff also verified that the population dose due to the operation of Wolsong Unit 1 was controlled safely as of the evaluation date.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.175-182
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• 2015

A methodology to determine the most conservative initial condition based on random sampling of operation parameters is established, in which a best-estimate computer code is adopted to minimize the conservatism in code models. To validate the applicability of the suggested method, safety evaluation for a transient of loss of condenser vacuum in a pressurized water reactor is performed. One-hundred different initial conditions are generated by MOSAIQUE program automatically and the peak pressure for the most conservative case is determined from transient analyses. The safety margin obtained with the new approach is almost equivalent to the values determined with the existing methodologies. It is found that the time and human resources required for the safety evaluation could be reduced with the suggested approach.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.793-803
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• 2021

The small PWR has been paid more and more attention due to its diversity of application and flexibility in the site selection. However, the large core power density, the small containment space and the rapid accident progress characteristics make it difficult to control the containment pressure like the traditional PWR during the LOCA. The pressure suppression system has been used by the BWR since the early design, which is a suitable technique that can be applied to the small PWR. Since the configuration and operating conditions are different from the BWR, the pressure suppression system should be redesigned for the small PWR. Conducting the experiments on the scale down test facility is a good choice to reproduce the prototypical phenomena in the test facility, which is both economical and reasonable. A systematic scaling method referring to the H2TS method was proposed to determine the geometrical and thermohydraulic parameters of the pressure suppression containment response test facility for the small PWR conceptual design. The containment and the pressure suppression system related thermohydraulic phenomena were analyzed with top-down and bottom-up scaling methods. A set of the scaling criteria were obtained, through which the main parameters of the test facility can be determined.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.804-811
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• 2021

The T-junction exists widely in industrial engineering, especially in nuclear power plants, which plays an important part in nuclear power reactor thermal-hydraulics. However, the existing prediction models of the liquid entrainment are mainly based on the small branches or small breaks while there are a few researches for large branches (d/D > 0.2). Referring to the classical models about the onset of liquid entrainment of the T-junction, most of previous models regard liquid as ideal working fluid and ignore surface tension. This paper aims to study the effect of surface tension on the liquid entrainment, and develops an improved model based on the reasonable assumption. The establishment of new model employs the methods of force analysis, dimensional analysis. Besides, the dimensionless Weber number is adopted innovatively into the model to show the effect of surface tension. What is more, in order to validate the new model, three kinds of working fluids with different surface tensions are creatively adopted in the experiments: water, silicone oil and ethyl alcohol. The final results show that surface tension has a nonnegligible effect on the onset of liquid entrainment in large branch T-junction. The new model is well matched with the experimental data.