• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.54-65
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• 2000

The objective of this study is to evaluate the operator performance relating to hand switches with two or three buttons in the main control rooms of nuclear power plants. Based on the comparative analysis of the nuclear power plants, two different subjective workload-rating scales were used to evaluate the performance of 48 operators: the Overall Workload(OW) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index (NASA TLX). The survey questions consisting of the eight-items were asked to evaluate the operating experiences for the two different switch types. The OW scales ratings were applied to measure the workload of the switch-related tasks. The ratings revealed that signal detection tasks caused less workload in the three-buttoned-switch operators than the other switch group. However, in the switch operation tasks, the switch types did not show statistically significant effects on workload level. The NASA TLX scale ratings were performed based on detailed task scenarios that assumed the accident of small break loss of coolant, what we call, the small LOCH. The NASA TLX was administered to three different task groups: the reactor, the turbine, and the electric operator groups. Based on the NASA TLX, the two-buttoned switch groups showed higher workload than those with the three-buttoned switches. However, a statistically significant difference was found only in the reactor operator groups. When the current switch type was assumed to be changed for the other type, all of the three-buttoned switch groups were predicted to have higher workload than the other switch groups, respectively. The implications of these findings were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.107-113
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• 2015

The goal of this paper is to investigate structural integrity factors of RMI(reflective metal insulation) to confirm the design requirements in nuclear power plant. Currently, a glass wool insulation is using now, but it will gradually be replaced with the reflective metal insulation maded by stainless steel plates. The main function of an insulation is to minimize a heat loss of vessel and pipes in RCS(reactor coolant system). It has to maintain structural a integrity in nuclear power plant life duration. In this study, the structural integrity analysis was carried out both multi-plate and outer shell plate by using a static analysis and experimental test. First, inner multi-plate has a self support structure for being air space. Because the effect of total static weight in multi-layer plate is low, a plate collapse possibility is not high. Considering optimum thin plate pressing process, it has to pre-check the basic physical properties. Second, the outer segment thickness and stiffener shape are verified by the numerical static analysis, and sample test for both type of panel and cylindrical pipe model.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.229-234
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• 2016

Self-powered neutron detector (SPND) is being widely used to monitor the reactor core of the nuclear power plants. The SPND contains a neutron-sensitive metallic emitter surrounded by a ceramic insulator. Currently, the vanadium (V) SPND has been being developed to be used in OPR1000 nuclear power plants. Some Monte Carlo simulations were accomplished to calculate the initial sensitivity of vanadium emitter material and alumina insulator with a cylindrical geometry. An MCNP code was used to simulate some factors (neutron self-shielding factor and beta escape probability from the emitter) and space charge effect of an insulator necessary to calculate the sensitivity of vanadium detector. The simulation results were compared with some theoretical and experimental values. The method presented here can be used to analyze the optimum design of the vanadium SPND and contribute to the development of TMI (Top-mount In-core Instrumentation) which might be used in the SMART and SMR.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.12
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• pp.4335-4349
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• 2023

Nuclear marine propulsion has been emerging as a next generation carbon-free power source, for which proper passive residual heat removal systems (PRHRSs) are needed for long-term safety. In particular, the characteristics of unlimited operation time and compact design are crucial in maritime applications due to the difficulties of safety aids and limited space. Accordingly, a compact and long-term-operable PRHRS has been proposed with the key design concept of using both air cooling and seawater cooling in tandem. To confirm its feasibility, this study conducted system design and a transient analysis in an accident scenario. Design results indicate that seawater cooling can considerably reduce the overall system size, and thus the compact and long-term-operable PRHRS can be realized. Regarding the transient analysis, the Multi-dimensional Analysis of Reactor Safety (MARS-KS) code was used to analyze the system behavior under a station blackout condition. Results show that the proposed design can satisfy the design requirements with a sufficient margin: the coolant temperature reached the safe shutdown condition within 36 h, and the maximum cooling rate did not exceed 40 ℃/h. Lastly, it was assessed that both air cooling and seawater cooling are necessary for achieving long-term operation and compact design.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.3-11
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• 1999

The atomic fuel rods between top and bottom end pieces of reactor need to be extended for high combustion rate of future-type fuel to increase the irradiation in the axial direction. For allowing axial extension of the fuel rods, the space between top and bottom end pieces should be expanded. Thus the thickness reduction of the flow plate is necessary. This study was carried out the mechanical strength test by using strain gages as a function of flow plate thickness, the existence of skirt and loading condition for the Korean Fuel Assembly(KOFA). The experimental apparatus was designed for load conditions, uniformly distributed load and displacement. Test method using whiffle tree of uniformly distributed load has been comparatively conservative. The test results were compared with those of finite element analysis and the test method on bottom end piece was established.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2002.06e
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• pp.153-156
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• 2002

The remotely operated underwater robotic vehicle system has been required to inspect some objects such as baffle former bolts and remove foreign objects in reactor vessel of nuclear power plant. In this paper, we have designed the remotely operated underwater robotic vehicle system that includes a long reach arm that is composed of 4 joints to remove foreign objects in a narrow space, a camera for visual test, instrument sensors for vehicle positioning, 4 thrusters for underwater navigation of vehicle, and supervisory control system implemented with industrial PC that includes robot simulator that has the functions of real time visualization, robot work planning and etc.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.192-197
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• 1987

Two-point kinetic equations for a compact-core-with-bulky-D$_2$O-reflector system were developed. A unique feature of the system is that certain fission gammas create retarded photoneutrons in the D$_2$O reflector by (ｒ, n) reaction. Coupling effect between the core and the reflector was investigated by simulating power transients with various ramp reactivity insertions. Special attention was paid to the phenomenon associated with spatial separation of photoneutrons and their precursors. Simulations show that accuracy of the two-point model is comparable with that of space-dependent approach. Also it is found that the explicily expressed photoneutron terms in the reflector equation slow down the power transient compared to non-photoneutron expressions. Detectors for reactor power control purpose prefer to be deployed in the core zone to be able to accurately perdict transient power.

• 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.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.1-9
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• 1997

These papers propose an evolutionary algorithm for re-using output of waste fuel of light water reactor system in nuclear power plants. Evolutionary algorithm is useful for optimization of the large space problem. The wastes contain several re-useable elements, and they should be carefully selected and blended to satisfy requirements as input material to the heavy water nuclear reactor system. This problem belongs to a NP-hard like the 0/1 Knapsack problem. Two evolutionary strategies are used as a, pp.oximation algorithms in the highly constrained combinatorial optimization problem. One is the traditional strategy, using random operator with evaluation function, and the other is heuristic based search that uses the vector operator reducing between goal and current status. We also show the method, which performs the feasible teat and solution evaluation by using the vectorized data in problem. Finally, We compare the simulation results of using random operator and vector operator for such combinatorial optimization problems.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.608-616
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• 2022

Power peaking factors (PPF) is an important parameter for safe and efficient reactor operation. There are several methods to calculate the PPF at TRIGA research reactors such as MCNP and TRIGLAV codes. However, these methods are time-consuming and required high specifications of a computer system. To overcome these limitations, artificial intelligence was introduced for parameter prediction. Previous studies applied the neural network method to predict the PPF, but the publications using the ANFIS method are not well developed yet. In this paper, the prediction of PPF using the ANFIS was conducted. Two input variables, control rod position, and neutron flux were collected while the PPF was calculated using TRIGLAV code as the data output. These input-output datasets were used for ANFIS model generation, training, and testing. In this study, four ANFIS model with two types of input space partitioning methods shows good predictive performances with R² values in the range of 96%-97%, reveals the strong relationship between the predicted and actual PPF values. The RMSE calculated also near zero. From this statistical analysis, it is proven that the ANFIS could predict the PPF accurately and can be used as an alternative method to develop a real-time monitoring system at TRIGA research reactors.