• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.1117-1131
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• 2019

Tanks are used extensively in many engineering areas for spent fuel pool structures at nuclear power plants or for water storage tanks in bulk carriers. To ensure the structural integrity of such tanks when under dynamic loads, modal characteristics such as natural frequencies, participation factors and mode shapes should be known. Investigated in this study are the modal characteristics of a square tank by the finite element method. This approach can be used with subsequent dynamic analyses such as a response spectrum analysis or a harmonic analysis. Finite element models are prepared to determine the natural frequencies and mode shapes, which are easy to find the modal characteristics of a fluid-filled square tank. The effects of the fluid contained in the tank and the boundary conditions at top and bottom ends on the modal characteristics are assessed by several finite element analyses.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.2847-2851
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• 2020

A simple water level measurement method based on wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) is proposed and demonstrated. The measurement principle is based on the change of Fresnel reflection occurring at the end facet of the optical fiber tip (OFT). To increase the spatial resolution of water level sensing, a broadband light source (BLS) and an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) are employed. The OFTs are multiplexed with the dedicated wavelength channels of AWG. By measuring all of the reflection powers reflected at the OFTs with a proposed on-site reflectometer, the water level can be monitored continuously for a fast emergency response. Moreover, it can be implemented easily with the commercially available optical components and devices with the simple configuration.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.394-399
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• 2005

A case history is presented pertaining to high frequency piping vibration and noise caused by globe valve in the spent fuel pool cooling system of nuclear power plant. Frequency analyses were performed on the system to diagnose the problem and develop a solution to reduce the piping vibration and noise. The source of the high frequency and noise energy was traced to the globe valve located immediately downstream of the centrifugal pump by performing valve throttling test. Measurements of vibration and noise are presented to show that the high frequency vibration and noise amplitude was dependent upon the valve disc position and flow rate. Strouhal vortex shedding frequencies were generated at the exit of the globe valve which exited structural resonance of valve disc and amplified the high frequency vibration and noise. The problem was identified as an interaction between the flow inside globe valve and the valve disc structure. Attempts to reduce the vibration and noise amplitudes of the piping system were successfully achieved by the modification of guide-disc diameter and disc-edge figure The valve disc was replaced by an alternative to eliminate the source of the harmful high frequency vibration and noise.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.746-751
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• 2003

A method of measuring the length of defects on the wall of the spent nuclear fuel pool using the image processing and a laser slit beam is proposed. Since the defect monitoring camera is suspended by a crane and hinged to the crane hook, the camera viewing direction can not be adjusted to the orientation that is exactly perpendicular to the wall. Thus, the image taken by the camera, which is horizontally rotated along the axis of the camera supporting beam, is distorted and thus, the precise length can not be measured. In this paper, by using the LASER slit beam generator, the horizontally rotated angle of the camera is estimated. Once the angle is obtained, the distorted image can be easily reconstructed to the image normal to the wall. The estimation algorithm adopts a 3-dimensional coordinate transformation of the image plane where both the laser slit beam and the original image of the defects exist. The estimation equation is obtained by using the information of the beam projected on the wall and the parameters of this equation are experimentally obtained. With this algorithm, the original image of the defect taken at arbitrary rotated angle can be reconstructed to an image normal to the wall. From the result of a series of experiments, the accuracy of the defect is measured within 0.6 and 1.3 % error bound of real defect size in the air and underwater, respectively under 30 degree of the inclined angle of the laser slit beam generator. Also, the error increases as the inclined angle increases upto 60 degree. Over this angle, the defect length can not be measured since the defect image disappears. The proposed algorithm enables the accurate measurement of the defect length only by using a single camera and a laser slit beam.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.397-416
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• 2020

Investigations of the commercial aircraft impact effect on nuclear island infrastructures have been drawing extensive attention, and this paper aims to perform the safety assessment of Generation III nuclear power plant (NPP) buildings subjected to typical commercial aircrafts crash. At present Part II, based on the verified finite element (FE) models of aircrafts Airbus A320 and A380, as well as the NPP containment and auxiliary buildings in Part I of this paper, the whole collision process is reproduced numerically by adopting the coupled missile-target interaction approach with the finite element code LS-DYNA. The impact induced damage of NPP plant under four impact locations of containment (cylinder, air intake, conical roof and PCS water tank) and two impact locations of auxiliary buildings (exterior wall and roof of spent fuel pool room) are evaluated. Furthermore, by considering the inner structures in the containment and raft foundation of NPP, the structural vibration analyses are conducted under two impact locations (middle height of cylinder, main control room in the auxiliary buildings). It indicates that, within the discussed scenarios, NPP structures can withstand the impact of both two aircrafts, while the functionality of internal equipment on higher floors will be affected to some extent under impact induced vibrations, and A380 aircraft will cause more serious structural damage and vibrations than A320 aircraft. The present work can provide helpful references to assess the safety of the structures and inner equipment of NPP plant under commercial aircraft impact.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.199-206
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• 2013

Electrowinning process in pyroprocessing recovers U (uranium) and TRU (Trans Uranium) elements simultaneously from spent fuels using a liquid cadmium cathode (LCC). When the solubility limit of U deposits over 2.35wt% in Cd, U dendrites were formed on the LCC surface during the electrodeposition at $500^{\circ}C$. Due to the high surface area of dendritic U, the deposits were not submerged into the liquid cadmium pool but grow out of the LCC crucible. Since the U dendrites act as a solid cathode, it prevents the co-deposition of U and TRUs. In this study, the electrodeposition of U onto a LCC was carried out at 440 and $500^{\circ}C$ to compare the morphology and component of U deposits. The U deposits at $440^{\circ}C$ have a specific shape and were stacked regularly at the center of the LCC pool, while the U dendrites (i.e., ${\alpha}$-phase) at $500^{\circ}C$ were grow out of the LCC crucible. Through the microscopic observation and XRD analysis, the electrodeposits at $440^{\circ}C$, which have a round shape, were identified as an intermetallic compound such as $UCd_{11}$. It can be concluded that the LCC electrowinning operation at $440^{\circ}C$ achieves the co-recovery of U and TRU without the formation of U dendrites.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.114-129
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• 2017

Background: The purpose of this paper is to confirm the event timings and the magnitude of fission product aerosol release from the Fukushima accident. Over a few hundreds of technical papers have been published on the environmental impact of Fukushima Daiichi accident since the accident occurred on March 11, 2011. However, most of the research used reverse or inverse method based on the monitoring of activities in the remote places and only few papers attempted to estimate the release of fission products from individual reactor core or from individual spent fuel pool. Severe accident analysis code can be used to estimate the radioactive release from which reactor core and from which radionuclide the peaks in monitoring points can be generated. Materials and Methods: The basic material used for this study are the initial core inventory obtained from the report JAEA-Data/Code 2012-018 and the given accident scenarios provided by Japanese Government or Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) in official reports. In this research a forward method using severe accident progression code is used as it might be useful for justifying the results of reverse or inverse method or vice versa. Results and Discussion: The release timing and amounts to the environment are estimated for volatile radioactive fission products such as noble gases, cesium, iodine, and tellurium up to 184 hours (about 7.7 days) after earthquake occurs. The in-plant fission product behaviors and release characteristics to environment are estimated using the severe accident progression analysis code, MELCOR, for Fukushima Daiichi accident. These results are compared with other research results which are summarized in UNSCEAR 2013 Report and other technical papers. Also it may provide the physically based arguments for justifying or suspecting the rationale for the scenarios provided in open literature. Conclusion: The estimated results by MELCOR code simulation of this study indicate that the release amount of volatile fission products to environment from Units 1, 2, and 3 cores is well within the range estimated by the reverse or inverse method, which are summarized in UNSCEAR 2013 report. But this does not necessarily mean that these two approaches are consistent.