• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.670-670
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• 2013

The concept of a fusion-driven transmutation reactor based on LAR (Low Aspect Ratio) tokamak as a neutron source is studied based on ITER physics and technology. The radial build of transmutation reactor components are self-consistently determined by coupling the systems analysis with radiation transport analysis and an optimal configuration of a transmutation reactor for aspect ratio, A in the range of 1.5 to 2.0 is found. The performance of a transmutation reactor is investigated and shows that a transmutation reactor with a neutron source producing fusion power less than 150 MW can destroy the transuranic actinides contained in the spent fuels produced from more than two 1 GWe PWRs with production of the fission power being greater than 2 GW.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.201-205
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• 2006

HYPER(Hybrid Power Extraction Reactor) is the accelerator driven subcritical transmutation system developed by KAERI(Korea Atomic Research Institute). HYPER is designed to transmute long-lived transuranic actinides and fission products such as Tc-99 and I-129. Liquid lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE). Has been a primary candidate for coolant and spallation neutron target due to its appropriate thermal-physical and chemical properties, However, it is very corrosive to the common steels used in nuclear installations at high temperature. This corrosion problem is one of the main factors considered to set the upper limits of temperature and velocity of HYPER system. In this study, a parametric study for a corrosion model was performed. And a preliminary corrosion model was also developed to predict the corrosion rate in isothermal Pb and LBE flow loops.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.80-87
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• 2018

Consideration is given to the possibility to use changes in buoyancy as a negative reactivity feedback mechanism during temperature transients in heavy liquid metal fast reactors. It is shown that by the proper use of heavy pellets in the fuel elements, fuel rods could be endowed with a passive self-ejection mechanism and then with a negative feedback. A first estimate of the feasibility of the mechanism is calculated by using a simplified geometry and model. If in addition, a neutron poison pellet is introduced at the bottom of the fuel, then when the fuel element is displaced upward by buoyancy force, the reactivity will be reduced not only by disassembly of the core but also by introducing the neutron poison from the bottom. The use of induced buoyancy opens up the possibility of introducing greater amounts of actinides into the core, as well as providing a palliative solution to the problem of positive coolant temperature reactivity coefficients that could be featured by the heavy liquid metal fast reactors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.70-75
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• 1997

A CASMO/ORIGEN coupling utility program was developed to predict the composition of all the fission products in spent PWR fuels. The coupling program reads the CASMO output file, modifies the ORIGEN cross section library and reconstructs the ORIGEN input file at each depletion step. In ORIGEN, the burnup equation is solved for actinides and fission products based on the fission reaction rates and depletion flux of CASMO. A sample calculation has been performed using a 14$\times$14 PWR fuel assembly and the results are given in this paper.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.7
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• pp.2339-2358
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• 2022

The review discusses various alternative approaches for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) reprocessing in aqueous carbonate media. The main stages, schemes, and methods of the most well-known and well-described processes for reprocessing SNF and some high-level radioactive waste using carbonate systems developed by research groups in Japan, the United States of America, the Republic of Korea, and the Russian Federation described and compared. The main advantages of such methods are outlined compared to the SNF reprocessing in nitric acid media. The levels of development and proximity of the designed processes to the industrial implementation are shown. The main principle achievements, prospects, and routes for the refinement of such methods for the technology of SNF reprocessing and handling of high-level radioactive waste formulated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.8
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• pp.3071-3079
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• 2023

Helium production in the nuclear fuel matrix during irradiation plays a critical role in the design and performance of Gen-IV reactor fuel, as it represents a life-limiting factor for the operation of fuel pins. In this work, a surrogate model for the helium production rate in fast reactor MOX fuels is developed, targeting its inclusion in engineering tools such as fuel performance codes. This surrogate model is based on synthetic datasets obtained via the SCIANTIX burnup module. Such datasets are generated using Latin hypercube sampling to cover the range of input parameters (e.g., fuel initial composition, fission rate density, and irradiation time) and exploiting the low computation requirement of the burnup module itself. The surrogate model is verified against the SCIANTIX burnup module results for helium production with satisfactory performance.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.391-407
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• 2023

This article provides a survey of wet (aqueous) methods for recovery, separation, and purification of uranium from fission products in carbonate solutions during the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and methods for removal of radionuclides from alkaline radioactive waste. The main methods such as selective direct precipitation, ion exchange, and solvent extraction are considered. These methods were compared and evaluated for reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel in carbonate media according to novel alternative non-acidic methods and for treatment processes of alkaline radioactive waste.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.27-39
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• 1996

The change in spent fuel characteristics by DUPIC fuel cycle(burnup of spent PWR fuel again in CANDU) is examined with time elapse since discharge. Major characteristics examined include isotopic concentration, radioactivity, decay heat radiotoxicity and radiation source-term of spent fuel material, which is existing in a type of spent PWR and DUPIC fuel. Behaviors of major nuclides contributing to such changes are also analyzed in terms of radionuclide concentration. From the analysis, the change in radionuclide concentration by DUPIC shows approximately 2% decrease in actinides concentration and 20% increase in fission products concentration. Radioactivity and decay heat of spent DUPIC fuel does not depend upon radionuclides concentrations, which is a unique in sence of general characteristics of spent fuel. In terms of gamma spectrum, spent DUPIC fuel shows lower values than that of spent PWR fuel by 40 to 50% in the range of $0.01{\sim}0.575$ MeV but much higher over 3.5MeV. Neutron Intensities of both spent fuels are mainly determined by $({\alpha},\;n)$ reaction and spontaneous fission reaction of actinides. Of them, especially, the spontaneous fission reaction Is a major neutron source-term, which causes that neutron intensities of spent DUPIC fuel $having{\sim}3.3$ times higher Cm-244 concentration are ${\sim}4$ times higher than that of spent PWR fuel.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.3367-3378
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• 2021

The design phase and safety assessment of Generation IV liquid metal-cooled fast reactors calls for the improvement of fuel pin performance codes, in particular the enhancement of their predictive capabilities towards uranium-plutonium mixed oxide fuels and stainless-steel cladding under irradiation in fast reactor environments. To this end, the current capabilities of fuel performance codes must be critically assessed against experimental data from available irradiation experiments. This work is devoted to the assessment of three European fuel performance codes, namely GERMINAL, MACROS and TRANSURANUS, against the irradiation of two fuel pins selected from the SUPERFACT-1 experimental campaign. The pins are characterized by a low enrichment (~ 2 wt.%) of minor actinides (neptunium and americium) in the fuel, and by plutonium content and cladding material in line with design choices envisaged for liquid metal-cooled Generation IV reactor fuels. The predictions of the codes are compared to several experimental measurements, allowing the identification of the current code capabilities in predicting fuel restructuring, cladding deformation, redistribution of actinides and volatile fission products. The integral assessment against experimental data is complemented by a code-to-code benchmark focused on the evolution of quantities of engineering interest over time. The benchmark analysis points out the differences in the code predictions of fuel central temperature, fuel-cladding gap width, cladding outer radius, pin internal pressure and fission gas release and suggests potential modelling development paths towards an improved description of the fuel pin behaviour in fast reactor irradiation conditions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2004.06a
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• pp.337-337
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• 2004

As one of researches for the P ＆ T purposes, a basic experiment on the recovery of actinide elements from the mixture with rare earth elements by means of electrorefining using a liquid cadmium cathode in the LiCl-KC1 eutectic melt was carried out. In order to examine the behaviors of electrodeposition of metal ions on a liquid electrode, recovery experiments of rare earth metals resulting from forming electrodeposits were performed by a galvanostatic electrolysis method at various current densities. A cyclic voltammetric technique was applied to determine reduction-oxidation potential of each metal element in the melt and to detect the changes of the multi component melt composition for on-line monitoring. Also, a collaboration study with RIAR was completed to test the preliminary feasibility on a recovery of actinide elements from the mixture with rare earth elements using a liquid cadmium cathode and actinide metals. Experimental results showed that the ratio of actinides to rare earths, 9: 0.5∼1 led to the rare earth content of about 5∼10 wt% in the deposit.