• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.2288-2297
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• 2023

Current designs of both large reactor units and small modular reactors utilize a nuclear fuel with increasing enrichment. This increasing demand for better nuclear fuel utilization is a challenge for nuclear fuel handling facilities. The operation with higher enriched fuels leads to reduced reserves to legislative and safety criticality limits of spent fuel transport, storage and final disposal facilities. Design changes in these facilities are restricted due to a boron content in steel and aluminum alloys that are limited by rolling, extrusion, welding and other manufacturing processes. One possible solution for spent fuel pools and casks is the burnup credit method that allows decreasing very high safety margins associated with the fresh fuel assumption in spent fuel facilities. This solution can be supplemented or replaced by an alternative solution based on placing the neutron absorber material directly into the fuel assembly, where its efficiency is higher than between fuel assemblies. A neutron absorber permanently fixed in guide tubes decreases system reactivity more efficiently than absorber sheets between the fuel assemblies. The paper summarizes possibilities of fixed neutron absorbers for various nuclear fuel and fuel handling facilities. Moreover, an absorber material was optimized to propose alternative options to boron. Multiple effective absorbers that do not require steel or aluminum alloy compatibility are discussed because fixed absorbers are placed inside zirconium or steel cladding.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.262-267
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• 2023

Boron carbide (B₄C) is highly significant in the production of lightweight protective materials when added to aluminum owing to its exceptional mechanical properties. In this study, a method for fabricating Al-B₄C composites using high-energy ball milling and directed energy deposition (DED) is presented. Al-4 wt.% B4C composites were fabricated under 21 different laser conditions to analyze the microstructure and mechanical properties at different values of laser power and scan speeds. The composites fabricated at a laser power of 600 W and the same scan speed exhibited the highest hardness and generated the fewest pores. In contrast, the composites fabricated at a laser power of 1000 W exhibited the lowest hardness and generated a significant number of large pores. This can be explained by the influence of the microstructure on the energy density at different values of laser power.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.183-188
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• 2008

Hot press forming allows geometrically complicated parts to be formed from sheet and the rapid cooling hardens them to extremely high strength. The main purpose of this research is to characterize Al coated layer in Al coated boron steel during hot press forming. For the hot press hardening experiment, test specimens were heated up to $810{\sim}930^{\circ}C$ and held for 3, 6 and 9 minutes, respectively. And then, some specimens were press hardened and others were air-cooled without any pressing for the comparison purpose. Al coated layer shows four distinct micro-structural regions of interest; diffusion zone, Al-Fe zone(I) low-Al zone(LAZ) and Al-Fe zone(II). Band-like LAZ is clearly shown at temperature ranges of $810{\sim}870^{\circ}C$ and sparsely dispersed at temperature higher than 900oC. The micro-cracking behavior in the Al coated layer during forming were also analyzed by bending and deep drawing tests. The strain concentration in softer LAZ is found to be closely related with micro-cracking and exfoliation in coated layer during forming.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.928-935
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• 2012

World Agriculture faces daunting challenges in feeding the growing population today. Reduction in arable land extent due to numerous reasons threatens achievement of food and nutritional security. Under this back ground, agricultural use of acidic soils, which account for approximately 40 % of the world arable lands is of utmost important. However, due to aluminum (Al) toxicity and low available phosphorous (P) content, crop production in acidic soils is restricted. Citrus, in this context, gains worldwide recognition as a crop adapted to harsh environments. The present paper reviewed Al toxicity and possible toxicity alleviation tactics in citrus. As reported for many other crops, inhibition of root elongation, photosynthesis and growth is experienced in citrus also due to Al toxicity. Focusing at toxicity alleviation, interaction between boron (B) and Al as well as phosphorus and Al has been discussed intensively. Al toxicity in citrus could be alleviated by P through increasing immobilization of Al in roots and P level in shoots rather than through increasing organic acid secretion, which has been widely reported in other crops. Boron-induced changes in Al speciation and/or sub-cellular compartmentation has also been suggested in amelioration of root inhibition in citrus. Despite the species-dependent manner of response to Al toxicity, many commercially important citrus species can be grown successfully in acidic soils, provided toxicity alleviation Agro-biological tactics such as addition of phosphorous fertilizers are used properly.

• The Korean Journal of Ceramics
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.187-190
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• 1997

The aluminum-magnesium (Al-Mg) aklloys have been proved to be an effective solvent for synthesis of cubic-phase boron nitride (cBN) from hexagonal-phase boron nitride (hBN) at the conditions of high pressures and high temperatures (HP/HT). Various kinds of hBN powders having different crystallinity have been tested for cBN synthesis with Al-Mg solvents. The conversion ratio from hBN to cBN and the shape of synthesized cBN crystals appeared to be affected strongly by chemical composition and added amount of Al-Mg solvents as well as crystallinity of BN powders. As the magnesium content increased in the Al-Mg solvents, the conversion ratio increased and the size of cBN crystals became larger. The crystal facets developed well in the specimens with solvents having high Mg content. It was observed that a hBNlongrightarrowcBN transformation occurred more easily in the specimens having well crystallized hBN powders. Amorphous BN having much $B_2O_3$ impurity exhibited a low threshold temperature for transformation to cBN, which was attributed to crystallization of amorphous BN to well crystallized hBN prior to transformation into cBN with help of $B_2O_3$.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.155-165
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• 2016

Understanding the effect of boron content on atomic structures of boron-bearing multicomponent silicate melts is essential to reveal the atomistic origins of diverse geochemical processes involving silica-rich magmas, such as explosive volcanic eruption. The detailed atomic environments around B and Al in boron-bearing complex aluminosilicate glasses yield atomistic insights into reactivity of nuclear waste glasses in contact with aqueous solutions. We report experimental results on the effect of boron content on the atomic structures of sodium borate glasses and boron-bearing multicomponent silicate melts [malinkoite ($NaBSiO_4$)-nepheline ($NaAlSiO_4$) pseudo-binary glasses] using the high-resolution solid-state NMR ($^{11}B$ and $^{27}Al$). The $^{11}B$ MAS NMR spectra of sodium borate glasses show that three-coodrinated boron ($^{[3]}B$) increases with increasing $B_2O_3$ content. While the spectra imply that the fraction of non-ring species decreases with decreasing boron content, peak position of the species is expected to vary with Na content. Therefore, the quantitative estimation of the fractions of the ring/non-ring species remains to be explored. The $^{11}B$ MAS NMR spectra of the glasses in the malinkoite-nepheline join show that four-coordinated boron ($^{[4]}B$) increases as $X_{Ma}$ [$=NaBSiO_4/(NaBSiO_4+NaAlSiO_4)$] increases while $^{[3]}B$ decreases. $^{27}Al$ MAS NMR spectra of the multicomponent glasses confirm that four-coordinated aluminum ($^{[4]}Al$) is dominant. It is also observed that a drastic decrease in the peak widths (full-width at half-maximum, FWHM) of $^{[4]}Al$ with an addition of boron ($X_{Ma}=0.25$) in nepheline glasses. This indicates a decrease in structural and topological disorder around $^{[4]}Al$ in the glasses with increasing boron content. The quantitative atomic environments around boron of both binary and multicomponent glasses were estimated from the simulation results of $^{11}B$ MAS NMR spectra, revealing complex-nonlinear variation of boron topology with varying composition. The current results can be potentially used to account for the structural origins of the change in macroscopic properties of boron-bearing oxide melts with varying boron content.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.411-418
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• 2019

Light-triggered thyristors (LTTs) are essential components in high-power applications, such as HVDC transmission and several pulsed-power applications. Generally, LTT fabrication includes a deep diffusion of aluminum as a p-type dopant to form a uniform p-base region, which needs careful concern for contamination and additional facilities in silicon semiconductor manufacturing factories. We fabricated 4-inch 5,000 V LTTs with boron implantation and diffusion process as a p-type dopant. The LTT contains a main cathode region, edge termination designed with a variation of lateral doping, breakover diode, integrated resistor, photosensitive area, and dV/dt protection region. The doping concentration of each region was adjusted with different doses of boron ion implantation. The fabricated LTTs showed good light triggering characteristics for a light pulse of 905 nm and a blocking voltage (V_DRM) of 6,500 V. They drove an average on-state current (I_TAVM) of 2,270 A, peak nonrepetitive surge current (I_TSM) of 61 kA, critical rate of rise of on-state current (di/dt) of 1,010 A/㎲, and limiting load integral (I²T) of 17 MA²s without damage to the device.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.277-286
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• 2004

Defective metallic components and structures are being repaired with bonded composite patches to improve overall mechanical and fatigue properties. In this study, fatigue crack growth tests were conducted on pre-cracked 7075/T6 Aluminum substrates with and without bonded Boron/epoxy patches. A considerable increase in the fatigue life and a decrease in the stress intensity factor (SIF) were observed as the number of patch plies increased. The experimental results demonstrate that the patch configurations and patch thickness can enhance fatigue life by order of magnitude. Quantitative comparisons between analytical and experimental data were made, and the analytical model based on a modified Rose's analytical solution appears to best estimate the fatigue life.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.92-101
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• 2019

This study investigates how rivet head height affects the corrosion performance of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) to aluminum alloy self-piercing riveted joints. Specimens with two different head heights were prepared. A rivet head protruding out of the top CFRP laminate forms the proud head height while a rivet head penetrating into the top CFRP generates the flush head height. The salt spray test evaluated corrosion performance. The flush head joints suffered from severe corrosion on the rivet head. Thus, the tensile shear load of flush head joints was substantially reduced. Electrochemical corrosion tests investigated the corrosion mechanisms. The deeper indentation of the flush head height damaged the CFRP around the rivet head. The exposure of damaged fibers from the matrix increased the cathodic potential of local CFRP. The increased potential of damaged CFRP accelerated the galvanic corrosion of the rivet head. After the rivet head coating material corroded, a strong galvanic couple was formed between the rivet head base metal (boron steel) and the damaged CFRP, further accelerating the flush rivet head corrosion. The results of this study suggest that rivet head flushness should be avoided to enhance the corrosion performance of CFRP to aluminum alloy self-piercing riveted joints.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.136-142
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• 2017

Using various compositions of thermally conductive inorganic fillers with boron nitride (BN) and aluminum oxide ($Al_2O_3$), solventless UV-curable thermally conductive acrylic pressure sensitive adhesives (PSAs) were prepared. The base of the PSAs consists of 2-ethylhexyl acrylate, 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate, and isobornyl acrylate.The compositions of the thermally conductive inorganic fillers were 10, 15, 20, and 25 phr in case of BN, and 20:0, 15:5, 10:10, 5:15, and 0:20 phr in case of $BN/Al_2O_3$. The adhesion properties like peel strength, shear strength, and probe tack, and the thermal conductivity of the prepared PSAs were investigated with different thermally conductive inorganic filler contents. There were no significant changes in photo-polymerization behavior with increasing BN or $BN/Al_2O_3$ content. Meanwhile, the conversion rate and transmittance of the PSAs decreased and their thermal stabilities increased with increasing BN content. Their adhesion properties were also independent of the BN or $BN/Al_2O_3$ content. The dispersibility of BN in the acrylic PSAs was better than that of $Al_2O_3$ and it ranked the thermal conductivity in the following order: BN > $BN/Al_2O_3$ > $Al_2O_3$.