• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.197-201
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• 2007

Vibration characteristics of an annular cylindrical fuel rod, which was proposed as a candidate design of fuel's cross section for the ultra-high burnup nuclear fuel, according to the cross-sectional dimensions and the number of supports or the span length were analytically studied. Finite element(FE) modeling for the annular cross sectional fuel was based on the methodology, that have been proven by the test verification, for the conventional PWR nuclear fuel rod. A commercial FEA code, ABAQUS, was used for the FE modeling and analysis. A planar beam element (B21) that uses a linear interpolation was used for the fuel rod and a linear spring element for the spring and dimple of the SG. Natural frequencies and mode shape were calculated according to the preliminary design candidates for the fuel's cross sectional dimension and the number of span. From the analysis results, the design scheme of the annular fuel compatible to the present PWR nuclear reactor core was discussed in terms of the number of supports and fuel's cross section.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.102-110
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• 2002

In this paper, we present the fabrication of tunable capacitors and 3-dimensional inductors. This work was related to fabricated 3-dimensional device for need of micro device in developing new intelligence age. This device was fabricated by electroplating used electroplating PR and high-vacuum evaporation of metal. Fabricated micro-inductor is consisted of air-bridge on electroplating rod and electroplated core. Micro-capacitor is consisted of thin metal membrane and electroplated core. Electroplating material is used Cu metal solvent. Air-gap between metal-layers function as almost perfect isolation layer. The most advantage of our micro-inductor and micro-capacitor compared to present device is a possibility that can fabricate on RF MEMS(microelectro-mechanical systems) application with high performance and various function. In this paper, we present the fabrication of tunable capacitors and 3-dimensional inductors. This work was related to fabricated 3-dimensional device for need of micro-device in developing new intelligence age. This device was fabricated by electroplating used electroplating PR and high-vacuum evaporation of metal. Fabricated micro-inductor is consisted of air-bridge on electroplating rod and electroplated core. Micro-capacitor is consisted of thin metal membrane and electroplated core. Electroplating material is used Cu metal solvent. Air-gap between metal-layers function as almost perfect isolation layer. The most advantage of our micro-inductor and micro-capacitor compared to present device is a possibility that can fabricate on RF MEMS application with high performance and various functions.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.77-84
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• 2008

Based upon the good compatibility to neutron irradiation and high temperature water environment, austenitic stainless steels are widely used for core internal structural materials of light water reactors. But, recently, intergranular cracking was detected in the stainless steels for the core applications in some commercial PWR plants. Authors studied on the root cause of the intergranular cracking and developed the countermeasure including the alternative materials for these core applications. The intergranular cracking in these core applications are defined as an irradiation assisted mechanical cracking and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking. In this paper, the root cause of the intergranular cracking and its countermeasure are summarized and discussed.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.59-64
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• 2000

Especially, demands for the noise reduction of mold transformer has been becoming an common issue because it has been used mainly at the residence area such as building and ship. So, this paper investigates the noise source and countermeasure of mold transformer radiated high noise abnormally. The result of impact hammering test for core of transformer ascertains the core resonance by harmonics of line frequency and high noise can be reduced to avoid core resonance by changing torque strength of tie rod. Magnetic field analysis is performed to identify the reason that noise of V-phase is higher than U and W-phase in the normal condition. It is the cause that flux density and magnetic force of V-phase is higher than the other phase respectively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.7
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• pp.1367-1379
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• 2020

The small modular sodium-cooled fast reactor (SMSFR) is an important component of Generation-IV reactors. The objective of this work is to improve the reactivity control in SMSFR by using innovative systems, including burnable poisons and optimized control rods. SMSFR with MOX fuel usually exhibits high burnup reactivity loss that leads to high excess reactivity and potential fuel melting in control rod withdrawal (CRW) accidents, which becomes an important constraint on the safety and economic efficiency of SMSFR. This work applies two types of burnable poisons in a SMSFR to reduce the excess reactivity. The first one homogenously loads minor actinides in the fuel. The second one combines absorber and moderators in specific assemblies. The influence of burnable poisons on the core characteristics is discussed and integrated into the analysis of CRW accidents. The results show that burnable poisons improve the safety performance of the core in a significant way. Burnable poisons also lessen the demand for the number, absorption ability, and insertion depth of control rods. Two optimized control rod designs with rare earth oxides (Eu₂O₃ and Gd₂O₃) and moderators are compared to the conventional design with natural boron carbide (B₄C). The optimized designs show improved neutronic and safety performance.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.371-379
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• 1990

The Xenon spatial oscillation may give rise to operational difficulties in a nuclear power plant. In this study, in order to investigate the Xenon instability for a PWR, the frequency-domain technique is adopted by using Generalized Nyquist Criterion, which is more general and suitable for the multi-input/multi-output system. Also linearized modal fluxes are obtained by a modal expansion. This model has been implemented to test the axial Xenon stability of YGN-1 unit against the changes in plant operating parameters ; power level, control rod position, and core average burnup. The results show that the increase of power level and the deeper insertion of control rod have the destabilizing effect, and that the burnup progress makes the core less stable. Also the results show that the overestimation due to modal interaction was found not to be significant.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.7
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• pp.885-892
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• 2009

This manuscript will discuss a numerical method where the six equations of two-phase flow, the solid heat conduction equations, and the two equations that describe neutron diffusion and precursor concentration are solved together in a tightly coupled, nonlinear fashion for a simplified model of a nuclear reactor core. This approach has two important advantages. The first advantage is a higher level of accuracy. Because the equations are solved together in a single nonlinear system, the solution is more accurate than the traditional "operator split" approach where the two-phase flow equations are solved first, the heat conduction is solved second and the neutron diffusion is solved third, limiting the temporal accuracy to $1^{st}$ order because the nonlinear coupling between the physics is handled explicitly. The second advantage of the method described in this manuscript is that the time step control in the fully implicit system can be based on the timescale of the solution rather than a stability-based time step restriction like the material Courant limit required of operator-split methods. In this work, a pilot code was used which employs this tightly coupled, fully implicit method to simulate a reactor core. Results are presented from a simulated control rod movement which show $2^{nd}$ order accuracy in time. Also described in this paper is a simulated rod ejection demonstrating how the fastest timescale of the problem can change between the state variables of neutronics, conduction and two-phase flow during the course of a transient.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.658-664
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• 2010

A control element drive mechanism(CEDM) is a reactor regulating system, which inserts, withdraws or maintains a control rod containing a neutron absorbing material within a reactor core to control the reactivity of the core. The ball-screw type CEDM for the integral reactor has a spring-damper system to reduce the impact force due to the scram of the CEDM. This paper describes the experimental results to obtain the drop and damping characteristics of the CEDM. The drop tests are performed by using a drop test rig and a facility. A drop time and a displacement after an impact are measured using a LVDT. The influences of the rod weight, the drop height and the flow area of hydraulic damper on the drop and damping behavior are also estimated on the basis of test results. The drop time of the control element is within 4.5s to meet the design requirement, and the maximum displacement is measured as 15.6 mm. It is also found that the damping system using a spring-hydraulic damper plays a good damper role in the CEDM.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.586-592
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• 2016

The magnetic-jack type CRDM withdraws or inserts a control rod assembly from/to the reactor core to control the core reactivity. The CRDM housings form not only the path of the electromagnetic field but also the pressure boundary of a nuclear reactor, and a periodic in-service inspection should be carried out if there are welded or flange jointed parts on the pressure boundary. The in-service inspection is a time-consuming process during the reactor refueling, and moreover it is difficult to perform the inspection over the reactor head. A magnetic motor housing is applied for the current SMART CRDM and has several welding joints, however a nonmagnetic motor housing with fewer or no welding joints may improve the operational efficiency of the nuclear reactor by avoiding or simplifying the in-service inspection process. Prior to the development, the magnetic field transfer efficiency of the nonmagnetic housing was required to be assessed. It was verified and optimized by the electromagnetic analysis of the lifting force estimation. Magnetic flux rings were adopted to improve the efficiency. In this paper, the design and optimization process of a nonmagnetic motor housing with the magnetic flux rings for the SMART CRDM are introduced and the analyses results are discussed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.1088-1099
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• 2021

Time-frequency analysis technique is an effective analysis tool for non-stationary processes. In the field of reactor neutron noise, the time-frequency analysis method has not been thoroughly researched and widely used. This work has studied the time-frequency analysis of the reactor neutron noise experimental signals under bubble disturbance and control rod vibration. First, an experimental platform was established, and it could be employed to reactor neutron noise experiment and data acquisition. Secondly, two types of reactor neutron noise experiments were performed, and valid experimental data was obtained. Finally, time-frequency analysis was conducted on the experimental data, and effective analysis results were obtained in the low-frequency part. Through this work, it can be concluded that the time-frequency analysis technique can effectively investigate the core dynamics behavior and deepen the identification of the unstable core process.