• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.7
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• pp.2418-2426
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• 2022

The grouping analysis is a method guided by the Korea Radioactive Waste Agency for efficient analysis of radioactive waste for disposal. In this study, experiments to verify the adequacy of grouping analysis were conducted with radioactive soil, concrete, and dry active waste in similar environments. First, analysis results of the major radionuclide concentrations in individual waste samples were reviewed to evaluate whether wastes from similar environments correspond to a single waste stream. As a result, the soil and concrete waste were identified as a single waste stream because the distribution range of radionuclide concentrations was "within a factor of 10", the range that meet the criterion of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a single waste stream. On the other hand, the dry active waste was judged to correspond to distinct waste streams. Second, after analyzing the composite samples prepared by grouping the individual samples, the population means of the values of "composite sample analysis results/individual sample analysis results" were estimated at a 95% confidence level. The results showed that all evaluation values for soil and concrete waste were within the set reference values (0.1-10) when five-package and ten-package grouping analyses were conducted, verifying the adequacy of the grouping analysis.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.12-21
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• 2023

Governments and global companies are working towards using renewable sources of energy, such as solar, wind, and biomass, to reduce dependency on fossil fuels. In the defense sector, the new strategy seeks to increase the sustainable use of renewable energy sources to improve energy security and reduce military transportation. Renewable energy technologies are affected by factors such as climate, resources, and policy environments. Therefore, governments and global companies need to carefully select the optimal renewable energy sources and deployment strategies. Biomass is a promising energy source owing to its high energy density and ease of collection and harvesting. Many techniques have been developed to convert the biomass into electrical energy. Recently, diverse types of fuel cells have been suggested that can directly convert the chemical energy of biomass into electrical energy. The recently developed biomass flow fuel cell has significantly enhanced the power density several hundred times, reaching to ~100 mW/cm². In this review, we explore various strategies for producing electrical energy from biomass using modern methods, and discuss the challenges and potential prospects of this method.

• Ceramist
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.110-121
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• 2019

Triboelectric nanogenerators and piezoelectric nanogenerators are a spotlighted energy harvesting method that converts the wasted mechanical energy from the environment into usable electrical energy. In the case of triboelectric nanogenerators, researches have been mainly focused on high permittivity and flexible polymer materials, and in the case of piezoelectric nanogenerators, researches have been focused on ceramic materials exhibiting high polarization characteristics. Recently, many researches have been conducted to improve durability and power in various environments by using composite materials which have flexible properties of polymer, high permittivity, thermal resistance and high polarization properties of ceramics. This article reviews the energy harvesting studies reported about composites materials using ceramics and polymers.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.145-151
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• 2008

Material degradation such as high temperature oxidation of metallic material is a severe problem in energy generation systems or manufacturing industries. The metallic materials are oxidized to form oxide films in high temperature environments. The oxide films act as diffusion barriers of oxygen and metal ions and thereafter decrease oxidation rates of metals. The metal oxidation is, however, accelerated by mechanical fracture and spalling of the oxide films caused by thermal stresses by repetition of temperature change, vibration and by the impact of solid particles. It is therefore very important to investigate mechanical properties and adhesion of oxide films in high temperature environments, as well as the properties in a room temperature environment. The oxidation tests were conducted for Ni and Ni-Co alloy under high temperature corrosive environments. The hardness distributions against the indentation depth from the top surface were examined at room temperature. Dynamic indentation tests were performed on Ni oxide films formed on Ni surfaces at room and high temperature to observe fractures or cracks generated around impact craters. As a result, it was found that the mechanical property as hardness of the oxide films were different between Ni and Ni-Co alloy, and between room and high temperatures, and that the adhesion of Ni oxide films was relatively stronger than that of Co oxide films.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.333-348
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• 2018

An analytical method is developed for analysing the contact buckling response of infinitely long, thin corrugated plates and flat plates restrained by a Winkler tensionless foundation and subjected to linearly varying in-plane loadings, where the corrugated plates are modelled as orthotropic plates and the flat plates are modelled as isotropic plates. The critical step in the presented method is the explicit expression for the lateral buckling mode function, which is derived through using the energy method. Simply supported and clamped edges conditions on the unloaded edges are considered in this study. The acquired lateral deflection function is applied to the governing buckling equations to eliminate the lateral variable. Considering the boundary conditions and continuity conditions at the border line between the contact and non-contact zones, the buckling coefficients and the corresponding buckling modes are found. The analytical solution to the buckling coefficients is also expressed through a fitted approximate formula in terms of foundation stiffness, which is verified through previous studies and finite element (FE) method.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.344-349
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• 2015

An interconnect is the key component of solid oxide fuel cells that electrically connects unit cells and separates fuel from oxidant in the adjoining cells. To improve their surface stability in high-temperature oxidizing environments, metallic interconnects are usually coated with conductive oxides. In this study, lanthanum nickelates ($LaNiO_3$) with a perovskite structure are synthesized and applied as protective coatings on a metallic interconnect (Crofer 22 APU). The partial substitution of Co, Cu, and Fe for Ni improves electrical conductivity as well as thermal expansion match with the Crofer interconnect. The protective perovskite layers are fabricated on the interconnects by a slurry coating process combined with optimized heat-treatment. The perovskite-coated interconnects show area-specific resistances as low as $16.5-37.5m{\Omega}{\cdot}cm^2$ at $800^{\circ}C$.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.399-407
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• 2022

Energy absorption facilities installed on roads should follow the performance standards of the real-car crash test of 'Installation and Maintenance Guidelines for Roadside Safety Facilities'. However, due to different installation conditions, such as differing structure widths on roads, some energy absorption facilities do not provide adequate performance. In order to apply varied environments on roads, an energy absorption structure was designed in this study with 150 mm height and four layers of W-shape guardrail at 200 mm intervals, and the performance was verified using LS-DYNA computer simulation. Through a real-car crash test, the performance of the facility designed by LS-DYNA was tested and was found to meet the performance of the CC2 category for crash cushions. The conclusion of the comparison demonstrates that the simulation and the real-car crash tests are both significant.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.7
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• pp.396-401
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• 2011

In this paper, we propose a novel voice activity detection (VAD) algorithm to effectively distinguish speech from nonspeech in various noisy environments. The presented VAD utilizes the power spectral deviation (PSD) based on Teager energy (TE) instead of the conventional PSD scheme to improve the performance of decision for speech segments. In addition, the speech absence probability (SAP) is derived in each frequency subband to modify the PSD for further VAD. Performances of the proposed VAD algorithm are evaluated by objective test under various environments and better results compared with the conventional methods are obtained.

• Journal of Ceramic Processing Research
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.48-53
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• 2019

Carbon fiber reinforced SiC composites (C/SiC) have high-temperature stability and excellent thermal shock resistance, and are currently being applied in extreme environments, for example, as aerospace propulsion parts or in high-performance brake systems. However, their low thermal conductivity, compared to metallic materials, are an obstacle to energy efficiency improvements via utilization of regenerative cooling systems. In order to solve this problem, the present study investigated the bonding strength between carbon fiber and matrix material within ceramic matrix composite (CMC) materials, demonstrating the relation between the microstructure and bonding, and showing that the mechanical properties and thermal conductivity may be improved by treatment of the carbon fibers. When fiber surface was treated with a nitric acid solution, the observed segment crack areas within the subsequently generated CMC increased from 6 to 10%; moreover, it was possible to enhance the thermal conductivity from 10.5 to 14 W/m·K, via the same approach. However, fiber surface treatment tends to cause mechanical damage of the final composite material by fiber etching.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.169-174
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• 2013

Speech recognition, the problem of performance degradation is the difference between the model training and recognition environments. Silence features normalized using the method as a way to reduce the inconsistency of such an environment. Silence features normalized way of existing in the low signal-to-noise ratio. Increase the energy level of the silence interval for voice and non-voice classification accuracy due to the falling. There is a problem in the recognition performance is degraded. This paper proposed a robust speech detection method in noisy environments using a silence feature normalization and voice energy maximize. In the high signal-to-noise ratio for the proposed method was used to maximize the characteristics receive less characterized the effects of noise by the voice energy. Cepstral feature distribution of voice / non-voice characteristics in the low signal-to-noise ratio and improves the recognition performance. Result of the recognition experiment, recognition performance improved compared to the conventional method.