• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.115-122
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• 1996

Heat transfer characteristics of low temperature latent heat storage systems have been examined for the circular finned and unfinned tubes using Na$_2$B$_4$O$\_$7/10H$_2$O as a phase change material. In order to reduce the supercooling of PCM, 3 wt% of Na$_2$B$_4$O$\_$7/10H$_2$O was added as the nucleating agent and 2.2 wt% of acrylic acid sodium sulfate was used as the thickener. The heat storage vessel has dimension of 530 mm height, 74 mm 1.D. and inner heat transfer tube is 480 mm height and 13.5 mm O.D. Water was employed as the heat transfer fluid. During the heat recovery experiment, the heat recovery rate was affected by the flow rates and inlet temperature of heat transfer fluid. The enhancement of heat transfer by fins over the unfinned tube system was found to be negligible in the thin finned tube systems, whereas the heat transfer coefficient in the thick finned tube system is approximately 60% higher than that in the unfinned lobe system. The experimentally determined heat transfer coefficient for the unfinned tube and thick finned tube systems are 150-260 W/㎡$^{\circ}C$ and 230-530 W/㎡$^{\circ}C$, respectively. The fin efficiency based on the heat transfer coefficient and area increased by fins was found to be 0.05 and 0.26 for the thin and the thick finned tube systems.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.439-446
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• 2014

An amphibious inspection robot system (hereafter AIROS) is being developed to visually inspect the in-containment refueling storage water tank (hereafter IRWST) strainer in APR1400 instead of a human diver. Four IRWST strainers are located in the IRWST, which is filled with boric acid water. Each strainer has 108 sub-assembly strainer fin modules that should be inspected with the VT-3 method according to Reg. guide 1.82 and the operation manual. AIROS has 6 thrusters for submarine voyage and 4 legs for walking on the top of the strainer. An inverse kinematic algorithm was implemented in the robot controller for exact walking on the top of the IRWST strainer. The IRWST strainer has several top cross braces that are extruded on the top of the strainer, which can be obstacles of walking on the strainer, to maintain the frame of the strainer. Therefore, a robot leg should arrive at the position beside the top cross brace. For this reason, we used an image processing technique to find the top cross brace in the sole camera image. The sole camera image is processed to find the existence of the top cross brace using the cross edge detection algorithm in real time. A 5-DOF robot arm that has multiple camera modules for simultaneous inspection of both sides can penetrate narrow gaps. For intuitive presentation of inspection results and for management of inspection data, inspection images are stored in the control PC with camera angles and positions to synthesize and merge the images. The synthesized images are then mapped in a 3D CAD model of the IRWST strainer with the location information. An IRWST strainer mock-up was fabricated to teach the robot arm scanning and gaiting. It is important to arrive at the designated position for inserting the robot arm into all of the gaps. Exact position control without anchor under the water is not easy. Therefore, we designed the multi leg robot for the role of anchoring and positioning. Quadruped robot design of installing sole cameras was a new approach for the exact and stable position control on the IRWST strainer, unlike a traditional robot for underwater facility inspection. The developed robot will be practically used to enhance the efficiency and reliability of the inspection of nuclear power plant components.