• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제41권2호
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• pp.155-162
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• 2009

Since the 90's, EDF and AREVA-NP have irradiated, up to very high burnups, lead assemblies housing $M5^{(R)}$ cladded fuels. Post-irradiation examination of high burnup $UO_2$ pellets show an increase in the fission-gas release rate, an increase in fuel swelling, and formation of fission-gas bubbles throughout the pellets. Xenon abundances were quantified, and phenomena leading to this bubble formation were identified. All examinations provided valuable data on the complex state of the fuel during irradiation. They show the good behavior of these fuels, exhibiting various microstructures at very high burnups, none of which is likely to lead to problems during irradiation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권10호
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• pp.2402-2409
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• 2020

Analytical criteria for the onset of fuel fragmentation and Burst Fission Gas Release in fuel rods with ballooned claddings are formulated. On that basis, the GRSW-A model integrated with a fuel behaviour code is updated. After modification, the updated code is successfully applied to simulation of the Halden LOCA test IFA-650.12. Specifically, the calculation with Burst Fission Gas Release during the test resulted in prediction of cladding failure, whereas it could not be predicted at the test planning, before new models were implemented. A good agreement of the current model with experimental data for transient Fission Gas Release in the tests IFA-650.12 and IFA-650.14 is shown, as well.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제45권5호
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• pp.581-588
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• 2013

This paper deals with the Safety Analysis for $CANDU^{(R)}$ 6 nuclear reactors as affected by main Heat Transport System (HTS) aging. Operational and aging related changes of the HTS throughout its lifetime may lead to restrictions in certain safety system settings and hence some restriction in performance under certain conditions. A step in confirming safe reactor operation is the tracking of relevant data and their corresponding interpretation by the use of appropriate thermal-hydraulic analytic models. Safety analyses ranging from the assessment of safety limits associated with the prevention of intermittent fuel sheath dryout for a slow Loss of Regulation (LOR) analysis and fission gas release after a fuel failure are summarized. Specifically for fission gas release, the thermal-hydraulic analysis for a fresh core and an 11 Effective Full Power Years (EFPY) aged core was summarized, leading to the most severe stagnation break sizes for the inlet feeder break and the channel failure time. Associated coolant conditions provide the input data for fuel analyses. Based on the thermal-hydraulic data, the fission product inventory under normal operating conditions may be calculated for both fresh and aged cores, and the fission gas release may be evaluated during the transient. This analysis plays a major role in determining possible radiation doses to the public after postulated accidents have occurred.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제47권1호
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• pp.11-25
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• 2015

The accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011, caused by an earthquake and a subsequent tsunami, resulted in a failure of the power systems that are needed to cool the reactors at the plant. The accident progression in the absence of heat removal systems caused Units 1-3 to undergo fuel melting. Containment pressurization and hydrogen explosions ultimately resulted in the escape of radioactivity from reactor containments into the atmosphere and ocean. Problems in containment venting operation, leakage from primary containment boundary to the reactor building, improper functioning of standby gas treatment system (SGTS), unmitigated hydrogen accumulation in the reactor building were identified as some of the reasons those added-up in the severity of the accident. The Fukushima accident not only initiated worldwide demand for installation of adequate control and mitigation measures to minimize the potential source term to the environment but also advocated assessment of the existing mitigation systems performance behavior under a wide range of postulated accident scenarios. The uncertainty in estimating the released fraction of the radionuclides due to the Fukushima accident also underlined the need for comprehensive understanding of fission product behavior as a function of the thermal hydraulic conditions and the type of gaseous, aqueous, and solid materials available for interaction, e.g., gas components, decontamination paint, aerosols, and water pools. In the light of the Fukushima accident, additional experimental needs identified for hydrogen and fission product issues need to be investigated in an integrated and optimized way. Additionally, as more and more passive safety systems, such as passive autocatalytic recombiners and filtered containment venting systems are being retrofitted in current reactors and also planned for future reactors, identified hydrogen and fission product issues will need to be coupled with the operation of passive safety systems in phenomena oriented and coupled effects experiments. In the present paper, potential hydrogen and fission product issues raised by the Fukushima accident are discussed. The discussion focuses on hydrogen and fission product behavior inside nuclear power plant containments under severe accident conditions. The relevant experimental investigations conducted in the technical scale containment THAI (thermal hydraulics, hydrogen, aerosols, and iodine) test facility (9.2 m high, 3.2 m in diameter, and $60m^3$ volume) are discussed in the light of the Fukushima accident.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제46권6호
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• pp.825-836
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• 2014

Predicting radioactive fission product (FP) behaviors in the reactor coolant system and the containment of a nuclear power plant (NPP) is one of the major concerns in the field of reactor safety, since the amount of radioactive FP released into the environment during the postulated accident sequences is one of the major regulatory issues. Radioactive FPs circulating in the primary coolant loop and released into the containment are basically in the form of gas or aerosol. In this study, a multi-component and multi-sectional analysis module for aerosol fission products has been developed based on the MAEROS model [1,2], and the aerosol transport model has been developed and verified against an analytic solution. The deposition of aerosol FPs to the surrounding structural surfaces is modeled with recent research achievements. The developed aerosol analysis model has been successfully validated against the STORM SR-11 experimental data [3], which is International Standard Problem No. 40. Future studies include the development of the resuspension, growth, and chemical reaction models of aerosol fission products.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권9호
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• pp.1974-1982
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• 2020

Numerical prediction of fission product plateout and circulating coolant activities under normal operating conditions is crucial in the design of a high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR). The results are used for the maintenance and repair of the components as well as the safety analysis regarding early source terms under loss of coolant accident scenarios. In this work, a new computer code named POSCA (Plate-Out Surface and Circulating Activities) was developed based on a one-dimensional model to evaluate fission product plateout and circulating coolant activities within the primary circuit of a HTGR. The verification and validation of study for the POSCA code was done using available analytical results and two in-pile experiments (i.e., OGL-1 and VAMPYR-1). The results of the POSCA calculations show that POSCA is able to simulate plateout and circulating coolant activities in a HTGR with fast computation and reasonable accuracy.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제30권6호
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• pp.541-554
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• 1998

A computer code COSMOS has been developed based on the CARO-D5 for the thermal analysis of LWR UO$_2$ and MOX fuel rod under steady-state and transient operating conditions. The main purpose of the COSMOS, which considers high turnup characteristics such as thermal conductivity degradation with turnup and rim formation at the outer part of fuel pellet, is to calculate temperature profile across fuel pellet and fission gas release up to high burnup. A new mechanistic fission gas release model developed based on physical processes has been incorporated into the code. In addition, the features of MOX fuel such as change in themo-mechanical properties and the effect of microscopic heterogeneity on fission gas release have been also taken into account so that it can be applied to MOX fuel. Another important feature of the COSMOS is that it can analyze fuel segment refabricated from base irradiated fuel rods in commercial reactors. This feature makes it possible to analyze database obtained from international projects such as the MALDEN and RISO, many of which were collected from refabricated fuel segments. The capacity of the COSMOS has been tested with some number of experimental results obtained from the HALDEN, RISO and FIGARO programs. Comparison with the measured data indicates that, although the COSMOS gives reasonable agreement, the current models need to be improved. This work is being performed using database available from the OECD/NEA.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1998년도 추계학술발표회요약집
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• pp.251-251
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• 1998

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1995년도 춘계학술발표회논문집(2)
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• pp.745-752
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• 1995

고연소도 액체금속로용 금속연료를 개발하고자 U-l0wt%Zr 합금중 Zr 원소 대신에 X(:Si, Ta, Nb, W, Mo) 원소를 첨가한 U-7wt%Zr-3wt%X(:Si, Ta, Nb, W, Mo) 합금을 제조하여 미세조직에 미치는 합금원소 첨가의 영향을 조사하였다. 그 결과 U-7 wt%Zr-3wt%Si 합금을 제외한 모든 U-7wt%Zr-3wt%X(:Ta, Nb, W, Mo) 합금은 Matrix에 있어서 Laminar Structure를 그대로 유지하였다. U-7wt%Zr-3wt%Si 함금을 제외한 모든 U-7wt%Zr-3wt%X(:Ta, Nb, W, Mo) 합금의 주요한 상은 U-l0wt% Zr 합금과 마찬가지로 $\alpha$-U 및 $\delta$-UZr$_2$ 상이었다. U-7wt%Zr-3wt%X(:Ta, Nb, W, Mo) 합금은 U-l0wt%Zr 합금에 비해 Lamina Thickness가 크게 감소되었다. 특히 U-7wt%Zr-3wt%Mo 합금의 경우에 있어서는 U-l0wt%Zr 합금에 비해 1/3배 정도까지 Lamina Thickness가 크게 감소하였다. 이와 같은 합금원소 첨가에 의한 Laminar Structure의 미세화는 액체금속로강 금속연료내 Fission Gas의 Inter-connected Path가 보다 더 잘 형성됨으로 인해 Fission Gas Bubble에 대한 방출속도를 크게 증가시켜서 궁극적으로는 Fission Gas Bubble에 의한 Swelling을 저감시킬 것으로 기대된다.

• 방사성폐기물학회지
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.39-52
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• 2007

사용후핵연료의 건식 재가공을 위한 핵연료 원격 제조공정중 분말제조를 위한 산화 및 OREOX(산화 환원공정)열처리 공정으로부터 $^{85}Kr$ 및 $^{14}C$ 핵분열기체의 방출거동을 정량적으로 평가하였다. 특히 사용후핵연료의 평균 연소도가 $27,000{\sim}65,000\;MWd/tU$ 범위내에서 연소도 변화에 따른 핵분열기체의 방출 분율은 측정한 실험결과와 ORIGEN 코드로부터 계산된 초기 inventory를 상호 비교하여 구하였다. $500^{\circ}C$ 1차 산화공정(voloxidation)에서 $^{85}Kr$ 및 $^{14}C(^{14}CO_2)$의 시간에 따른 방출거동은 $UO_2$ 핵연료의 $U_3O_8$으로의 분말화 정도와 밀접한 관련이 있는 것으로 보이며, 입계(grain-boundary)에 분포된 핵분열기체가 대부분 방출되는 것으로 여겨진다. 산화분말을 이용한 OREOX 공정으로부터 핵분열기체의 높은 방출율은 $700^{\circ}C$의 환원공정에서 온도 증가에 의한 기체 확산 및 $UO_2$으로의 환원에 의한 U 원자 이동성 증가에 의존하며 주로 inter-grain 및 intra-grain에 분포된 핵분열기체가 방출된 것으로 판단된다. 일차 산화공정시 $^{85}Kr$ 및 $^{14}C$ 핵분열기체의 방출 분율은 핵 연료 연소도가 증가함에 따라 높게 나타났고 방출 분율 범위는 총 inventory의 $6{\sim}12%$정도며, 산화분말의 OREOX 공정처리시 잔류 핵분열기체 대부분이 방출되는 것으로 보인다. 아울러 사용후핵 연료로부터 핵분열기체의 제거를 위해서는 고온 환원분위기보다는 산화에 의한 분말화가 더 효과적인 것으로 여겨진다.