• 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.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.417-424
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• 2011

A fuel assembly consists of five major components, i.e., a top end piece (TEP), a bottom end piece (BEP), spacer grids (SGs), guide tubes (GTs) and an instrumentation tube (IT); in addition, it also includes fuel rods (FRs). The TEP/BEP should satisfy stress intensity limits according to the conditions A and B of ASME, Section III, Division 1-Subsection NB. In a dual-cooled fuel assembly, the array and position of fuel rods are different from those in a conventional PWR fuel assembly; these changes are necessary for achieving power uprating. The flow plates of the TEP and BEP have to be modified accordingly. The pattern and shape of the flow holes were newly designed. To verify the strength compatibility, the Tresca stress limit according to the ASME code was investigated in the case of an axial load of 22.241 kN. In this paper, the stress linearization procedure for strength evaluation of a newly designed TEP is presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.490-499
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• 2002

Recently, gamma radiographic equipments have been used about 1,000 sets manually and operated by about 2,500 persons in Korea. In order for a radiography to work effectively with avoiding any hazard of the high level radiation from the source, many field workers have expected developing a wireless automatic remote exposure controller. The KlTCO research team has developed an automatic remote exposure controller that can regulate the speed of $0.4{\sim}1.2m/s$ by BLDC motor of 24V 200W which has output of $54kgf{\cdot}cm$, suitable torque and safety factor for the work. And the developed automatic remote exposure controller can control rpm of motor, pigtail position by photo-sensor and exposure time by timer to RF sensor. Thus, the developed equipment is expected that the unit can be used in many practical applications with benefits in economical advantage to combine the use of both automatic and manual type because attachment is possible existent manual remote exposure controller, AC and DC combined use.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.323-330
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• 2012

This study deals with the experiments of liquid dampers with multi cells whose vertical tubes are divided into several square columns for easily changing natural frequencies. Shaking table test is performed to verify control effectiveness of the dampers which are installed on a building structure. To design liquid dampers, a 64-story building structure is reduced to a SDOF structure with 1/20 of similitude laws based on acceleration. The structure model is made up to adjust its mass and stiffness easily, with separate mass and drive parts. Mass parts indicate real structure's weights and drive parts indicate real structure's stiffness with springs and LM guides. Manufactured liquid damper has 18 cells and its natural frequency ranges are 0.65Hz to 0.81Hz. Shaking table test is carried out with one way excitation to compare with only accelerations of a large-scale structure and a structure installed with liquid dampers. Control performance of the liquid damper is expressed by the transfer function from shaking table accelerations to the large-scale structure ones. Testing results show that the liquid damper reduced a large-scale structure's response by tuned natural frequencies.