• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.37 no.12
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• pp.1573-1579
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• 2013

To test the performance of nuclear fuels, coolant needs to be circulated through the test rig installed in the test loop. Because the pressure and temperature of the coolant is 15.5 MPa and $300^{\circ}C$ respectively, coolant sealing is one of the most important processes in fabricating a nuclear fuel test rig. In particular, 15 instrumentation cables installed in a test rig pass through the pressure boundary, and brazing is generally applied as a sealing method. In this study, an induction brazing system has been developed using a high frequency induction heater including a vacuum chamber. For application in the nuclear field, BNi2 should be used as a paste, and optimal process variables for Ni brazing have been found by several case studies. The performance and soundness of the brazed components has been verified by a tensile test, cross section test, and sealing performance test.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.291-295
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• 2007

FTL(Fuel Test Loop) is a facility that confirms performance of nuclear fuel at a similar irradiation condition with that of nuclear power plant. FTL consists of In-Pile Test Section (IPS) and Out-Pile System (OPS). FTL construction work began on August, 2006 and ended on March, 2007. During Construction, ensuring the worker's safety was the top priority and installation of the FTL without hampering the integrity of the HANARO was the next one. Task Force Team was organized to do a construction systematically and the communication between members of the task force team was done through the CoP(community of Practice) notice board provided by the Institute. The installation works were done successfully overcoming the difficulties such as on the limited space, on the radiation hazard inside the reactor pool, and finally on the shortening of the shut down period of the HANARO. Without a sweet of the workers of the participating company of HEC(Hyundae Engineering Co, Ltd), HDEC(HyunDai Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd), equipment manufacturer, and the task force team, it is not possible to install the FTL facility within the planned shutdown period. The Commissioning of the FTL is on due to check the function and the performance of the equipment and the overall system as well. The FTL shall start operation with high burn up test fuels in early 2008 if the commissioning and licensing progress on schedule.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.15-19
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• 2013

The auxiliary feedwater is an important to remove the heat from the reactor core when the main feedwater system is unavailable. In most initiating events in Probabilistic Safety Assessment(PSA), the operaton of this system is required to mitigate the accidents. For one of domestic nuclear power plants, a design change of a turbine-driven auxiliary feedwater pump(TD-AFWP), pipe, and valves in the auxiliary system is implemented due to the aging related deterioration by long time operation. This change includes the replacement of the TD-AFWP, the relocation of some valves for improving the system availability, a new cross-tie line, and the installation of manual valves for maintenance. The design modification affects the PSA because the system is critical to mitigate the accidents. In this paper, the safety effect of the change of the auxiliary feedwater system is assessed with regard to the PSA view point. The results demonstrate that this change can supply the auxiliary feedwater from the TD-AFWP in the accident with the motor-driven auxiliary feedwater pump(MD-AFWP) unavailable due to test or maintenance. In addition, the change of MOV's normal position from "close" to "open" can deliver the water to steam generator in the loss of offsite power(LOOP) event. Therefore, it is confirmed that the design change of the auxiliary feedwater system reduces the total core damage frequency(CDF).

• KIEE International Transactions on Power Engineering
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• v.3A no.1
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• pp.27-34
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• 2003

In this paper, the power conditioner composed of the stand-alone single-phase squirrel cage rotor type self-excited induction generator (SEIG) driven by prime movers such as a wind turbine and a micro gas turbine (MGT) is presented by using the steady-state circuit analysis based on the two nodal admittance approaches using the per-unit frequency in addition to a new state variable defined by the per-unit slip frequency along with its performance evaluations for the stand-alone energy utilizations. The stande-alone single-phase SEIG operating performances in unregulated voltage control loop are then evaluated on line under the conditions of the speed change transients of the prime mover and the stand-alone electrical passive load power variations with the simple theoretical analysis and the efficient computation processing procedures described in the part I of this paper. In addition, a feasuible PI controlled feedback closed-loop voltage regulation scheme of the stande-alone single-phase SEIG is designed on the basis of the static VAR compensate. (SVC) and discussed in experiment for the promising stand-alone power conditioner. The experimental operating performance results are illustrated and give good agreements with the simulation ones. The simulation and experimental results of the stand-alone single-phase SEIG with the simple SVC controller for its stabilized voltage regulation prove the practical effectiveness of the additional SVC control loop scheme including the PI controller with fast response characteristics and steady-sate performance improvements.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.204-214
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• 1993

Work on fracture mechanics has provided a technical basis for elimination of main coolant loop double ended guillotine breaks from the structural design basis of reactor coolant system. Without main coolant loop pipe breaks, the tributary pipe breaks must be considered as design bases until further fracture mechanics work could eliminate some of these breaks from design consideration. This paper determines the core support barrel shell responses for the 3 inch pressurizer spray line nozzle break which is expected to be the only inlet break remaining in the primary side after leak-before-break evaluation is extended to smaller size pipes in the near future. The responses are compared with those due to 14 inch safety injection nozzle break and main coolant loop pipe break. The results show that, when the leak-before-break concept is applied to the primary side piping systems with a diameter of 10 inches or over, the core support barrel shell responses due to pipe breaks in the primary side are negligible for the faulted condition design.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1995.07b
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• pp.761-765
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• 1995

The old Timing Controller for Control Element Drive Mechanism (CEDM) is designed as an open loop control system because it is difficult to mount sensors within the Control Element Drive Mechanism(CEDM) which is operating under the pressure boundary of the reactor vessel. In this work new method which can be used to detect the CEDM operational conditions without mounting sensors within the CEDM housing is developed in order to resolve problems of the old Timing Controller. By using the developed new method, the new Timing Controller for the CEDM is designed as a closed loop controller which has features of the control rod drop prevention, fine position control and the coil life time extension. The algorithm developed under closed loop control concept resolves most problems occurred in the old Timing Controller and improves the performance and reliability of the system. During designing and testing of the Timing Controller algorithm, the real time CEDM simulator developed here was used. And all functions of the developed algorithm were verified using CEDM simulator with the real data collected from the site. The results show that the Timing Controller performs its intended functions properly.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.305-309
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• 2007

FTL(Fuel Test Loop) is a facility that confirms performance of nuclear fuel at a similar irradiation condition with that of nuclear power plant. FTL construction work began on August, 2006 and ended on March, 2007. During Construction, ensuring the worker's safety was the top priority and installation of the FTL without hampering the integrity of the HANARO was the next one. The installation works were done successfully overcoming the difficulties such as on the limited space, on the radiation hazard inside the reactor pool, and finally on the shortening of the shut down period of the HANARO. The Commissioning of the FTL is to check the function and the performance of the equipment and the overall system as well. The FTL shall start operation with high burn up test fuels in early 2008 if the commissioning and licensing progress on schedule.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.1321-1329
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• 2016

To get an insight into the operating characteristics of the passive residual heat removal system of molten salt reactors, a two-phase natural circulation test facility was constructed. The system consists of a boiling loop absorbing the heat from the drain tank, a condensing loop consuming the heat, and a steam drum. A steady-state experiment was carried out, in which the thimble temperature ranged from $450^{\circ}C$ to $700^{\circ}C$ and the system pressure was controlled at levels below 150 kPa. When reaching a steady state, the system was operated under saturated conditions. Some important parameters, including heat power, system resistance, and water level in the steam drum and water tank were investigated. The experimental results showed that the natural circulation system is feasible in removing the decay heat, even though some fluctuations may occur in the operation. The uneven temperature distribution in the water tank may be inevitable because convection occurs on the outside of the condensing tube besides boiling with decreasing the decay power. The instabilities in the natural circulation loop are sensitive to heat flux and system resistance rather than the water level in the steam drum and water tank. RELAP5 code shows reasonable results compared with experimental data.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.158-167
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• 2007

It is required that the neutron dosimetry be present to monitor the reactor vessel throughout its plant life. The Ex-vessel Neutron Dosimetry Systems which consist of sensor sets, radiometric monitors, gradient chains, and support hardware have been installed for 3-Loop plants after a complete withdrawal of all six in-vessel surveillance capsules. The systems have been installed in the reactor cavity annulus in order to characterize the neutron energy spectrum over the beltline region of the reactor vessel. The installed dosimetry were withdrawn and evaluated after a irradiation during one cycle and then compared to the cycle specific neutron transport calculations. The reaction rates from the measurement and calculation were compared and the results show good agreements each other.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.223-230
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• 2013

When a new nuclear fuel is developed, an irradiation test needs to be carried out in the research reactor to analyze the performance of the new nuclear fuel. In order to check the performance of a nuclear fuel during the irradiation test in the test loop of a research reactor, sensors need to be attached in and out of the fuel rod and connect them with instrumentation cables to the measuring device located outside of the reactor pool. In particular, to check the temporary temperature change at the center of a nuclear fuel during the irradiation test, a thermocouple should be instrumented at the center of the fuel rod. Therefore, a hole needs to be made at the center of fuel pellet to put in the thermocouple. However, because the hardness and the density of a sintered $UO_2$ pellet are very high, it is difficult to make a small fine hole on a sintered $UO_2$ pellet using a simple drilling machine even though we use a diamond drill bit made by electro deposition. In this study, an automated drilling machine using a CVD diamond drill has been developed to make a fine hole in a fuel pellet without changing tools or breakage of workpiece. A sintered alumina ($Al_2O_3$) block which has a higher hardness than a sintered $UO_2$ pellet is used as a test specimen. Then, it is verified that a precise hole can be drilled off without breakage of the drill bit in a short time.