• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.323-331
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• 2015

Zirconium alloys are widely used in nuclear reactors as structural materials. During the operation, they are exposed to fast neutrons. Ion irradiation is used to simulate the damage introduced by neutron irradiation. In this article, we briefly review the neutron irradiation damage of zirconium alloys, then summarize the effect of ion irradiation on microstructural evolution, mechanical and corrosion properties, and their relationships. The microstructure components consist of dislocation loops, second phase precipitates, and gas bubbles. The microstructure parameters are also included such as domain size and microstrain determined by X-ray diffraction and the S-parameter determined by positron annihilation. Understanding the relationships of microstructure and properties is necessary for developing new advanced materials with higher irradiation tolerance.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.8
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• pp.1998-2004
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• 2019

The Multi-Physics (MP) instrument is one of 20 neutron spectrometers planned in the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS). This paper presents a shielding calculation for the MP instrument using Monte Carlo codes MCNPX and FLUKA. First, the neutrons that escape from the CSNS decoupled water moderator and are delivered to the beam line of the MP instrument are calculated to use as the source term of the shielding calculation. Then, to validate the calculation method based on multiple variance reduction techniques, a cross check between MCNPX and FLUKA codes is performed by comparing the calculation results of the dose rate distribution on a simplified beam line model. Finally, a complete geometry model of the MP instrument is set up, and the primary parameters for the shielding design are obtained according to the calculated dose rate map considering different worst-case scenarios.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.7
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• pp.581-592
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• 2008

In this study, a conceptual pyroprocess flowsheet has been devised by combining several dry-type unit processes; its applicability as an alternative fuel cycle technology was analyzed. A key point in the evaluation of its applicability to the fuel cycle was the recovery yield of fissile materials from spent fuels as well as the proliferation resistance of the process. The recovery yields of uranium and transuranic elements (TRU) were obtained from a material balance for every unit process composing the whole pyroprocess. The material balances for several elemental groups of interest such as uranium, TRU, rare earth, gaseous fission products, and heat generating elements were calculated on the basis of the knowledge base that is available from domestic and foreign experimental results or technical information presented in open literature. The calculated result of the material balance revealed that uranium and TRU could be recovered at 98.0% and 97.0%, respectively, from a typical PWR spent fuel. Furthermore, the anticipated TRU product was found to emit a non-negligible level of $\gamma$-ray and a significantly higher level of neutrons compared to that of a typical plutonium product obtained from the PUREX process. The results indicate that the product from this conceptual pyroprocessing should be handled in a shielded cell and that this will contribute favorably to retaining proliferation resistance.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.183-194
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• 2014

Recently, a CANDU digital reactivity computer system (CDRCS) to measure the worth of the liquid zone controller in a CANDU-6 was developed and successfully applied to a physics test of refurbished Wolsong Unit 1. In advance of using the CDRCS, its measureable reactivity range should be investigated and confirmed. There are two reasons for this investigation. First, the CANDU-6 has a larger reactor and smaller excore detectors than a general PWR and consequently the measured reactivity is likely to reflect the peripheral power variation only, not the whole core. The second reason is photo neutrons generated from the interaction of the moderator and gamma-rays, which are never considered in a PWR. To evaluate the limitations of the CDRCS, several tens of three-dimensional steady and transient simulations were performed. The simulated detector signals were used to obtain the dynamic reactivity. The difference between the dynamic reactivity and the static worth increases in line with the water level changes. The maximum allowable reactivity was determined to be 1.4 mk in the case of CANDU-6 by confining the difference to less than 1%.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.11
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• pp.2667-2677
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• 2020

A domain decomposition (DD) scheme for GPU-based Monte Carlo (MC) calculation which is essential for whole-core depletion is introduced within the framework of the modified history-based tracking algorithm. Since GPU-offloaded MC calculations suffer from limited memory capacity, employing DDMC is inevitable for the simulation of depleted cores which require large storage to save hundreds of newly generated isotopes. First, an automated domain decomposition algorithm named wheel clustering is devised such that each subdomain contains nearly the same number of fuel assemblies. Second, an innerouter iteration algorithm allowing overlapped computation and communication is introduced which enables boundary neutron transactions during the tracking of interior neutrons. Third, a bank update scheme which is to include the boundary sources in a way to be adequate to the peculiar data structures of the GPU-based neutron tracking algorithm is presented. The verification and demonstration of the DDMC method are done for 3D full-core problems: APR1400 fresh core and a mock-up depleted core. It is confirmed that the DDMC method performs comparably with the standard MC method, and that the domain decomposition scheme is essential to carry out full 3D MC depletion calculations with limited GPU memory capacities.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.11
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• pp.2607-2612
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• 2020

The present work was aimed to show the possibility of using hydrogel (acrylic/boric acid) for evaluation of the neutron radiation shielding. The influence of acrylic acid concentration, different gamma doses and relative contents of boric acid were studied. The physical properties and the thermomechanical stability of the studied samples were investigated. The shielding property of the composite for neutron was tested by Pu-Be neutron source (5 Ci) under room temperature. The neutron fluence rates and gamma fluxes were measured using a stilbene organic scintillator. The macroscopic effective removal cross-section Σ_R (cm^-1) of fast neutrons and total attenuation coefficient μ (cm^-1) of gamma rays has been studied experimentally. The transmission parameters, the relaxation length (??) and the half-value layer (HVL) were obtained. The obtained results indicated that the addition of boric acid to acrylic acid tends to increase the macroscopic effective removal cross-section Σ_R (cm^-1) to 0.141 compared to 0.094 of ordinary concrete.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.39-45
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• 1972

In neutron shielding, the scattering effect is equally important as the attenuations in shielding materials. In the present study, the scattered dose equivalent was measured using a Rem counter for water, paraffin, borated paraffin, ordinary and heavy concrete, lead, iron, and tissue equivalent material in three different angles: 45$^{\circ}$, 90$^{\circ}$, and 135$^{\circ}$, respectively. The measurements were performed for the neutron, having the energies of 0.5, 1, 2, 5, and 18 MeV, which are produced from the Van do Graaff accelerator. The scattered dose equivalent ratios were increased with increasing the thickness of scattering materials and saturated at a certain thickness although they were different from one to other materials under study. The ratios were large for lead and iron while they were small for the hydrogen containing materials such as water and paraffin etc.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.103-108
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• 2012

Having a de Broglie wavelength of a few ${\AA}$ with its corresponding energies in the range of a few to a few hundreds meV, neutrons are ideally suited for the studies of structure and dynamics in condensed matter research. Neutron scattering has been developed over the past 60 years or so and become a very mature and established experimental technique in the very broad range of material sciences. In this short introductory article, we have explained its working principles and provided few selected examples of application.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.189-199
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• 2016

Fast neutrons with a broad energy spectrum, with which it is possible to evaluate nuclear data for various research fields such as medical applications and the development of fusion reactors, can be generated by irradiating proton beams on target materials such as beryllium. To generate short-pulse proton beam, we adopted a deflector and slit system. In a simple deflector with slit system, most of the proton beam is blocked by the slit, especially when the beam pulse width is short. Therefore, the available beam current is very low, which results in low neutron flux. In this study, we proposed beam modulation using a buncher cavity to increase the available beam current. The ideal field pattern for the buncher cavity is sawtooth. To make the field pattern similar to a sawtooth waveform, a multiharmonic buncher was adopted. The design process for the multiharmonic buncher includes a beam dynamics calculation and three-dimensional electromagnetic simulation. In addition to the system design for pulsed proton generation, a test bench with a microwave ion source is under preparation to test the performance of the system. The design study results concerning the pulsed proton beam generation and the test bench preparation with some preliminary test results are presented in this paper.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.7
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• pp.921-928
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• 2013

A future nuclear energy system is being developed at Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), the system involves a Sodium Fast Reactor (SFR) linked with the pyro-process. The pyro-process produces a source material to fabricate a SFR fuel rod. Therefore, an isotopic fissile content assay is very important for fuel rod safety and SFR economics. A new technology for an analysis of isotopic fissile content has been proposed using a lead slowing down spectrometer (LSDS). The new technology has several features for a fissile analysis from spent fuel: direct isotopic fissile assay, no background interference, and no requirement from burnup history information. Several calculations were done on the designed spectrometer geometry: detection sensitivity, neutron energy spectrum analysis, neutron fission characteristics, self shielding analysis, and neutron production mechanism. The spectrum was well organized even at low neutron energy and the threshold fission chamber was a proper choice to get prompt fast fission neutrons. The characteristic fission signature was obtained in slowing down neutron energy from each fissile isotope. Another application of LSDS is for an optimum design of the spent fuel storage, maximization of the burnup credit and provision of the burnup code correction factor. Additionally, an isotopic fissile content assay will contribute to an increase in transparency and credibility for the utilization of spent fuel nuclear material, as internationally demanded.