• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.119-127
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• 2014

An epoxy coating applied to the concrete surface of a containment building deteriorates in hazardous environments such as those containing radiation, heat, and moisture. Unlike metals, the epoxy coating on a concrete liner absorbs and discharges moisture during the degradations process, so it has a different density and volume during service. In this study, acoustic impedance was adopted for characterizing the degradation of a glass-reinforced epoxy coating using the acoustic reflection coefficient (reflectance) on a rough epoxy coating. For estimating the acoustic reflectance on a wavy epoxy coating surface, a probabilistic model was developed to represent the multiple irregular reflections of the acoustic wave from the wavy surface on the basis of the simulated annealing technique. A number of epoxy-coated concrete specimens were prepared and exposed to accelerated aging conditions to induce an artificial aging degradation in them. The acoustic impedance of the degraded epoxy coating was estimated successfully by minimizing the error between a waveform calculated from the mathematical model and a waveform measured from the surface of the rough coating.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.131-138
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• 2013

The high damping rubber bearings contributed to reduce a seismic force transmitted to upper structures, the material properties of rubber changes with time and the rubber with age-related degradation can affect the seismic response of structures and equipments. Therefore the seismic response of structure considering age-related degradation of isolators should be evaluated. In this paper, the stiffness and damping for isolators were defined using the aging data proposed by other researchers. The reactor containment building and the auxiliary building were selected to conduct the nonlinear analysis and the natural frequency, maximum responses, floor response spectrum(FRS) were evaluated with time using the four earthquakes with different frequency contents. According to the analysis results, the seismic responses are increased by the age-related degradation of isolators and the detail inspections should be conducted up to 20 years because it was presented that the change of FRS was high during this period.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.38-45
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to deduct the structural damage / work process risks factors which can be occurred during the decommissioning in the NPP containment concrete structure. To achieve these purpose, risk profile specified in the construction industry is analyzed, and the work process of NPP decommissioning and the construction project were matched based on the similarity of each works. Accordingly, human and physical risk factors are classified. Finally, the risk associated with the building structure and work process was classified as per their process activities, and risk typology explaining the disaster which put the structure, equipments, machine and workers in serious danger was developed.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.19 no.3 s.59
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• pp.20-27
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• 2005

This paper evaluates the fire safety level of eight pump rooms in the nuclear power plant using a fire model, CFAST We estimate the Conditional Core Damage Probability (CCDP) of each room based on the analyzed results of CFAST Eight rooms located on the primary auxiliary building of the nuclear power plant are high pressure safety injection pump room A/B, low pressure safety injection pump room Am. containment sprdy pump room A/B, and motor-driven auxiliary feed water pump room A/B. The upper layer gas temperature of each room is estimated and the integrity of cable is reviewed. Based on the results, the integrity of the cable located at the upper part of compartment is maintained without thermal damage. The Conditional Core Damage Probability Is reduced to half of the old values. Accordingly, the fire safety assessment for eight pump rooms using the fire model will be capable of reducing the uncertainty and to develop a more realistic model.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.166-171
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• 2017

Hydrogen gas is a green energy sources because it features no emission of pollutants during combustion. But hydrogen gas is very dangerous, being flammable and very explosive. Hydrogen gas detection is very important for the safety of a nuclear power plant. Hydrogen gas is generated by oxidation of nuclear fuel cladding during a critical accident, and leads to serious secondary damage in the containment building. This paper discusses the development of a Raman lidar system for remote detection and measurement of hydrogen gas. A small, portable Raman lidar system was designed, and a measurement algorithm was developed to quantitatively measure hydrogen gas concentration. To verify the capability of measuring hydrogen gas with the developed Raman lidar system, experiments were carried out under daytime outdoor conditions by using a gas chamber that can adjust the hydrogen gas density. As results, our Raman lidar system is able to measure a minimum density of 0.67 vol. % hydrogen gas at a distance of 20 m.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.5A
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• pp.289-297
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• 2012

This study proposes an experimental formula that can estimate the applied tensile stress of a bonded PSC by measuring a longitudinal stress wave velocity of tendon. To develop practical formula, the various bonded PSC specimens are constructed with different levels of prestresses. For all the bonded PSC specimens, the longitudinal impact-echo tests are repeated with various experimental conditions. Considering a few influence factors such as temperature, length and the number of strands, the application of the law of similarity results in a nondemensional experimental formula that could estimate existing tensile stress on tendon by measuring its longitudinal stress wave velocity. Next, a feasibility study of proposed approach has been conducted for a real reactor building containment. The estimated stress levels of two vertical tendons embedded in the nuclear plant are close to their design values.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.61-70
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• 1992

Photon, neutron and beta radiation fields were measured at PWR plants which are the representative types of nuclear power plant operated in Korea. The photon energy spectra were measured at locations in the auxiliary building during operation period and in the containment vessel(C/V) during shutdown period using a portable gamma spectrometer with a HPGe detector. The distribution of average energy was found to range from 440 to 780 keV in the C/V and from 280 keV to 760 keV in the auxiliary building, respectively. The average neutron energy measured at the five locations around the operation deck in the C/V in operation using a BMSS (Bonner Multi-Sphere Spectrometer) ranged from 20 keV to 210 keV. A computer code, BUNKI was used to unfold the spectrum. The beta energy spectra in the C/V and in the auxiliary building in annual outage were determined using 14 smear samples taken from the highly contaminated areas. The analysis showed that the representative corrosion product, $^{60}Co$ made main contribution to the beta energy field.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.9 no.6 s.46
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• pp.13-19
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• 2005

Floor response spectra for dynamic response of subsystem such as equipment, or piping in nuclear power plants are usually generated without considering dynamic interaction between main structure and subsystem. This study describes the analytic method in which equipment response spectra can be obtained through dynamic analysis considering equipment-structure Interaction(ESI). In this method, dynamic response of the equipment by this method is based on a dynamic substructure method in which the equipment-structure system is partitioned into the single-degree-ol-freedom system(SDOF) representing the equipment and the equipment support impedance representing the dynamic charactenstics of the structure ai the equipment support. A family of equipment response spectra is developed by applying this method to calculate the maximum responses of a family of SDOF equipment systems with wide banded equipment frequency, damping ratio, and mass. The method is validated by comparing the floor response spectrum from this method with the floor response spectrum generated from the rigorous analysis including equipments on the containment building of a prototypical nuclear power plant. in order to Investigate ESI effect in the response of equipment, response values from the method and the conventional approach without considering ESI are compared for the equipment having the mass less than 1% of the total structural mass. Response spectra from the method showed lower spectral amplitudes than those of the conventional floor response spectra around controlling frequencies.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.63-72
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the application of various numerical models and frequency contents of earthquakes on the performances of the reactor containment building (RCB) in a nuclear power plant (NPP) equipped with an advanced power reactor 1400. Two kinds of numerical models are developed to perform time-history analyses: a lumped-mass stick model (LMSM) and a full three-dimensional finite element model (3D FEM). The LMSM is constructed in SAP2000 using conventional beam elements with concentrated masses, whereas the 3D FEM is built in ANSYS using solid elements. Two groups of ground motions considering low- and high-frequency contents are applied in time-history analyses. The low-frequency motions are created by matching their response spectra with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 1.60 design spectrum, whereas the high-frequency motions are artificially generated with a high-frequency range from 10Hz to 100Hz. Seismic responses are measured in terms of floor response spectra (FRS) at the various elevations of the RCB. The numerical results show that the FRS of the structure under low-frequency motions for two numerical models are highly matched. However, under high-frequency motions, the FRS obtained by the LMSM at a high natural frequency range are significantly different from those of the 3D FEM, and the largest difference is found at the lower elevation of the RCB. By assuming that the 3D FEM approximates responses of the structure accurately, it can be concluded that the LMSM produces a moderate discrepancy at the high-frequency range of the FRS of the RCB.