• 제목/요약/키워드: nuclear equipment

검색결과 772건 처리시간 0.032초

ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF A DISTILLATION PROCESS FOR THE ELECTROMETALLURGICAL TREATMENT OF IRRADIATED SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL

  • Westphal, Brian R.;Marsden, Kenneth C.;Price, John C.;Laug, David V.
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • 제40권3호
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    • pp.163-174
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    • 2008
  • As part of the spent fuel treatment program at the Idaho National Laboratory, a vacuum distillation process is being employed for the recovery of actinide products following an electrorefining process. Separation of the actinide products from a molten salt electrolyte and cadmium is achieved by a batch operation called cathode processing. A cathode processor has been designed and developed to efficiently remove the process chemicals and consolidate the actinide products for further processing. This paper describes the fundamentals of cathode processing, the evolution of the equipment design, the operation and efficiency of the equipment, and recent developments at the cathode processor. In addition, challenges encountered during the processing of irradiated spent nuclear fuel in the cathode processor will be discussed.

System Thinking Perspective on the Dynamic Relationship between Organizational Characteristics of Nuclear Safety Culture

  • Kim, Byung Suk;Oh, Youngmin
    • 대한인간공학회지
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    • 제33권2호
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    • pp.77-86
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    • 2014
  • Objective: The purpose of this study is to grasp the fundamental structure of incident occurrence in nuclear organizations based on system thinking, and analyze how various causes are interrelated in terms of the causal loop diagram. Background: The recent domestic and overseas nuclear power plant-related incidents and accidents are directly or indirectly associated with safety culture, and thus effective plans for the improvement of safety culture are being called for. While the safety of a nuclear power plant is highly dependent upon technology and equipment, the utilization, maintenance and inspection of the technology and equipment are conducted by workers of the nuclear power plant. Method: Methodology of system thinking perspective using causal loop analysis. Results: As a result of the analysis, first, it turned out that the fundamental cause of incident occurrence in nuclear organizations is time constraint. Second, if a workload of workers increases, their adherence to regulations and procedures comes to be reduced due to time constraint. Third, it is needed, through organizational learning education, to increase actions made from thoughts considering safety as the utmost priority in advance. Fourth, it is necessary to improve professionalism by enhancing educational programs for new workers, and to develop various scenarios with which they can cope with certain situations. Application: This paper provides a base for system dynamics simulation model for future study.

Resistance, electron- and laser-beam welding of zirconium alloys for nuclear applications: A review

  • Slobodyan, Mikhail
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • 제53권4호
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    • pp.1049-1078
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    • 2021
  • The review summarizes the published data on the widely applied electron-beam, laser-beam, as well as resistance upset, projection, and spot welding of zirconium alloys for nuclear applications. It provides the results of their analysis to identify common patterns in this area. Great attention has been paid to the quality requirements, the edge preparation, up-to-date equipment, process parameters, as well as post-weld treatment and processing. Also, quality control and weld repair methods have been mentioned. Finally, conclusions have been drawn about a significant gap between the capabilities of advanced welding equipment to control the microstructure and, accordingly, the properties of welded joints of the zirconium alloys and existing algorithms that enable to realize them in the nuclear industry. Considering the ever-increasing demands on the high-burnup accident tolerant nuclear fuel assemblies, great efforts should be focused on the improving the welding procedures by implementing predefined heat input cycles. However, a lot of research is required, since the number of possible combinations of the zirconium alloys, designs and dimensions of the joints dramatically exceeds the quantity of published results on the effect of the welding parameters on the properties of the welds.

A numerical approach for assessing internal pressure capacity at liner failure in the expanded free-field of the prestressed concrete containment vessel

  • Woo-Min Cho;Seong-Kug Ha;SaeHanSol Kang;Yoon-Suk Chang
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • 제55권10호
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    • pp.3677-3691
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    • 2023
  • Since containment building is the major shielding structure to ensure safety of nuclear power plant, the structural behavior and ultimate pressure capacity of containments must be studied in depth. This paper addresses ambiguous issue of determining free-field position for liner failure by suggesting an expanded free-field region and comparing internal pressure capacities obtained by test data, conservative assumption and suggested free-field region. For this purpose, a practical approach to determine the free-field position for the evaluation of liner tearing is carried out. The maximum principal strain histories versus internal pressure capacities among different free-field positions at various azimuths and elevations are compared with those at the equipment hatch as a conservative assumption. The comparison shows that there are considerable differences in the internal pressure capacity at liner failure within the expanded free-field region compared to the vicinity of the equipment hatch. Additionally, this study proposes an approximate correlation with conservative factors by considering the expanded free-field ranges and material characteristics to determine realistic failure criteria for liner. The applicability of the proposed correlation is demonstrated by comparing the internal pressure capacities of full-scale containment buildings following liner failure criteria according to RG 1.216 and an approximate correlation.

한반도 원자력 활동 현장 검증을 위한 인력 및 장비 운반에 관한 연구 (Research on Transportation of Personnel and Equipment for Verification of Nuclear Activities on the Korean Peninsula)

  • 한지영;박수희;박제완;김용민
    • 방사선산업학회지
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    • 제17권4호
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    • pp.481-487
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    • 2023
  • After conducting a hydrogen bomb test and launching an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in 2017, The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea, D.P.R.K.) declared the completion of its national nuclear capabilities. Currently, North Korea is refusing all nuclear inspections, but the possibility of nuclear inspections and the denuclearization process on the Korean Peninsula still exists. The Republic of Korea (South Korea, Rep. of Korea) has numerous reasons as a neighboring country to participate in North Korea's nuclear inspections and denuclearization, including technological capabilities, geographical proximity, and linguistic benefits. This study assumes nuclear inspections and verification within North Korea and aims to propose scenarios for the transportation and operation of personnel and equipment. The data and results compiled through this research are anticipated to serve as foundational information for future inspections and verifications on the Korean Peninsula. Furthermore, it is assessed that they could contribute to the development of strategies in preparation for participation in denuclearization efforts.

A rapid modeling method and accuracy criteria for common-cause failures in Risk Monitor PSA model

  • Zhang, Bing;Chen, Shanqi;Lin, Zhixian;Wang, Shaoxuan;Wang, Zhen;Ge, Daochuan;Guo, Dingqing;Lin, Jian;Wang, Fang;Wang, Jin
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • 제53권1호
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    • pp.103-110
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    • 2021
  • In the development of a Risk Monitor probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) model from the basic PSA model of a nuclear power plant, the modeling of common-cause failure (CCF) is very important. At present, some approximate modeling methods are widely used, but there lacks criterion of modeling accuracy and error analysis. In this paper, aiming at ensuring the accuracy of risk assessment and minimizing the Risk Monitor PSA models size, we present three basic issues of CCF model resulted from the changes of a nuclear power plant configuration, put forward corresponding modeling methods, and derive accuracy criteria of CCF modeling based on minimum cut sets and risk indicators according to the requirements of risk monitoring. Finally, a nuclear power plant Risk Monitor PSA model is taken as an example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed modeling method and accuracy criteria, and the application scope of the idea of this paper is also discussed.