• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.719-728
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• 2015

Following the Fukushima accident, a special safety inspection was conducted in Korea. The inspection results show that Korean nuclear power plants have no imminent risk for expected maximum potential earthquake or coastal flooding. However long- and short-term safety improvements do need to be implemented. One of the measures to increase the mitigation capability during a prolonged station blackout (SBO) accident is installing injection flow paths to provide emergency cooling water of external sources using fire engines to the steam generators or reactor cooling systems. This paper illustrates an evaluation of the effectiveness of external cooling water injection strategies using fire trucks during a potential extended SBO accident in a 1,000 MWe pressurized water reactor. With regard to the effectiveness of external cooling water injection strategies using fire engines, the strategies are judged to be very feasible for a long-term SBO, but are not likely to be effective for a short-term SBO.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.25-38
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• 2023

Instrumentation and control systems measure and control various variables of nuclear facilities to operate nuclear power plants safely. A diverse protection system, a representative instrumentation and control system, generates a reactor trip and turbine trip signal by high pressure in a pressurizer and containment to satisfy the design requirements 10CFR50.62. Also, it generates an auxiliary feedwater actuation signal by low water levels in steam generators. Cybersecurity has become more critical as digital technology is gradually applied to solve problems such as performance degradation due to aging of analog equipment, increased maintenance costs, and product discontinuation. This paper analyzed possible cybersecurity threat scenarios in the diverse protection system using attack trees. Based on the analyzed cybersecurity threat scenario, we calculated the probability of attack occurrence and confirmed the cybersecurity risk in connection with the asset value.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.219-222
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• 2013

Alloy 690 has been selected as a steam generator tubing material for SMART owing to a near immunity to primary water stress corrosion cracking. The steam generators of SMART are faced with a neutron flux due to the integrated arrangement inside a reactor vessel, and thus it is important to know the irradiation effects of the thermal conductivity of Alloy 690. Alloy 690 was irradiated at HANARO to fluences of (0.7-28) ${\times}10^{19}n/cm^2$ (E>0.1MeV) at $250^{\circ}C$, and its thermal conductivity was measured using the laser-flash equipment in the IMEF. The thermal conductivity of Alloy 690 was dependent on temperature, and it was a good fit to the Smith-Palmer equation, which modified the Wiedemann-Franz law. The irradiation at $250^{\circ}C$ did not degrade the thermal conductivity of Alloy 690, and even showed a small increase (1%) at fluences of (0.7~28) ${\times}10^{19}n/cm^2$ (E>0.1MeV).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.45-52
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• 1985

A two inverted U-tubes condenser was constructed from transparent materials to study the heat removal capability of steam generators under filmwise reflux condensation mode. Essentially, two sets of experiments were performed: (1) the first dealt with the reflux condensation length, and (2) the second dealt with the flooding points with and without the presence of a noncondensible gas in the steam flow, and the effect of the flooding time. In addition, experimental results are compared with the predictions of analytical models.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.2743-2759
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• 2020

A detailed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation analysis model was developed using ANSYS CFX 16.1 and analyzed to simulate the basic design and internal flow characteristics of a 180 MW small modular reactor (SMR) with a natural circulation flow system. To analyze the natural circulation phenomena without a pump for the initial flow generation inside the reactor, the flow characteristics were evaluated for each output assuming various initial powers relative to the critical condition. The eddy phenomenon and the flow imbalance phenomenon at each output were confirmed, and a flow leveling structure under the core was proposed for an optimization of the internal natural circulation flow. In the steady-state analysis, the temperature distribution and heat transfer speed at each position considering an increase in the output power of the core were calculated, and the conceptual design of the SMR had a sufficient thermal margin (31.4 K). A transient model with the output ranging from 0% to 100% was analyzed, and the obtained values were close to the T_hot and T_cold temperature difference value estimated in the conceptual design of the SMR. The K-factor was calculated from the flow analysis data of the CFX model and applied to an analysis model in RELAP5/MOD3.3, the optimal analysis system code for nuclear power plants. The CFX analysis results and RELAP analysis results were evaluated in terms of the internal flow characteristics per core output. The two codes, which model the same nuclear power plant, have different flow analysis schemes but can be used complementarily. In particular, it will be useful to carry out detailed studies of the timing of the steam generator intervention when an SMR is activated. The thermal and hydraulic characteristics of the models that applied porous media to the core & steam generators and the models that embodied the entire detail shape were compared and analyzed. Although there were differences in the ability to analyze detailed flow characteristics at some low powers, it was confirmed that there was no significant difference in the thermal hydraulic characteristics' analysis of the SMR system's conceptual design.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.73-80
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• 2013

The primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC) of Alloy 600 in a PWR has been reported in the control rod drive mechanism (CRDM), pressurizer instrumentation, and the pressurizer heater sleeves. Recently, two cases of boric acid precipitation that indicated leaking of the primary cooling water were reported on the bottom head surface of steam generators (SG) in Korea. The PWSCC resistance of Ni base alloys which have intergranular carbides is higher than those which have intragranular carbides. Conversely, in oxidized acidic solutions like sodium sulfate or sodium tetrathionate solutions, the Ni base alloys with a lot of carbides at the grain boundaries and shows less stress corrosion cracking (SCC) resistance. The role of grain boundary carbides in SCC behavior of Ni base alloys was evaluated and effect of intergranular carbides on the SCC susceptibility were reviewed from the literature.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.637-644
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• 2012

In a nuclear power plant, fretting wear due to impact motion between U-tubes and support structures located in steam generators can cause serious problems. In order to guarantee the reliability of the steam generator, the damage due to fretting wear should be thoroughly investigated. The purpose of this study is to elucidate the fretting wear mechanism qualitatively and quantitatively. Hence, fretting wear simulation is performed for the environments to which the actual steam generators in nuclear power plants are exposed. Initial experimental results are obtained for various experimental parameters, and the effect of the work rate and temperature on fretting wear is evaluated. In water, the wear coefficients for $90^{\circ}C$, $200^{\circ}C$, and $340^{\circ}C$ are found to be $9.051{\times}10^{-16}\;Pa^{-1}$, $3.009{\times}10^{-15}\;Pa^{-1}$, and $2.235{\times}10^{-15}\;Pa^{-1}$, respectively. It is also found that the wear coefficient at room temperature is larger than that at low temperature in water because of the dynamic viscosity of water.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.380-385
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• 2001

In nuclear power steam generators, high flow rates can induce vibration of the tubes resulting in fretting wear damage due to contacts between the tubes and their supports. In this paper the fretting wear tests and the sliding wear tests were performed using the steam generator tube materials of Inconel 600 and 690 against STS 304. Sliding tests with the pin-on-disk type tribometer were done under various applied loads and sliding speeds at air environment. Fretting tests were done under various vibrating amplitudes and applied normal loads. From the results of sliding and fretting wear tests, the wear of Inconel 600 and 690 can be predictable using the work rate model. Depending on normal loads and vibrating amplitudes, distinctively different wear mechanisms and often drastically different wear rates can occur. It was found the results that the wear coefficients for Inconel 600 and 690 were 262.3$\times$10$\^$-15/Pa$\^$-1/ and 209.2$\times$10$\^$-15/Pa$\^$-1/, respectively. This study shows that Inconel 690 can provide much better wear resistance than Inconel 600 in air.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.306-311
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• 1996

This paper discusses the maintenance of the water level of steam generators at its programmed value. The process, the water level of a steam generator, has the nonminimum phase property. So, it causes a reverse dynamics called a swell and shrink phenomenon. This phenomenon is severe in a low power condition below 15 %, in turn makes the start-up of the power plant too difficult. The control algorithm used here incorporates a pole-assignment scheme into the minimum variance strategy and we use a parallel adaptation algorithm for the parameter estimation, which is robust to noises. As a result, the total control system can keep the water level constant during full power by locating closed-loop poles appropriately, although the process has the characteristics of high complexity and nonlinearity. Also, the extra perturbation signals are added to the input signal such that the control system guarantee persistently exciting. In order to confirm the control performance of a proposed pole-assignment self-tuning controller we perform a computer simulation in full power range.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 2014

Since steam generator (SG) tubes are located in the boundary between the primary and secondary systems of nuclear power plant (NPP), the SG is one of the most important components in the aspects of the safety of NPP. The magnetite ($Fe_30_4$) deposition, so-called fouling, is generally known as a major aging mechanism of CANDU SGs, and this aging mechanism makes the heat transfer efficiency between the primary and secondary systems of NPP reduced. Therefore, the development of SG safety assessment system which can evaluate the effect of the SG aging degradation mechanism should be needed for safety of NPP. In this study, through the suggestion of the guideline for SG safety assessment, it is possible to strengthen the basic of establishing the effective SG aging management technique. The SG safety assessment is carried out by CATHENA(Canadian Algorithm for THErmalhydraulic Network Analysis). It is possible to determine the integrity of SGs by identifying the main safety parameters which can be changed by the aging degradation of CANDU SGs.