• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.493-520
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• 2009

During the last four decades, 16 Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) and 4 Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) have been constructed and operated in Korea, and nuclear fuel technology has been developed to a self-reliant state. At first, the PWR fuel design and manufacturing technology was acquired through international cooperation with a foreign partner. Then, the PWR fuel R&D by Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has improved fuel technology to a self-reliant state in terms of fuel elements, which includes a new cladding material, a large-grained $UO_2$ pellet, a high performance spacer grid, a fuel rod performance code, and fuel assembly test facility. The MOX fuel performance analysis code was developed and validated using the in-reactor test data. MOX fuel test rods were fabricated and their irradiation test was completed by an international program. At the same time, the PWR fuel development by Korea Nuclear Fuel (KNF) has produced new fuel assemblies such as PLUS7 and ACE7. During this process, the design and test technology of fuel assemblies was developed to a self-reliant state. The PHWR fuel manufacturing technology was developed and manufacturing facility was set up by KAERI, independently from the foreign technology. Then, the advanced PHWR fuel, CANFLEX(CANDU Flexible Fuelling), was developed, and an irradiation test was completed in a PHWR. The development of the CANFLEX fuel included a new design of fuel rods and bundles.. The nuclear fuel technology in Korea has been steadily developed in many national R&D programs, and this advanced fuel technology is expected to contribute to a worldwide nuclear renaissance that can create solutions to global warming.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.257-262
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• 2012

Flow accelerated corrosion (FAC) of the carbon steel piping in nuclear power plants (NPPs) has been major issue in nuclear industry. Rotating cylinder FAC test facility was designed and fabricated and then performance of the facility was evaluated. The facility is very simple in design and economic in fabrication and can be used in material and chemistry screening test. The facility is equipped with on line monitoring of pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen(DO), and temperature. Fluid velocity is controlled with rotating speed of the cylinder with a test specimen. FAC test of SA106 Gr. B carbon steel under 4 m/s flow velocity was performed with the rotating cylinder at DO concentration of less than 1 ppb and of 1.3 ppm. Also a corrosion test of the carbon steel at static condition, that is at zero fluid velocity, of test specimen and solution was performed at pH from 8 to 10 for comparison with the FAC data. For corrosion test in static condition, the amount of non adherent corrosion product was almost constant at pH ranging from 8 to 10. But adherent corrosion product decreased with increasing pH. This trend is consistent with decrease of Fe solubility with an increase in pH. For FAC test with rotating cylinder FAC test facility, the amount of non adherent corrosion product was also almost same for both DO concentrations. The rotating cylinder FAC test facility will be further improved by redesigning rotating cylinder and FAC specimen geometry for future work.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.3-4
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• 1975

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.5-9
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• 1975

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.561-572
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• 2019

In the design criterion for the nuclear power plant piping system, the limit state of the piping against an earthquake is assumed to be plastic collapse. The failure of a common piping system, however, means the leakage caused by the cracks. Therefore, for the seismic fragility analysis of a nuclear power plant, a method capable of quantitatively expressing the failure of an actual piping system is required. In this study, it was conducted to propose a quantitative failure criterion for piping system, which is required for the seismic fragility analysis of nuclear power plants against critical accidents. The in-plane cyclic loading test was conducted to propose a quantitative failure criterion for steel pipe elbows in the nuclear power plant piping system. Nonlinear analysis was conducted using a finite element model, and the results were compared with the test results to verify the effectiveness of the finite element model. The collapse load point derived from the experiment and analysis results and the damage index based on the stress-strain relationship were defined as failure criteria, and seismic fragility analysis was conducted for the piping system of the BNL (Brookhaven National Laboratory) - NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) benchmark model.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.1142-1153
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• 2019

This paper presents the effect of fusion procedure on the fusion performance of the thermal butt fusion in the safety class III buried HDPE piping per various tests performed, including high speed tensile impact, free bend, blunt notched tensile, notched creep, and PENT tests. The suitability of fusion joints and qualification procedures was evaluated by comparing test results from the base material and buttfusion joints. From the notched tensile test result, it was found that the fused joints have much lower toughness than the base material. It was also identified that the notched tensile test is more desirable than the high speed tensile impact and free bend tests presented in the ASME Code Case N-755-3 as a fusion qualification test method. In addition, with regard to the single low-pressure fusion joint performances, the procedure given by the ISO 21307 was determined to be better that the one specified in the Code Case N-755-3.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.7
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• pp.2704-2710
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• 2024

Nuclear archaeology research provides scientific methods to reconstruct the operating histories of fissile material production facilities to account for past fissile material production. While it has typically focused on analyzing material in permanent reactor structures, spent fuel or high-level waste also hold information about the reactor operation. In this computational study, we explore a Bayesian inference framework for reconstructing the operational history from measurements of isotope ratios from a sample of nuclear waste. We investigate two different inference models. The first model discriminates between three potential reactors of origin (Magnox, PWR, and PHWR) while simultaneously reconstructing the fuel burnup, time since irradiation, initial enrichment, and average power density. The second model reconstructs the fuel burnup and time since irradiation of two batches of waste in a mixed sample. Each of the models is applied to a set of simulated test data, and the performance is evaluated by comparing the highest posterior density regions to the corresponding parameter values of the test dataset. Both models perform well on the simulated test cases, which highlights the potential of the Bayesian inference framework and opens up avenues for further investigation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.1664-1675
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• 2021

In order to verify the statistical performance of the nonparametric tests used in the MARSSIM approach, all plausible contamination distribution types that can be encountered in a survey area should be investigated. As the first of such investigations, this study aims to perform the verification for normal distribution of the contamination in a survey area by simulating the collection of random samples from it through the Monte Carlo simulation. The results of the simulations conducted for a total of 81 simulation cases showed that Sign test and WRS test both exhibited an excellent statistical performance: 100% for the former and 98.8% for the latter. Therefore, in final status surveys of the MARSSIM approach, a high statistical performance can be expected in applying the nonparametric hypothesis tests to survey areas whose net contamination can be assumed to be normally distributed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.147-147
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• 2002

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.793-803
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• 2021

The small PWR has been paid more and more attention due to its diversity of application and flexibility in the site selection. However, the large core power density, the small containment space and the rapid accident progress characteristics make it difficult to control the containment pressure like the traditional PWR during the LOCA. The pressure suppression system has been used by the BWR since the early design, which is a suitable technique that can be applied to the small PWR. Since the configuration and operating conditions are different from the BWR, the pressure suppression system should be redesigned for the small PWR. Conducting the experiments on the scale down test facility is a good choice to reproduce the prototypical phenomena in the test facility, which is both economical and reasonable. A systematic scaling method referring to the H2TS method was proposed to determine the geometrical and thermohydraulic parameters of the pressure suppression containment response test facility for the small PWR conceptual design. The containment and the pressure suppression system related thermohydraulic phenomena were analyzed with top-down and bottom-up scaling methods. A set of the scaling criteria were obtained, through which the main parameters of the test facility can be determined.