• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.40-47
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• 2013

The capacity factor of nuclear power plant in Korea is the highest level in the world. However, the integrity assessment of nuclear power plant is depended on foreign country. Especially, most eddy current testing systems for inspecting steam generators in nuclear power plant are currently imported from USA, Canada, and so on. Therefore, the eddy current testing system can react more active and adaptive from economic and managerial standpoint for actual nuclear power plants in Korea is required. In this paper, an eddy current testing system for inspecting steam generators in nuclear power plants is introduced. Frequency generator, analog circuit, analog digital converter circuit, and digital control circuit are composed in eddy current testing system. A benchmarking of acquisition system and acquisition software, eddynet 11i made by Zetec, and modifications are carried out based on the test environment of Korea nuclear power plants. Finally, all eddy current apparatus are integrated to inspect steam generator tubes in nuclear power plants.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.570-581
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• 2018

Recently, a software program has been used in nuclear power plants (NPPs) to digitalize many instrumentation and control systems. To guarantee NPP safety, the reliability of the software used in safetycritical instrumentation and control systems must be quantified and verified with proper test cases and test environment. In this study, a software testing method using a simulation-based software test bed is proposed. The test bed is developed by emulating the microprocessor architecture of the programmable logic controller used in NPP safety-critical applications and capturing its behavior at each machine instruction. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated via a case study. To represent the possible states of software input and the internal variables that contribute to generating a dedicated safety signal, the software test cases are developed in consideration of the digital characteristics of the target system and the plant dynamics. The method provides a practical way to conduct exhaustive software testing, which can prove the software to be error free and minimize the uncertainty in software reliability quantification. Compared with existing testing methods, it can effectively reduce the software testing effort by emulating the programmable logic controller behavior at the machine level.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.437-442
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• 2006

European Material Test Reactors (MTRs) have provided essential support for nuclear power programs over the last 40 years. MTRs are now ageing in Europe and they cannot ensure the securing of experimental capability for the next decades. In this context, a new Material Testing Reactor, named Jules Horowitz Reactor -JHR-, operated as an international user-facility, is under development in Europe. The European MTRs context and the JHR objectives and status will be presented. Emphasis will be put on experiments in the field of nuclear fuels and materials irradiation which are developed in the framework of European and international collaboration.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.735-736
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.974-975
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• 2005

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.1-6
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• 2012

The containment Integrated Leakage Rate Testing(ILRT) of nuclear power plants in Korea is performed in accordance with NSSC(Nuclear Safety and Security Commission) code 2012-16 and ANSI/ANS 56.8-1994. Nuclear power plants in Korea and the United States are to apply same test criteria, ANSI/ANS 56.8-1994, except type A testing time. NPPs in Korea apply 24 hours according to NSSC code 2012-16, but NPPs in United States apply 8 hours according to 10CFR50 App. J for type A test. So, there are many difficulties in order to perform ILRT in Korea. In this study, I review the impact on the ILRT results and the effect of ILRT due to type A testing time. The future, we will continue study to enhance the test reliability and improve these problems.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.663-672
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• 2012

As software based digital I&C (Instrumentation and Control) systems are used more prevalently in nuclear plants, enhancement of software dependability has become an important issue in the area of nuclear I&C systems. Critical attributes of software dependability are safety and reliability. These attributes are tightly related to software failures caused by faults. Software testing and V&V (Verification and Validation) activities are hence important for enhancing software dependability. If the risky modules of safety-critical software can be predicted, it will be possible to focus on testing and V&V activities more efficiently and effectively. It should also make it possible to better allocate resources for regulation activities. We propose a prediction technique to estimate risky software modules by adopting machine learning models based on software complexity metrics. An empirical study with various machine learning algorithms was executed for comparing the prediction performance. Experimental results show SVMs (Support Vector Machines) perform as well or better than the other methods.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.61 no.12
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• pp.1948-1952
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• 2012

The paper presents modal testing and analysis in order to obtain the dynamic characteristics of a middle spacer grids of a nuclear fuel rod. A spacer grid is one of the important structural elements supporting nuclear fuel rods. Such a fuel rod can be oscillated by its thermal expansion, neutron irradiation and etc. due to cooling water flow under the operation of a nuclear power plant. When the fuel rod vibrates, fretting wear due to repeated friction motion between the fuel rods and spacer grids can be occurred, and so the fuel rod is damaged. In this paper, through modal analysis and testing, natural frequencies and modes of a middle spacer grid were calculated, and the following conclusions were obtained. Firstly the numerical first-seven natural frequencies for spacer grids of a fuel rod having complicated structures have a small difference within 3.8% with experimental natural frequencies, and so the suitability of simulation results was verified. Secondly, experimental mode shapes for a middle spacer grid of a nuclear fuel rod were verified by obtaining lower non-diagonal terms through MAC(Modal Assurance Criteria), and were confirmed by the simulation modes.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.49-57
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• 1999

It has been a critical issue to predict the safety critical software reliability in nuclear engineering area. For many years, many researches have focused on the quantification of software reliability and there have been many models developed to quantify software reliability. Most software reliability models estimate the reliability with the failure data collected during the test assuming that the test environments well represent the operation profile. User's interest is however on the operational reliability rather than on the test reliability. The experiences show that the operational reliability is higher than the test reliability. With the assumption that the difference in reliability results from the change of environment, from testing to operation, testing environment factors comprising the aging factor and the coverage factor are developed in this paper and used to predict the ultimate operational reliability with the failure data in testing phase. It is by incorporating test environments applied beyond the operational profile into testing environment factors. The application results show that the proposed method can estimate the operational reliability accurately.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.97-100
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• 2009

A new eddy current testing probe was developed to separate the eddy current signal distortion caused by permeability variation clusters and ordinary defects created in steam generator tubes. Signal processing circuits were inserted into the probe to increase the signal-to-noise ratio and allow digital signal transmission. The new probe could measure and separate the magnetic phases created in the steam generator tubes in the operating environment of a nuclear power plant. Furthermore, the new eddy current testing probe can measure the defects in steam generator tubes as rapidly as a bobbin probe with enhanced testing speed and reliability of defect detection.