• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권9호
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• pp.2859-2865
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• 2021

One of the important issues raised from the Fukushima-Daiichi accident is the safety of multi-unit sites when simultaneous accidents occur at the site and recently a multi-unit PSA methodology is being developed worldwide. Since all operation modes of the plant should be considered in the multi-unit PSA, the accident analysis needs to be performed for shutdown operation modes, too. In this study, a station blackout during the mid-loop operation is selected as a reference scenario. The overall accident progression for the mid-loop operation is slower than that for the full-power operation because the residual heat per mass of coolant is about 6 times lower than that in the mid-loop scenario. Though the fractions of Cs released from the core to the RCS in both operation modes are almost the same, the amount of Cs delivered to the containment atmosphere is quite different due to the chemisorption in the RCS. While 45.5% of the initial inventory is chemisorbed on the RCS surfaces during the full-power operation, only 2.2% during the mid-loop operation. The containment remains intact during the mid-loop operation, though 83.9% of Cs is delivered to the containment.

• 한국지진공학회논문집
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.129-135
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• 2021

After the manual shutdown of the Wolseong nuclear power plant due to an earthquake in Gyeongju in 2016, anxiety about the earthquake safety of nuclear power plants has become a major social issue. The shear wall structure used as a major structural element in nuclear power plants is widely used as a major structural member because of its high resistance to horizontal loads such as earthquakes. However, due to the complexity of the structure, it is challenging to predict the dynamic characteristics of the structure. In this study, a three-story shear wall structure is fabricated, and the in-structure response characteristics of the shear wall structure are evaluated through shaking table tests. The test is performed using the Gyeongju earthquake that occurred in 2016, and the response characteristics due to the domestic earthquake are evaluated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권6호
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• pp.1658-1668
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• 2019

Nuclear power generates a large portion of the energy used today and plays an important role in energy development. To ensure safe nuclear power generation, it is essential to conduct an accurate analysis of reactor structural integrity. Accordingly, in this study, a methodology for obtaining accurate structural responses to the combined seismic and reactor coolant loads existing prior to the shutdown of a nuclear reactor is proposed. By applying the proposed analysis method to the reactor vessel internals, it is possible to derive the seismic responses considering the influence of the hydraulic loads present during operation for the first time. The validity of the proposed methodology is confirmed in this research by using the finite element method to conduct seismic and hydraulic load analyses of the advanced APR1400 1400 MWe power reactor, one of the commercial reactors. The structural responses to the combined applied loads are obtained using displacement-based and stress-based superposition methods. The safety of the subject nuclear reactor is then confirmed by analyzing the design margin according to the American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME) evaluation criteria, demonstrating the promise of the proposed analysis method.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권7호
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• pp.1765-1775
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• 2019

Multiple spurious operations (MSOs) mean multiple fire induced circuit faults causing an undesired operation of one or more systems or components. The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) of the United States published NEI 00-01 as guidelines for solving MSOs. And this guideline includes MSO scenarios of pressurized water reactor (PWR) and boiling water reactor (BWR). Nuclear power plant operators in U.S. analyzed MSOs under MSO scenarios included in NEI 00-01 and operators of PWRs in Korea also analyzed MSOs under the scenarios of NEI 00-01. As there are no pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs) in the United States, MSO scenarios of PHWRs are not included in the NEI 00-01 and any feasible scenarios have not been developed. This paper developed MSO scenarios which can be applied to PHWRs by reviewing the 63 MSO scenarios included in NEI 00-01. This study found that seven scenarios out of the 63 MSO scenarios can be applied and three more scenarios need to be developed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권2호
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• pp.369-376
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• 2019

A complete solution for a soluble-boron-free (SBF) small modular reactor (SMR) is pursued with a new burnable absorber concept, namely centrally-shielded burnable absorber (CSBA). Neutronic flexibility of the CSBA design has been discussed with fuel assembly (FA) analyses. Major design parameters and goals of the SBF SMR are discussed in view of the reactor core design and three CSBA designs are introduced to achieve both a very low burnup reactivity swing (BRS) and minimal residual reactivity of the CSBA. It is demonstrated that the core achieves a long cycle length (~37 months) and high burnup (~30 GWd/tU), while the BRS is only about 1100 pcm and the radial power distribution is rather flat. This research also introduces a supplementary reactivity control mechanism using stainless steel as mechanical shim (MS) rod to obtain the criticality during normal operation. A further analysis is performed to investigate the local power peaking of the CSBA-loaded FA at MS-rodded condition. Moreover, a simple $B_4C$-based control rod arrangement is proposed to assure a sufficient shutdown margin even at the cold-zero-power condition. All calculations in this neutronic-thermal hydraulic coupled investigation of the 3D SBF SMR core are completed by a two-step Monte Carlo-diffusion hybrid methodology.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권6호
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• pp.2038-2045
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• 2021

The main objective of this work is to propose a reliable routine standard operation procedures (SOP) for structural health monitoring and diagnosis of nuclear power plants (NPPs). At present, NPPs have monitoring systems that can be used to obtain the quantitative health record of containment (CTMT) buildings through system identification technology. However, because the measurement signals are often interfered with by noise, the identification results may introduce erroneous conclusions if the measured data is directly adopted. Therefore, this paper recommends the SOP for signal screening and the required identification procedures to identify the dynamic characteristics of the CTMT of NPPs. In the SOP, three recommend methods are proposed including the Recursive Least Squares (RLS), the Observer Kalman Filter Identification/Eigensystem Realization Algorithm (OKID/ERA), and the Frequency Response Function (FRF). The identification results can be verified by comparing the results of different methods. Finally, a preliminary CTMT healthy record can be established based on the limited number of earthquake records. It can be served as the quantitative reference to expedite the restart procedure. If the fundamental frequency of the CTMT drops significantly after the Operating Basis Earthquake and Safe Shutdown Earthquake (OBE/SSE), it means that the restart actions suggested by the regulatory guide should be taken in place immediately.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권3호
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• pp.839-849
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• 2023

The development of automation technology to reduce human error by minimizing human intervention is accelerating with artificial intelligence and big data processing technology, even in the nuclear field. Among nuclear power plant operation modes, the startup and shutdown operations are still performed manually and thus have the potential for human error. As part of the development of an autonomous operation system for startup operation, this paper proposes an action coordinating strategy to obtain the optimal actions. The lower level of the system consists of operating blocks that are created by analyzing the operation tasks to achieve local goals through soft actor-critic algorithms. However, when multiple agents try to perform conflicting actions, a method is needed to coordinate them, and for this, an action coordination strategy was developed in this work as the upper level of the system. Three quantification methods were compared and evaluated based on the future plant state predicted by plant parameter prediction models using long short-term memory networks. Results confirmed that the optimal action to satisfy the limiting conditions for operation can be selected by coordinating the action sets. It is expected that this methodology can be generalized through future research.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• 제14권1호
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• pp.1-11
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• 2015

Local wall thinning and integrity degradation caused by several mechanisms, such as flow accelerated corrosion (FAC), cavitation, flashing and/or liquid drop impingements, are a main concern in carbon steel piping systems of nuclear power plant in terms of safety and operability. Thinned pipe management program (TPMP) had been developed and optimized to reduce the possibility of unplanned shutdown and/or power reduction due to pipe failure caused by wall thinning in the secondary side piping system. This program also consists of several technical elements such as prediction of wear rate for each component, prioritization of components for inspection, thickness measurement, calculation of actual wear and wear rate for each component. Decision making is associated with replacement or continuous service for thinned pipe components. Establishment of long-term strategy based on diagnosis of plant condition regarding overall wall thinning is also essential part of the program. Prediction models of wall thinning caused by FAC had been established for 24 operating nuclear plants. Long term strategies to manage the thinned pipe component were prepared and applied to each unit, which was reflecting plant specific design, operation, and inspection history, so that the structural integrity of piping system can be maintained. An alternative integrity assessment criterion and a computer program for thinned piping items were developed for the first time in the world, which was directly applicable to the secondary piping system of nuclear power plant. The thinned pipe management program is applied to all domestic nuclear power plants as a standard procedure form so that it contributes to preventing an accident caused by FAC.

• 전기전자학회논문지
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• 제15권2호
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• pp.134-142
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• 2011

본 논문에서는 3중 모드 고효율 DC-DC 벅 변환기를 설계하였다. 설계된 벅 변환기는 부하 전류가 큰 경우(100mA~500mA)에는 PWM(Pulse Width Modulation) 제어 방식을 사용하고, 부하 전류가 작은 경우(1mA~100mA)에는 PFM(Pulse Frequency Modulation) 제어 방식을 사용하며, 부하 전류가 1mA 이하인 대기모드(sleep mode)에서는 LDO(Low Drop Out)를 사용한다. 또한, PFM 모드에서 부하 전류가 작은 경우 효율을 증가시키기 위해 DPSS(Dynamic Partial Shutdown Strategy) 기법을 사용하였다. 그 결과 설계된 변환기는 넓은 부하 전류 범위에서 높은 효율을 얻을 수 있다. 제안된 벅 변환기는 CMOS 0.18um공정을 이용하여 설계되었다. 최대 효율은 96.4% 이고, 최대 부하 전류는 500mA이다. 입력과 출력 전압은 각각 3.3V와 2.5V이며, 칩 크기는 PAD를 포함하여 1.15mm ${\times}$ 1.10mm이다.

• 한국유체기계학회 논문집
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• 제17권6호
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• pp.109-114
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• 2014

After the Fukushima accident in 2011, it was revealed that nuclear power plant has the vulnerability to SBO accident and its extension situation without sufficient cooling of reactor core resulting core meltdown and radioactive material release even after reactor shutdown. Many safety systems had been developed like PAFS, hybrid SIT, and relocation of RPV and IRWST as a part of steps for the Fukushima accident, however, their applications have limitation in the situation that supply of feedwater into reactor is impossible due to high pressure inside reactor pressure vessel. The concept of hybrid heat pipe with control rod is introduced for breaking through the limitation. Hybrid heat pipe with control rod is the passive decay heat removal system in core, which has the abilities of reactor shutdown as control rod as well as decay heat removal as heat pipe. For evaluating the cooling performance hybrid heat pipe, a commercial CFD code, ANSYS-CFX was used. First, for validating CFD results, numerical results and experimental results with same geometry and fluid conditions were compared to a tube type heat pipe resulting in a resonable agreement between them. After that, wall temperature and thermal resistances of 2 design concepts of hybrid heat pipe were analyzed about various heat inputs. For unit length, hybrid heat pipe with a tube type of $B_4C$ pellet has a decreasing tendency of thermal resistance, on the other hand, hybrid heat pipe with an annular type $B_4C$ pellet has an increasing tendency as heat input increases.