• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.87-93
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• 2001

Pressure-balanced external Ag/AgCl electrode has been extensively used for both Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) and Boiling Water Reactor (PWR) environments. The use of KCI-based buffer solution often becomes the source of electrode potential drift due to slow leakage through its porous plug, typically made of zirconia. It is reported that results of our effort to improve the stability of electrode potential by using high purity water as the filling solution in which $Cl^-$ ion activity can be established and maintained at the solubility of AgCl even with the sustained leakage for a long period. Stability tests have been made in boron and lithium mixture solution at $288^{\circ}C$. The electrode potential remained stable within 10 mV over one week period. And after a thermal cycle between 288 to $240^{\circ}C$ the potential shift of Ag/AgCl electrodes did not exceed 15 mV By using the limiting equivalent ionic conductances and Agar's hydrodynamic theory, the thermal liquid junction potential (TLJP) of the electrode has been predicted. The calculated values for the water-fiued Ag/AgCl electrode potential, in which the chlorine concentration in the filling solution was derived from the measured data at ambient temperature, had a good agreement with the experimental values.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.35 no.10
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• pp.1337-1345
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• 2011

In pressurized water reactors (PWRs), the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) upper head contains numerous control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) nozzles. In the last 10 years, the incidences of cracking in alloy 600 CRDM nozzles and their associated welds has increased significantly. Several axial and circumferential cracks have been found in CRDM nozzles in European PWRs and U.S. nuclear power plants. These cracks are caused by primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC) and have been shown to be driven by welding residual stresses and operational stresses in the weld region. Therefore, detailed finite-element (FE) simulations for the Korea Nuclear Reactor Pressure Vessel have been conducted in order to predict the magnitudes of the weld residual stresses in the tube materials. In particular, the weld residual stress results are compared in terms for nozzle location, geometry factor$r_o$/t, geometry of fillet, and adjacent nozzle.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.196-203
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• 1982

To transport the spent fuel assemblies of Korea Nuclear Unit 1, which is a Westinghouse type two loop pressurized water reactor, it has been found that steel is the most appropriate material for the design of a shipping cask in comparison with lead and depleted uranium. The proposed shipping cask will transport nine fuel assemblies at the same time and is well within the weight limit of transportation by unrestricted rail car. The cask requires 33cm thick steel shield and 27cm thick water region to satisfy the 3 feet apart dose rate limit set forth in 10 CFR 71, and 1.27cm thick steel boron fuel basket to hold the fuel elements inside the cask and control the effective multiplication factor. As a safety analysis, the fuel cladding and centerline temperatures were calculated under the accident condition of complete loss of water coolant, and it was found that the temperature was much lower than the limit of the melting point. k$_{eff}$ was calculated with fresh fuel assemblies, which was found to be well lower than 0.95. For shielding computation, the multipurpose Monte Carlo code MORSE-CG and one dimensional discrete ordinates transport code ANISN were used, and the Monte Carlo codes KENO and MORSE-CG were used for criticality calculation. The radiation source terms were calculated using ORIGEN-79.9.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.158-168
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• 2021

Austenitic 316 stainless steel was irradiated with protons accelerated by an energy of 2 MeV at 360 ℃, the various defects induced by this proton irradiation were characterized with microscopic equipment. In our observations irradiation defects such as dislocations and micro-voids were clearly revealed. The typical irradiation defects observed differed according to depth, indicating the evolution of irradiation defects follows the characteristics of radiation damage profiles that depend on depth. Surface oxidation tests were conducted under the simulated primary water conditions of a pressurized water reactor (PWR) to understand the role irradiation defects play in surface oxidation behavior and also to investigate the resultant irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) susceptibility that occurs after exposure to PWR primary water. We found that Cr and Fe became depleted while Ni was enriched at the grain boundary beneath the surface oxidation layer both in the non-irradiated and proton-irradiated specimens. However, the degree of Cr/Fe depletion and Ni enrichment was much higher in the proton-irradiated sample than in the non-irradiated one owing to radiation-induced segregation and the irradiation defects. The microstructural and microchemical changes induced by proton irradiation all appear to significantly increase the susceptibility of austenitic 316 stainless steel to IASCC.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.109-118
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• 2023

In this paper, the evaluation method of fluidelastic instability (FEI) of newly designed steam generator tubing in pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power plants is discussed. To obtain the parameters for prediction of the critical velocity of FEI for steam generator tubes, experimental research is carried out, and the design parameters are determined. Using CFD numerical simulation, the tube array scale of the model experiment is determined, and the experimental device is designed. In this paper, 7 groups of experiments with void fractions of 0% (water), 10%, 20%, 50%, 75%, 85% and 95% were carried out. The critical damping ration, fundamental frequency and critical velocity of FEI of tubes in flowing water were measured. Through calculation, the total mass and instability constant of the immersed tube are obtained. The critical damping ration measured in the experiment mainly included two-phase damping and viscous damping, which changed with the change in void fraction from 1.56% to 4.34%. This value can be used in the steam generator design described in this paper and is conservative. By introducing the multiplier of frequency and square root of total mass per unit length, it is found that the difference between the experimental results and the calculated results is less than 1%, which proves the rationality and feasibility of the calculation method of frequency and total mass per unit length in engineering design. Through calculation, the instability constant is greater than 4 when the void fraction is less than 75%, less than 4 when the void fraction exceeds 75% and only 3.04 when the void fraction is 95%.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.54-61
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• 2005

The APR1400 is an Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor with 3983 MWt power, 2×4 loops, and direct vessel injection system. The Fluidic Device (FD) is adopted to regulate the safety injection flow rate in a Safety Injection Tank (SIT) of APR1400. The performance of a newly designed fluidic Device is evaluated by analyzing a Large Break Loss-of-Coolant Accident (LBLOCA) using TRAC-M/F90, version 3.782. The analysis results show that the TRAC-M code reasonably predicts the important phenomena of blowdown, refill and reflood phases of LBLOCA. The sensitivity studies about gas/water volume changes in a SIT and K factor changes in a SI system were also done to understand the important phenomena with a Fluidic Device in APR1400.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.317-326
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• 1995

The oater level control system of the steam generator in a pressurized water reactor and its control Problems are analysed. In this work a stable control strategy Particularly during low Power operation based on the fuzzy control method is studied. The control strategy employs substitutional information using the bypass valve opening instead of incorrectly measured signal at the low How rate as the fuzzy variable of the flow rate during low power operation, and includes the flexible scale adjusting method for fast response at a large transient. A self-tuning algorithm based on the control performance and the descent method is also suggested for tuning the membership function scale. It gives a practical way to tune the controller under real operation. Simulation was carried out on the Compact Nuclear Simulator set up at Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute and its result showed the good performance of the controller and effectiveness of its tuning.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.183-199
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• 1991

Transient response of temperature distributions in a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) pressurizer vessel wall for the Inadvertent Auxiliary Spray transient has been analyzed with conservatism accounted for the resulting thermal stresses in the regions of the vessel wall which are wetted by the spray water droplets. In order to determine the forced convective heat transfer coefficient at the inner boundary surface of vessel wall where the droplets impinge on and flow down, the transient temperatures of spray droplets when they reach the inner surface of the vessel wall after travelling from the spray nozzle through the pressurizer interior space occupied with the saturated steam-noncondensable hydrogen gas mixture have been predicted. The transient temperature distributions in the vessel wall have been obtained by using the finite element method, and the typical results have been provided. It has been shown that the results of thermal analysis are consistent with representation of the input transient and have plausible physical meaning.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.12-19
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• 1990

The Loss of Offsite Power Transient at 77.5% power which occurred on June 9, 1981 at the Kori Unit 1 PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor) is simulated using the RELAP5/MOD2 system thermal-hydraulics computer code. Major thermal-hydraulic parameters are compared with the available plant data. The comparison of the analysis results with the plant data demonstrates that the RELAP5/MOD2 code has the capability to simulate the thermal-hydraulic behaviour of PWRs under accident conditions of this type with accuracy, except the pressurizer pressure and level. The pressurizer pressure increase is sensitive to the in surge now it is believed that the interracial heat transfer in a horizontal stratified flow regime may be estimated low and the compression effect due to insurge flow may be high. In the nodalization sensitivity study it is found that S/G noding with junctions between bypass plenum and steam dome is preferred to simulate the S/G water level decreasing and avoid the spurious level peak at trubine trip.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2024

Stainless 630 (or 17-4PH) is a precipitation-hardening martensitic stainless steel that has excellent mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. These characteristics make the STS630 to be used as a consisting material for various components such as spider, pin, spring, and spring retainer, of the control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) in pressurized water reactors (PWRs). In general, it is well known that the oxide layer of stainless steel consists of a duplex layer, a compact inner layer of FeCr₂O₄ spinel, and a coarse-grained outer layer of Fe₃O₄ spinel in PWR primary coolant condition. However, the characteristics of the oxide layer can be sensitively influenced by various water chemistry conditions such as temperature, dissolved oxygen, dissolved hydrogen, pH, pH adjuster type, and exposure time. In this work, we investigate the corrosion properties of the STS630 as a function of coolant temperature in an NH3 alkaline solution for its boron-free application in a small modular reactor, to confirm the feasibility for usage as a boron-free SMR structural material. As a result, oxide layer of corroded STS630 is consist of double-layer oxides consisting of a Cr-rich dense inner oxide and a Fe-rich polyhedral outer particles like as that in commercial PWR primary coolant. The corrosion rate of STS630 increases with increase in test time and temperature and the corrosion rate-time model equation was developed based on experimental data. Overall, it is expected that the results in this study provides useful data for the corrosion behavior of STS630 in alkaline environments, contributing to the development of selecting suitable materials for SMRs.