• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.277-284
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• 1994

Much attention has been given to predict the near-field mass transfer of a single radioactive species from a waste solid into surrounding porous medium. But only limited considerations have been given to predict the coupled mass transfer of species with a radioactive decay chain. In this study we present an analysis assuming that the members of a decay chain dissolve congruently with a solubility-limited matrix. We give general, non-recursive analytic solutions for the transport of a radioactive decay chain in a finite porous medium when nuclides are released congruently with the matrix. As an illustration we consider the decay chain $^{234}$ Ulongrightarrow$^{230}$ Thlongrightarrow$^{226}$ Ra from spent fuel. These solutions may be useful and potentially important in performance assessment of radioactive waste repositories.

• Journal of the military operations research society of Korea
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.14-28
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• 1990

The objective of this study is to propose how to acquire through international cooperation the sensitive nuclear technology, so called reprocessing technology. In spite of the need to reuse spent fuel, the transfer of the sensitive technology has been tightly controlled by the nuclear advanced countries due to the fear of nuclear proliferation and, in fact, it would be impossible to secure it by the economic means. In this regard, as a means of acquiring the sensitive nuclear technology, this study proposes the following; 1) President's declaration concerning the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, 2) the establishment and maintenance of national basis through inter-ministerial cooperation, 3) as a confidence building measure, the efforts to strengthen our role in the international nuclear community, and 4) the establishment of the synthetic feedback system to efficiently coordinate. In line with those stated above, this study suggests that it be necessary to invest consistently for developing new technologies and cultivating human resources. Furthermore, this study proposes the necessity to resolve the problems lying ahead by the national consensus achieved through the discussions among the public concerning the sensitive nuclear technology.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.514-520
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• 2000

The mechanism of corrosion behavior has to be understood clearly to select an optimum material for handling molten salts to be used in the oxide reduction process of PWR spent fuel. In this study, the oxidation states of corrosion products on the surface of Inconel 600 and 800H as well as their chemical compositions and structural informations were determined by using XPS, ICP-AES, AAS, EPMA and XRD after the corrosion experiment with lithium molten salts at 75$0^{\circ}C$ for 25 hours. Nickel and oxygen were detected from the corrosion products on the surface of Inconel plates and chromium was found to be dissolved out into lithium molten salts leaving cracks on the surface. The corrosion products were identified as metal oxides such as Fe$_2$O$_3$, Cr$_2$O$_3$, NiO, NiFe$_2$O$_4$and MnO by using XPS and XRD.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.274-279
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• 1996

Diffusion coefficient is a critical parameter for predicting radiological source term(migration rate and flux of radionuclide) through given near field conditions in spent fuel or high level waste repository. The effect of exchangeable cation-$Na^+$ and $Ca^{2+} - on the diffusion of $I^- \;and^3H$ (as HTO) in compacted bentonite was examined using a through-diffusion method. Bentonite material used here was compacted to a density of 1.3 Mg/m$^3$, and Na-bentonite was saturated with a solution of 100 mol NaCl/m$^3$ and Ca-bentonite with 50 $mol\;CaCl_2$/m$^3$. The results show that effective diffusion coefficients are generally higher by a factor of two to five in Ca-than Na-clay. This is attributed to the larger particle size of Ca-compared to Na-bentonite; hence, Ca-bentonite has a greater proportion of relatively large pores, which make a greater contribution to mass transport than small pores. Although the nature of the exchangeable cation affects mass diffusion in compacted bentonite, the effect is small and not likely to influence performance assessment modeling of compacted bentonite-based barriers.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.505-517
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• 2016

The structural integrity of a dual-purpose metal cask currently under development by the Korea Radioactive Waste Agency (KORAD) was evaluated, through numerical simulations and a model test, under high-speed missile impact reflecting targeted aircraft crash conditions. The impact conditions were carefully chosen through a survey on accident cases and recommendations from literature. In the impact scenario, a missile flying horizontally hits the top side of the cask, which is freestanding on a concrete pad, with a velocity of 150 m/s. A simplified missile simulating a commercial aircraft engine was designed from an impact loade-time function available in literature. In the analyses, the dynamic behavior of the metal cask and the integrity of the containment boundary were assessed. The simulation results were compared with the test results for a 1:3 scale model. Although the dynamic behavior of the cask in the model test did not match exactly with the prediction from the numerical simulation, other structural responses, such as the acceleration and strain history during the impact, showed very good agreement. Moreover, the containment function of the cask survived the missile impact as expected from the numerical simulation. Thus, the procedure and methodology adopted in the structural numerical analyses were successfully validated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.478-487
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• 2018

Pyroprocessing technology has been regarded as a promising solution for recycling spent fuel in nuclear power plants. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has been studying the current status of equipment and facilities for pyroprocessing and found that existing facilities are manually operated; therefore, their applications have been limited to laboratory scale because of low productivity and safety concerns. To extend the pyroprocessing technology to a commercial scale, the facility, including all the processing equipment and the material-handling devices, should be enhanced in view of automation. In an automated pyroprocessing facility, a supervised control system is needed to handle and manage material flow and associated operations. This article provides a preliminary design of the supervising system for pyroprocessing. In particular, a manufacturing execution system intended for an automated pyroprocessing facility, named Pyroprocessing Execution System, is proposed, by which the overall production process is automated via systematic collaboration with a planning system and a control system. Moreover, a simulation-based prototype system is presented to illustrate the operability of the proposed Pyroprocessing Execution System, and a simulation study to demonstrate the interoperability of the material-handling equipment with processing equipment is also provided.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.27-36
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• 2020

Natural convection and thermal stratification phenomena are found in large water pools that are being used as heat sinks for decay heat removal from the reactor core using passive heat removal systems. In this study, the two-phase (water and air) natural convection and thermal stratification phenomena with conjugate heat transfer in the rectangular enclosure were investigated numerically using ANSYS Fluent 17.2 code. The transient numerical simulations of these phenomena in the full-scale computational domain of the experimental facility were performed. Generation of water vapour bubbles around the heater rod and evaporation phenomena were included in this numerical investigation. The results of numerical simulations are in good agreement with experimental measurements. This shows that the natural convection is formed in region above the heater rod and the water is thermally stratified in the region below the heater rod. The heat from higher region and from the heater rod is transferred to the lower region via conduction. The thermal stratification disappears and the water becomes well mixed, only after the water temperature reaches the saturation temperature and boiling starts. The developed modelling approach and obtained results provide guidelines for numerical investigations of thermal-hydraulic processes in the water pools for passive residual heat removal systems or spent nuclear fuel pools considering the concreate walls of the pool and main room above the pool.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.109-114
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• 2020

This work presents the results of laboratory scale tests of the CARBOFLUOREX (CARBOnate FLUORide EXtraction) process - a novel technology for the recovery of U and Pu from the solid fluorides residue (fluorination ash) of Fluoride Volatility Method (FVM) reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). To study the oxidative leaching of U from the fluorination ash (FA) by Na₂CO₃ or Na₂CO₃-H₂O₂ solutions followed by solvent extraction by methyltrioctylammonium carbonate in toluene and purification of U from the fission products (FPs) impurities we used a surrogate of FA consisting of UF₄ or UO₂F₂, and FPs fluorides with stable isotopes of Ce, Zr, Sr, Ba, Cs, Fe, Cr, Ni, La, Nd, Pr, Sm. Purification factors of U from impurities at the solvent extraction refining stage reached the values of 10⁴-10⁵, and up to 10⁶ upon the completion of the processing cycle. Obtained results showed a high efficiency of the CARBOFLUOREX process for recovery and separating of U from FPs contained in FA, which allows completing of the FVM cycle with recovery of U and Pu from hardly processed FA.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.394-399
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• 2005

A case history is presented pertaining to high frequency piping vibration and noise caused by globe valve in the spent fuel pool cooling system of nuclear power plant. Frequency analyses were performed on the system to diagnose the problem and develop a solution to reduce the piping vibration and noise. The source of the high frequency and noise energy was traced to the globe valve located immediately downstream of the centrifugal pump by performing valve throttling test. Measurements of vibration and noise are presented to show that the high frequency vibration and noise amplitude was dependent upon the valve disc position and flow rate. Strouhal vortex shedding frequencies were generated at the exit of the globe valve which exited structural resonance of valve disc and amplified the high frequency vibration and noise. The problem was identified as an interaction between the flow inside globe valve and the valve disc structure. Attempts to reduce the vibration and noise amplitudes of the piping system were successfully achieved by the modification of guide-disc diameter and disc-edge figure The valve disc was replaced by an alternative to eliminate the source of the harmful high frequency vibration and noise.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.253-257
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• 2021

This work demonstrates the use of baromembrane method based on reverse osmosis (RO) process. The method is realized on mobile complex, which allows to concentrate and determine ultra-low activity of radionuclides in water cooling ponds of Russian nuclear fuel cycle enterprises. The existence level of radionuclide background creates difficult conditions for identification the contribution of liquid discharges enterprise, as standard monitoring methods have a very high detection level for radionuclides. Traditional methods for determining the background radionuclides concentrations require the selection of at least 500 liters (l) of water, followed by their evaporation to form a dry residue. This procedure with RO membranes requires at least 5 days. It is possible to reduce the time and energy spent on evaporation of hundreds of water liters by pre-concentrating radionuclides in a smaller sample volume with baromembrane method. This approach allows preliminary concentration of water samples from 500 l volume till 20 l volume during several hours. This approach is universal for the concentration of dissolved salts of any heavy metals, other organic compounds and allows the preparation of water countable samples in much shorter time compared to the traditional evaporation method.