• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.747-752
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• 2007

The Proton Engineering Frontier Project (PEFP) has designed and developed a proton linear accelerator facility operating at 100 MeV - 20 mA. The radiological effects of such a nuclear facility on the environment are important in terms of radiation safety. This study estimated the production rates of radionuclides in the soil around the accelerator facility using MCNPX. The groundwater migration of the radioisotopes was also calculated using the Concentration Model. Several spallation reactions have occurred due to leaked neutrons, leading to the release of various radionuclides into the soil. The total activity of the induced radionuclides is approximately $2.98{\times}10^{-4}Bq/cm^3$ at the point of saturation. $^{45}Ca$ had the highest production rate with a specific activity of $1.78{\times}10^{-4}Bq/cm^3$ over the course of one year. $^3H$ and $^{22}Na$ are usually considered the most important radioisotopes at nuclear facilities. However, only a small amount of tritium was produced around this facility, as the energy of most neutrons is below the threshold of the predominant reactions for producing tritium: $^{16}O(n,\;X)^3H$ and $^{28}Si(n,X)^3H$ (approximately 20 MeV). The dose level of drinking water from $^{22}Na$ was $1.48{\times}10^{-5}$ pCi/ml/yr, which was less than the annual intake limit in the regulations.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.75-78
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• 2003

The organically bound tritium(OBT) concentrations of the marine organisms(seaweed and shellfish) around Wolsung nuclear power plants were measured. The OBT concentrations of seaweeds were in the range of $0.372{\sim}2.72$ Bq/kg-fresh. The OBT concentrations of shellfish were in the range of $0.239{\sim}2.02$ Bq/kg-fresh. The internal dose due to the OBT concentration of seaweed was estimated as $3.4{\times}10^{-7}$ mSv/year.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.195-200
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• 2009

effluents to the environment. The activity of carbon-14, one of the radioactive effluents, in the environment is already high level and its effect on radiation exposure to the public and the environment is insignificant; thus, NPPs did not perform the carbon-14 monitoring in effluents in the past. By the way, effluents of noble gas and particulate radioactive materials originated from nuclear fuels has been continuously reduced due to both the advancement of manufacturing and integrity technology for nuclear fuels and the improvement of operation methods of NPPs. Futhermore, the portion of dose assessment by tritium and carbon-14 to the public has been relatively increased because the lower limit of detection for low-energy beta sources, such as tritium and carbon-14, is low due to the advancement of radiation detection technology. In this paper, the technical background for carbon-14 monitoring in nuclear facilities was investigated using United States technical reports and papers. This paper also reviews whether carbon-14 monitoring is necessary or not based on the investigated documents.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.36-43
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• 2013

In this paper, a three-dimensional hydrogen desorption model is applied to a thin double-layered annulus ZrCo hydride bed and validated against the temperature evolution data measured by Kang et al. The present model reasonably captures the bed temperature evolution behavior and the 90% hydrogen discharging time. In addition, the performance of thin double-layered annulus bed is evaluated by comparing with a simple cylindrical bed using hydrogen desorption model. This study provides multi-dimensional contours such as temperature and H/M atomic ratio in the metal hydride region. This numerical study provides fundamental understanding during hydrogen desorption process and indicates that efficient design of the metal hydride bed is critical to achieve rapid hydrogen discharging performance. The present three-dimensional hydrogen desorption model is a useful tool for the optimization of bed design and operating conditions.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.24-31
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• 2021

Decommissioning efforts are underway at the reactor where the accident occurred, namely the damaged Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP). However, a large amount of groundwater flowing into the site has become contaminated with radioactive substances and is stored in tanks on site, which has hampered the decommissioning work. Although the inflow of groundwater has been greatly reduced through measures such as the construction of frost walls, approximately 170 ㎥ of water treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) is being stored in tanks, each day. The tanks used to store this treated water are expected to become full by around the summer of 2022. It is not easy to get people to understand the efforts of all concerned parties, and providing clear information to these concerned parties is also a challenge. Questions have also been raised regarding whether other alternatives have been fully explored in the ALPS subcommittee. Some people have commented that the answers to the questions raised regarding the biological effects of tritium transmutation are inadequate. Some suspect that the answers are too detailed and incomprehensible, and that the respondents may be manipulating the public with some malicious intent. In any case, each possible plan presents both advantages and disadvantages, depending on the people who are involved. That makes it an ethical and vexing issue that can sway decisions, as perspectives change. While the environmental release plan is scientifically safe, it may represent a painful alternative. On the other hand, a more careful and imaginative approach to the idea of continued storage in tanks or other forms of storage may reveal some troublesome hidden disadvantages. Under these circumstances, experts must be prepared to answer people's questions in a comprehensive and robust manner.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.959-964
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• 2022

Lead is an important material, both for fusion or fission reactors. The cross sections of natural lead should be validated because lead is a main component of lithium-lead modules suggested for fusion power plants and it directly affects the crucial variable, tritium breeding ratio. The presented study discusses a validation of the lead transport libraries by dint of the activation of carefully selected activation samples. The high emission standard ²⁵²Cf neutron source was used as a neutron source for the presented validation experiment. In the irradiation setup, the samples were placed behind 5 and 10 cm of the lead material. Samples were measured using a gamma spectrometry to infer the reaction rate and compared with MCNP6 calculations using ENDF/B-VIII.0 lead cross sections. The experiment used validated IRDFF-II dosimetric reactions to validate lead cross sections, namely ¹⁹⁷Au(n, 2n)¹⁹⁶Au, ⁵⁸Ni(n,p)⁵⁸Co, ⁹³Nb(n, 2n)^92mNb, ¹¹⁵In(n,n')^115mIn, ¹¹⁵In(n,γ)^116mIn, ¹⁹⁷Au(n,γ)¹⁹⁸Au and ⁶³Cu(n,γ)⁶⁴Cu reactions. The threshold reactions agree reasonably with calculations; however, the experimental data suggests a higher thermal neutron flux behind lead bricks. The paper also suggests ²⁵²Cf isotropic source as a valuable tool for validation of some cross-sections important for fusion applications, i.e. reactions on structural materials, e.g. Cu, Pb, etc.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.2174-2183
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• 2021

Helium cooled solid breeder blanket as an important blanket candidate of the Tokamak fusion reactor uses ceramic pebble bed for tritium breeding. Considering the poor effective thermal conductivity of the ceramic breeder pebble bed, thin structure of tritium breeder pebble bed is usually adopted in the blanket design. The container wall has a great influence on the thin pebble bed packing structure, especially for the assembly of mono-sized particles, and thin pebble bed will appear anisotropic effective thermal conductivity phenomenon. In this paper, thin ceramic pebble beds composed of 1 mm diameter Li₄SiO₄ particles are generated by the EDEM 2.7. The effective thermal conductivity of different thickness pebble beds in the three-dimensional directions are analyzed by three-dimensional thermal network method. It is observed that thin Li₄SiO₄ pebble bed showing anisotropic effective thermal conductivity under the practical design size. Normally, the effective thermal conductivity along the bed vertical direction is higher than the horizontal direction due to the gravity effect. As the thickness increases from 10 mm to 40 mm, the effective thermal conductivity of the pebble bed gradually increases.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.9
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• pp.3150-3163
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• 2023

To improve the performance of blanket: maximizing the tritium breeding rate (TBR) for tritium self-sufficiency, and minimizing the Dose of backplate for radiation protection, most previous studies are based on manual corrections to adjust the blanket structure to achieve optimization design, but it is difficult to find an optimal structure and tends to be trapped by local optimizations as it involves multiphysics field design, which is also inefficient and time-consuming process. The artificial intelligence (AI) maybe is a potential method for the optimization design of the blanket. So, this paper aims to develop an intelligent optimization method based on an improved multi-objective NSGA-III algorithm and an adaptive BP neural network to solve these problems mentioned above. This method has been applied on optimizing the radial arrangement of a conceptual design of CFETR HCSB blanket. Finally, a series of optimal radial arrangements are obtained under the constraints that the temperature of each component of the blanket does not exceed the limit and the radial length remains unchanged, the efficiency of the blanket optimization design is significantly improved. This study will provide a clue and inspiration for the application of artificial intelligence technology in the optimization design of blanket.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.205.1-205.1
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• 2016

핵융합로에서 고온, 고에너지 플라즈마에 장기간 노출되는 플라즈마 대면재는 고속 입자와 중성자에 의한 열화 및 침식과 높은 열부하를 견뎌야 하므로 높은 수준의 재료기술과 표면 코팅기술의 개발이 필요하다. 텅스텐은 용융점이 높고, 스퍼터링(Sputtering) 현상이 적으며, Tritium 재침적 현상이 제한되는 우수한 특성 때문에 핵융합로 대면제에 적용하기 위한 다양한 연구가 진행되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 VPS(vacuum plasma spray) 장비를 이용하여 5, 10, $25{\mu}m$ 크기의 텅스텐 분말을FM(ferritic-martenitic) steel 기판에 용사 코팅하였다. 입자 크기를 달리하여 제작한 3종의 시편은 시편 전후 두께 및 무게 변화, 현미경이미지, 비커스 경도, 3D 표면 형상, XRD를 이용하여 코팅층의 특성을 평가하였으며, $10{\mu}m$ 크기의 텅스텐 분말 시편이 가장 우수한 특성을 나타내는 것을 확인하였다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.7
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• pp.1483-1488
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• 2017

In order to predict and control the environmental and health impacts of ionizing radiation in environmental sources such as groundwater, it is necessary to identify the radionuclides present. Beta-emitting radionuclides are frequently identified by measuring their characteristic energy spectra. The present work shows that self-attenuation effects from volume sources result in a geometry-dependent shift in the characteristic spectra, which needs to be taken into account in order to correctly identify the radionuclides present. These effects are shown to be compounded due to the subsequent shift in the photon spectra produced by the detector, in this case an inorganic solid scintillator ($CaF_2:Eu$) monitored using a silicon photomultiplier. Using tritiated water as an environmentally relevant, and notoriously difficult to monitor case study, analytical predictions for the shift in the energy spectra as a function of depth of source have been derived. These predictions have been validated using Geant4 simulations and experimental results measured using bespoke instrumentation.