When dismantling a power plant, a large amount of radioactive tanks are generated, and it is estimated that a significant amount of sludge will accumulate inside the tanks during long-term operation. In the process of dismantling a radioactive tanks, it is important to know the composition of the sludge because the sludge present inside must first be removed and then disposed of. In the case of certain tanks, it can be predicted that corrosion products generated due to system corrosion are the main cause of sludge formation. However, in the case of some tanks, it is not easy to predict the sludge composition because various dispersed particles in addition to corrosion products may be mixed with the wastewater. Even if it is collected and analyzed, the sludge composition can change significantly depending on the operation history, so the analysis results cannot be considered representative of the composition. In the case of LHST, surfactant components introduced during the washing and shower process, oil components and dispersed particles dissolved by the surfactant accumulate inside the tank, making sludge difficult to remove. In addition, even if it is removed by ultra-high pressure spraying, unexpected problems may occur in the subsequent treatment process due to the surfactant contained therein. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze in more detail the characteristics of sludge accumulated in LHST and prepare countermeasures. A test procedure was prepared to evaluate the characteristics of sludge accumulating in LHST. According to the test results, the long-term sludge accumulation tendency of the LHST is summarized as follows. ① Initially, the sludge settling speed increases slowly until a surface sludge layer is formed. ② After the surface sludge layer is formed, the sludge rapidly settles until the sludge layer becomes somewhat thicker. ③ When the sludge layer is formed to a certain extent, the sludge escape rate increases and the sludge accumulation rate decreases again. It is assumed that the sludge escape speed is closely related to the fluid flow speed in the relevant area. It is believed that the combined effect of these phenomena will determine the thickness of the sludge layer that will accumulate inside the tank, but it was not possible to evaluate how much the sludge layer would accumulate based on the experimental results alone. However, it can be assumed that significant sludge accumulation occurred in areas where fluid flow was minimal and sludge formation nuclei easily accumulates.

The concrete structure of a nuclear power plant is a major safety structure that performs shielding functions to block radioactive materials and radiation, heat removal, and isolation functions. Therefore, concrete structures of nuclear power plants must prove structural safety from immediately after construction to dismantling, and a representative method for this is to investigate compressive strength. The compressive strength and specimen standards of concrete structures are specified in ASTM C 42/C 42M, and samples must be obtained through core drilling in order to collect samples according to this standard. However, commercial equipment requires anchor installation work causes radiation dust generation. Even commercial products have developed equipment that does not require anchor installation work, but it can only be applied to flat walls and cannot be applied to curved walls such as bioshields. To solve this problem, a method of fixing to the scaffolding pipe was designed. The equipment developed based on this method fundamentally blocks the generation of radioactive dust. The vertical position can be adjusted using guide shafts and jack screws, and the horizontal position can be adjusted using scaffolding clamps. In addition, the distance between the installation location and the wall can be adjusted by adjusting the scaffolding clamp location of the device. Lastly, it can be rotated to the left and right, so that even on a curved wall, the sampling position can be performed perpendicular to the wall. Core drills that take specimens for measuring compressive strength use the wet type. Core drilling by wet type in radioactively contaminated concrete leads to the disposal of sludge as radioactive waste. Water supplied during core drilling is scattered in all directions by the rotation of the core drill bit, which causes radiation exposure to workers, so measures must be taken to ensure that the water does not splash and gather in one place. Nileplant Co., Ltd. has developed a sludge collection device that can be used with a core drilling device. It can be inserted into a 4-inch core drill bit to meet the specimen regulations of ASTM C 42/C 42M, and nylon resin was used as a material to withstand friction with water, and the wall of the drainage part was thickened to increase durability. Based on these results, it is expected to be able to work more quickly and safely when collecting core drilling samples of radioactively contaminated concrete or radiation and concrete.

Various types of tanks are used in nuclear power plants, and sludge composed of various organic substances and inorganic oxides contaminated with radioactive materials may be present at the bottom of a tank of a radioactive waste treatment device. In addition, glassy and fixative oxide contamination layers are accumulated on the inner wall of the tank depending on the tank material, usage and degree of oxidation. Such contaminated sludge is the main cause of radiation exposure to workers when dismantling nuclear power plant tanks. In addition, the waste filters generated by filtration of contaminated sludge is treated as secondary radioactive waste, and this radioactive waste not only occupies a lot of disposal space, but also the disposal cost is continuously increasing. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a technology that does not generate waste filters as much as possible. To solve this problem, NILEPLANT Co., Ltd. registered a patent named “Filtering apparatus” based on previous research and manufactured a rotary filtration membrane device through detailed design. The rotary filtration membrane device is composed of three or more multiple rotary filtration membranes, and can remove fine particles in wastewater as well as sludge accumulated inside a radioactive contamination tank. In addition, considering the site characteristics of special conditions such as nuclear power plants, it was designed to show excellent performance in removing fine particles while minimizing the area where the device is installed. The rotary filtration membrane device is designed and manufactured as a double cylinder structure that combines a hydro cyclone filter type body and an inner partition wall, and is equipped with a filter cloth-based rotary cylinder filter to process sludge through the filter cloth in addition to inertial. In addition, the patented principle enables self-backwashing without stopping the filtration process, extending the life of the filter and minimizing waste filters. The filtration performance, self-backwashing function, and sludge behavior of the rotary filtration membrane device manufactured based on the detailed design were evaluated through experiments, and improvements to obtain more effective filtration performance were derived. Accordingly, it is expected that the more improved rotary filtration membrane device can be effectively used to remove sludge generated during the dismantling of nuclear power plants in the future.

Nonlinear analysis for seismic performance evaluation of existing building usually takes 4~5 times more than linear analysis based on KBC code. To obtain accurate results from the nonlinear analysis, there are a lot of things to be considered for nonlinear analysis modeling. For example, reinforcing layout, applied load and seismic details affect behavior of structural members for the existing building. Engineer-oriented computerized system was developed for engineers to evaluate effective seismic performance of existing buildings with abiding by seismic design principles. Using the engineer-oriented program, seismic performance evaluation of reinforced concrete building was performed. Nonlinear hinge properties were applied with real time multiple consideration such as section layout, section analysis result, applied load and performance levels. As a result, the building was evaluated to satisfy LS(Life Safety) performance level. A comparison between engineer-oriented and program-oriented results is presented to show how important the role of structural engineer is for seismic performance evaluation of existing buildings.