In Korea, most temporary storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel are nearing saturation. As an alternative to this, the 2nd basic plan for high-level radioactive waste management specified the operation plan of dry interim storage facility. Meanwhile, the NSSC No. 2021-19 stipulates that it is necessary to evaluate the possibility and potential effect of accident before operating interim storage facility. Therefore, this study analyzed the categories of accident scenarios that may occur in dry storage facility as part of prior research on this. We investigated the case of categorization of dry storage facility accident scenarios of IAEA, NRC, KAREI, and KINS. The IAEA presented accident scenarios that could occur in on-site dry storage facility operated with silo and cask method. NRC has classified accident scenarios in dry storage facility and estimated the probability of accidents for each. KAERI and KINS selected major accident scenarios and analyzed the processes for each, in preparation for the introduction of dry storage facility in Korea in the future. Overall, a total of 10 accident scenarios were considered, and the scenarios considered by each institution were different. Among 10 scenarios, cask drop and aircraft collision were included in the categorization of most institutions. The results of this study can be used as basic data for cataloging accidents subject to safety evaluation when introducing dry interim storage facility in Korea in the future.

South It is necessary to develop the future technologies to improve the sustainability and acceptability of nuclear power plants generation. Currently, our company is preparing to build the dry storage facility on-site in accordance with the basic plan for managing high-level radioactive waste announced by the government in 2021. However, studies on technologies for the volume reduction of spent nuclear fuel to increase the efficiency of on-site spent fuel dry storage facilities are very not enough. Accordingly, in this study, the storage efficiency and appropriateness for the SF volume reduction processing technologies such as SF oxide processing technology and consolidation technology are evaluated. Finally, the goal is to develop the optimized technologies to improve the storage efficiency of spent nuclear fuel. As a result in this study is followings. [Safety] After removing volatile fission products (Xe, Kr, I, etc.), Xe, Kr, etc. are removed during storage of the sintered structures. UO2 has a high melting point of approximately 1,000°C after cesium (Cs) has been removed, and heat can be removed by natural convection. [Economy]1999 DUPIC unit facility unit price reference, 2020 standard 328 $/kg estimated. A Comprehensive Approach Considering the Whole System is needed. Benefit from replacement and continuous operation of metal storage containers. Changes in economic efficiency obtained in conjunction with fluctuations in electricity prices and disposal. [Waste filter] A separated solidification facility high-level waste filter is required, and overseas outsourcing must be considered. [Waste cladding]. Cannot be accommodated in low-level disposal site. This reason is why the Ni nuclides occur to be in bulk. [Metal structural material] It is possible to reduce the initial volume by 7.6% or more when compressed or melted, but the technology needs to be advanced. [Oxide blocks] Larger size and density are expected to improve storage and disposal efficiency. [Facilities operation waste] Expected to be able to be disposed of at mid-to-low level decommissioning sites in Gyeongju city. [Solidified volatile nuclides and activated metals] Expected to improve storage efficiency when used volume is reduced and stored, such as outsourced reprocessing. [Oxide block] Radioactivity and decay heat are estimated to be reduced by half during oxide treatment. 75% reduction in volume and 40% reduction in storage area compared to used nuclear fuel before treatment. [Merits/Shortages] Improvement of storage and disposal efficiency empirical research such as large-capacity [real-scale] oxide block production is required. Oxide processing facilities are likely to be classified as post-use nuclear fuel processing facilities. It is determined that additional documents such as a Radiation Environmental Report (RER) must be submitted. Existence of possible external leaks of glass, highly mobile radionuclides from the point of view of nuclear criticality and heat removal. Acceptancy requirements of citizens in the process of creating additional sites for oxide treatment facilities. Considering social public opinion, it is necessary to secure the acceptability such as residents’ opinions convergence. Characteristics of high nuclear non-propagation compared to other processing technologies involving chemical processing. Also, Expectation of volume reduction effect for spent nuclear fuel itself. Volume reduction methods for solid waste and gaseous waste are required.

A seal is one of the primary means of safeguards along with surveillance. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) uses various types of seals to verify the diversion of nuclear materials and is developing new seals according to the development of technology. Independent of the IAEA, ROK uses national safeguards seals for state-level regulation. A national safeguards inspector binds the nuclear material storage by combining a seal with a metal wire and checks the serial number of the RFID chip inserted in the seal with a reader. The Wolsong spent fuel dry storage facility has 14 modules, each with 24 seals, and thus a maximum of 336 national seals will be installed. Although dependent on the sealing method, it takes about 5 minutes to verify one seal. As such, a considerable workforce is required for verification, and both the IAEA and the ROK are currently conducting random inspections. In addition, there are cases where verification is impossible because old seals are damaged due to harsh environments and long exchange periods. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed cases in areas where sealing technology has been developed to improve the problems of the existing national safeguards seals. And we proposed a method for improving national seals by finding requirements of seals considering spent fuel dry storage facility characteristics. In international logistics, sealing is essential in product transport verification, terrorism prevention, and tariff imposition. Accordingly, the field of container sealing has been extensively developed, and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has regulated the mechanical requirements of the seal as ISO 17712 and the electronic requirements as ISO 18185. Mechanical seals include metal and plastic seals and metal seals include bolt seals, ball seals, and cable seals. In addition, there are various electronic seals, such as radio frequency identification (RFID), near field communication (NFC), infrared (IR). Recently, there has been a trend to use active seals that have a built-in battery and can implement various additional functions. Among the various seals, the main requirements for selecting seals suitable for dry storage facilities are as follows. First, use of a sealing tube longer than 10m should be possible. Second, it should have corrosion resistance so that it can be used for more than five years in the coastal area. Third, it must be a passive seal without a power supply. Fourth, it should not be overly costly. Finally, the seal verification time should be short. As a seal that satisfies these requirements, an electronic seal with application of the passive RFID method to the mechanical form of a metal cable seal is suitable. Since it is not an active seal, it is difficult to determine the time of breakage. Therefore, designing the seal such that the RFID is also damaged when the metal seal is broken will be helpful for verification. In this study, the requirements for national safeguards seals in dry storage facilities were defined, and measures to improve the existing national seals were studied. Field applicability will be evaluated through future sealing device design and demonstration tests.

South Korea has been storing UNF in spent fuel pool dry storage facility within Nuclear Power Plants. The dry storage facility of used nuclear fuel (UNF) is essential to sustain safety and sustain stable operation of a nuclear power plant. Most abroad countries have attempted to develop a variety of dry storage facility for used nuclear fuel in order to retain the safe restoration. Many studies have been conducting to safety evaluation for the dry storage facility. However, there is not a ventilation evaluation in the wake of fire event that could influence of the thermal effect on the dry storage facility, even though it will likely to occur fire events such as wildfire, air craft crash. In practice, it happened to catastrophic disaster due to the wild fire adjacent to ul-jin mountain. Also, it happened to fire accident near to the Japonia NPP in Ukraine territory caused of military air plane missile. It has not mostly been studied on the ventilation evaluation considered to thermal safety in the dry storage facility excepted for some researches. It could need the mechanical ventilation systems such as HVAC system in the dry storage system, so that thermal effect can be reduced. In this study, we conducted to the ventilation control modelling by using fire modelling tool (Fire Dynamic Simulator v.6.7). The ventilation scenarios made up for 3 case that can compare flowrate variation with ventilation control. As a result of modelling, there is no differentiation between ventilation control using performance curve with not using performance curve even though the pressure fluctuation would be increased, compared with the case of considering performance curve. Second, it evaluated that the mode for fraction control would occur to pressure rise in the state of controlling the ventilation system flowrate. However, sensitivity of flowrate control was more decreased below less than 5 seconds. Third, in the case of on/off control system revealed more higher resolution than other cases caused by flowrate variation. These results could be considered as the design guidelines for the development dry storage facility to improve the thermal performance that can reduce thermal risk. Furthermore, the study results would expect HVAC system installed in dry storage to help automatic ventilation control relevant to dry storage safety increased.

Al-B4C neutron absorbers are currently widely used to maintain the subcriticality of both wet and dry storage facilities of spent nuclear fuel (SNF), thus long-term and high-temperature material integrity of the absorbers has to be guaranteed for the expected operation periods of those facilities. Surface corrosion solely has been the main issue for the absorber performance and safety; however, the possibility of irradiation-assisted degradation has been recently suggested from an investigation on Al-B4C surveillance coupons used in a Korean spent nuclear fuel pool (SFP). Larger radiation damage than expectation was speculated to be induced from 10B(n, α)7Li reactions, which emit about a MeV α-particles and Li ions. In this study, we experimentally emulated the radiation damage accumulated in an Al-B4C neutron absorber utilizing heavy-ion accelerator. The absorber specimens were irradiated with He ions at various estimated system temperatures for a model SNF storage facility (room temperature, 150, 270, and 400°C). Through the in-situ heated ion irradiation, three exponentially increasing level of radiation damages (0.01, 0.1, and 1 dpa or displacement per atom) were achieved to compare differential gas bubble formation at near surface of the absorber, which could cause premature absorber corrosion and subsequential 10B loss in an SNF storage system. An extremely high radiation damage (10 dpa), which is unlikely achievable during a dry storage period, was also emulated through high temperature irradiation (350°C) to further test the radiation resistance of the absorber, conservatively. The irradiated specimens were characterized using HR-TEM and the average size and number density of radiation-induced He bubbles were measured from the obtained bright field (BF) TEM micrographs. Measured helium bubble sizes tend to increase with increasing system (or irradiation) temperature while decrease in their number density. Helium bubbles were found from even the lowest radiation damage specimens (0.01 dpa). Bubble coalescence was significant at grain boundaries and the irradiated specimen morphology was particularly similar with the bubble morphology observed at the interface between aluminum alloy matrix and B4C particle of the surveillance coupons. These characterized irradiated specimens will be used for the corrosion test with high-temperature humid gas to further study the irradiation-assisted degradation mechanism of the absorber in dry SNF storage system.

Owing to the increase in saturation rate of the spent fuel storage pond in the Kori nuclear power plant, the interim spent fuel dry storage facility is scheduled to be constructed at the Kori site. To implement safeguards in the new dry storage facility effectively, the concept of “Safeguards-by- Design” (SBD) should be applied to reflect nuclear safeguard provisions in the earliest design stages. Detailed design information pertaining to dry storage facilities has not been determined; however, the design information related to safeguards have been inferred using case studies and interviews with nuclear power plant operators worldwide. On the basis of the results of the case studies on spent fuel dry storage facilities for light water reactors, most countries apply the metal cask method in containment buildings considering safety. Furthermore, Korean operators are also considering the same method owing to tight licensing schedules and safety issues. Using the Facility Safeguardability Assessment (FSA) methodology (one of the safeguard evaluation methodologies), the difference in design between the heavy water reactor spent fuel dry storage facility, an established IAEA safeguards approach reference nuclear facility, and the light water reactor spent fuel dry storage facility (the new nuclear facility) were analyzed. Two major differences were noted as issues pertaining to potential safeguards. First, the difference in design and transport method in terms of the difference in size and weight of the spent nuclear fuel is important; light water reactor fuel is 20 times heavier than heavy water reactor that needs partial defect inspection in assemblies. Second, the difference in safeguard approach owing to the difference between the modular storage method in heavy water reactor and the container type storage method in light water reactor must be considered; movable storage cask renders the IAEA surveillance approach difficult. The results of this study can be used to identify the safeguards requirements in advance, enabling the operator to design new dry storage facilities resulting in timely and cost-effective implementation.

In South Korea, the master plan for high-level radioactive waste management, announced in 2016, suggested the construction and operation of intermediate storage facilities on a permanent disposal site and specified the adoption of dry storage in consideration of the ease of operation and expansion. As of 2021, the government is again reviewing its overarching policy on the back-end fuel cycles, including intermediate storage and permanent disposal. In the case of dry storage facilities, safety evaluation is being conducted using a combination of deterministic and probabilistic approaches, similar to that of nuclear power plants. The two methods are complementary, of which Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) has the advantage of being able to identify key scenarios affecting safety, but its use in storage facilities has not been highlighted so far. However, depending on the spent fuel management phases such as loading, transportation, and storage, it may be not enough to capture effective and efficient safety evaluation only deterministically, and probabilistic methods may contribute to the evaluation of long-term operation or external events such as an earthquake. There have already been cases where PSA has been performed on a part of the nuclear fuel cycle through previous studies. This paper created the safety assessment model based on open sources such as the released EPRI reports, by targeting arbitrary intermediate storage facilities. The model considered the scenarios for loading, transportation, and storage, with human error respectively. It will be able to be modified and improved to fit domestic and specific intermediate storage facilities in the future.

A paradigm shift in the government’s energy policy was reflected in its declaration of early closure of old nuclear plants as well as cancellation of plans for the construction of new plants. To this end, unit 1 of Kori Nuclear Power Plant was permanently shut down and is set for decommission. Based on these changes, the off-site transport of spent fuels from nuclear power plants has become a critical issue. The purpose of this study is to develop an optimized method for transportation of spent fuels from Kori Nuclear Power Plant’s units 1, 2, 3, and 4 to an assumed interim storage facility by simulating the scenarios using the Flexsim software, which is widely used in logistics and manufacturing applications. The results of the simulation suggest that the optimized transport methods may contribute to the development of delivery schedule of spent fuels in the near future. Furthermore, these methods can be applied to decommissioning plan of nuclear power plants.

항공기 충돌사고는 1970년대부터 원자력발전소의 인허가에 중요하게 고려되어 온 외부 사건의 하나였다. 9.11 테러 이후 세계 각국에서는 사고로 인한 항공기 충돌에 더하여 의도된 항공기 충돌에 대비한 안전성 평가를 수행해오고 있으며 일부 국가에서는 이를 법제화하여 인허가의 중요한 요건으로 다루고 있다. 항공기 충돌에 대한 안전성 평가는 여러가지 요인으로 인하여 쉽지 않은 작업이며 보다 신뢰성 있는 평가를 위한 연구개발이 세계 각국에서 진행 중이다. 본 논문에서는 각국의 항공기 충돌에 대비한 안전성 평가 요건의 법제화 현황을 사고로 인한 충돌과 의도된 충돌의 경우로 분리하여 정리하였다. 다 양한 조건의 항공기 충돌에 대한 안전성 평가를 위하여 수행되어 온 연구 중 주요한 것들을 정리하였으며 특히 사용후핵연 료 건식저장시설에 대한 내용을 위주로 다루었다.