In accordance with the Enforcement Decree of the Act on Physical Protection and Radiological Emergency, operators of Nuclear Power Plants (NPP)s must conduct full cyber security exercise once a year and partial exercise at least once every half year. Nuclear operators need to conduct exercise on systems with high attack attractiveness in order to respond to the unauthorized removal of nuclear or other radioactive material and sabotage of nuclear facilities. Nuclear facilities identify digital assets that perform SSEP (Safety, Security, and Emergency Preparedness) functions as CDA (Critical Digital Assets), and nuclear operators select exercise target systems from the CDA list and perform the exercise. However, digital assets that have an indirect impact (providing access, support, and protection) from cyber attacks are also identified as CDAs, and these CDAs are relatively less attractive to attack. Therefore, guidelines are needed to select the exercise target system in the case of unauthorized removal of nuclear or other radioactive material and sabotage response exercise. In the case of unauthorized removal of nuclear or other radioactive material, these situations cannot occur with cyber attacks and external factors such as terrorists must be taken into consideration. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the list of CDAs that terrorists can use for cyber attacks among CDAs located in the path of stealing and transporting nuclear material and conduct intensive exercise on these CDAs. A typical example is a security system that can delay detection when terrorists attack facilities. In the case of sabotage exercise, a safety-related system that causes an initiating event by a cyber attack or failure to mitigate an accident in a DBA (Design Basis Accident) situation should be selected as an exercise target. It is difficult for sabotage to occur through a single cyber attack because a nuclear facility has several safety concepts such as redundancy, diversity. Therefore, it can be considered to select an exercise target system under the premise of not only a cyber attack but also a physical attack. In the case of NPPs, it is assumed that LOOP (Loss of Offsite Power) has occurred, and CDA relationships to accident mitigation can be selected as an exercise target. Through exercise on the CDA, which is more associated with unauthorized removal of nuclear or other radioactive material and sabotage of nuclear facilities, it is expected to review the continuity plan and check systematic response capabilities in emergencies caused by cyber attacks.

As a rule, geological disposal is considered a safe method for final disposal of high-level radioactive waste. However, some long-lived fission products like 99Tc and 129I contained in spent nuclear fuel are highly mobile as less sorbing anionic species in the subsurface environment and can mainly cause exposure dose to the ecosystem by emission of beta rays in the hundreds of keV range. Therefore, if these two nuclides can be separated and converted with high efficiency into radioactively unharmful nuclides, this would have a positive effect on disposal safety. One candidate method is to transmute these two nuclides in nuclear reactors into short-lived nuclides or into stable nuclides. For this purpose, it is necessary to evaluate which reactor type is more efficient in burning these two nuclides. In this study, the simulation results of nuclear transmutation of 99Tc and 129I in light water reactor (PWR), heavy water reactor (CANDU) and fast neutron reactor (SFR, MET-1000) are compared and discussed.

This study attempted to manufacture a Cu-Ga coating layer via the cold spray process and to investigate the applicability of the layer as a sputtering target material. In addition, changes made to the microstructure and prop- erties of the layer due to annealing heat treatment were evaluated, compared, and analyzed. The results showed that coating layers with a thickness of 520 mm could be manufactured via the cold spray process under optimal conditions. With the Cu-Ga coating layer, the α-Cu and Cu3Ga were found to exist inside the layer regardless of annealing heat treatment. The microstructure that was minute and inhomogeneous prior to thermal treatment changed to homogeneous and dense with a more clear division of phases. A sputtering test was actually conducted using the sputtering target Cu- Ga coating layer (~2 mm thickness) that was additionally manufactured via the cold-spray coating process. Consequently, this test result confirmed that the cold sprayed Cu-Ga coating layer may be applied as a sputtering target material.

This study attempted to manufacture a Cu-15 at.%Ga coating layer via the cold spray process and investigated the effect of heat treatment environment on the properties of cold sprayed coating material. Three kinds of heat treatment environments, +argon, pure argon, and vacuum were used in this study. Annealing treatments were conducted at /1 hr. With the cold sprayed coating layer, pure -Cu and small amounts of were detected in the XRD, EDS, EPMA analyses. Porosity significantly decreased and hardness also decreased with increasing annealing temperature. The inhomogeneous dendritic microstructure of cold sprayed coating material changed to the homogeneous and dense one (microstructural evolution) with annealing heat treatment. Oxides near the interface of particles could be reduced by heat treatment especially in vacuum and argon environments. Vacuum environment during heat treatment was suggested to be most effective one to improve the densification and purification properties of cold sprayed Cu-15 at.%Ga coating material.