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.

It is important to select proper ground motions for obtaining accurate results from response history analyses. The purpose of this study is to propose an accurate and efficient method that does not require excessive computation for selecting and scaling ground motions to match target response spectrum mean and variance. The proposed method is conceptually simple and straightforward, and it does not use a simulation algorithm that requires a sophisticated subroutine program. In this method, the desired number of ground motions are sequentially scaled and selected from a ground motion library. The proposed method gives the best selection results using Sum of Square Error and has the smallest value(=0.14). Also, The accuracy and consistency of the proposed method are verified by comparing the selection results of the proposed method with those of existing methods.

This study is the sequel of a companion paper (I. Algorithm) for assessment of the seismic performance evaluation of structure using ground motions selected by the proposed algorithm. To evaluate the effect of the correlation structures of selected ground motions on the seismic responses of a structure, three sets of ground motions are selected with and without consideration of the correlation structure. Nonlinear response history analyses of a 20-story reinforced concrete frame are conducted using the three sets of ground motions. This study shows that the seismic responses of the frames vary according to ground motion selection and correlation structures.

It is important to select an accurate set of ground motions when conducting linear and nonlinear response history analyses of structures. This study proposes a method for selecting ground motions from a ground motion library with response spectra that match the target response spectrum mean, variance and correlation structures. This study also has addressed the determination of an appropriate value for the weight factor of a correlation structure. The proposed method is conceptually simple and straightforward, and does not involve a simulation algorithm. In this method, a desired number of ground motions are sequentially selected from first to last. The proposed method can be also used for selecting ground motions with response spectra that match the conditional spectrum. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed procedure are verified with numerical examples.

본 연구에서는 지반운동 라이브러리에서 목표스펙트럼에 근사한 평균응답스펙트럼을 갖는 한 개 혹은 다수의 지반운동을 선정하는 효율적인 방법을 제안하고자 한다. 지반운동 선정 시 목표스펙트럼의 형상과 크기를 맞추어야 하는데 이 두 가지를 독립적으로 고려할 수 있다는 기존 연구결과에 따라 본 연구에서도 형상이 가장 유사한 지반운동을 찾고 크기를 맞추기 위하여 배율조정계수를 사용한다. 형상을 맞추기 위해 각 주기에서 목표스펙트럼과 지반운동 평균응답스펙트럼의 차이 값의 표준편차가 최소가 되도록 하여 선정하는 방법을 제안하였다. 형상이 결정된 후 그 크기를 맞추기 위해 본 연구에서 제안한 배율조정계수를 찾는 방법은 기존 연구와 달리 한번에 찾을 수 있도록 제안하였다. 40개의 지반운동 라이브러리로부터 제안한 방법을 이용하여 목표스펙트럼에 근사한 평균스펙트럼을 갖는 7개의 지반운동기록을 선정한 결과, 그 정확성과 계산소요시간에 있어 모두 만족할만한 결과를 보였다.

엑스선의 에너지가 높으면 엑스선이 피사체(object)를 통과하여 영상의 대조도를 떨어뜨리고 엑스선의 에너지가 낮으면 영상의 대조도는 증가시키지만 엑스선이 피사체에 흡수되어 환자의 피폭선량을 증가시킨다. 그러므로 적정한 엑스선 에너지는 영상의 질과 피폭선량에 영향을 미치는 매우 중요한 요소이다. 본 논문에서는 새로운 양극물질을 사용하는 유방촬영 장치의 도입에 따라 방사선 선질이 다양해진 유방촬영장치의 영상품질관리와 환자선량관리을 위하여유방촬영장치의 타겟 물질에 따른 에너지스펙트럼을 시뮬레이션하고 팬텀 영상의 화질을 비교하였다.