Il-Je Cho

DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF AN ADVANCED SPENT FUEL CONDITIONING PROCESS FACILITY (ACPF)

KAERI has worked on the development of an advanced spent fuel conditioning process (ACP) since 1997. A hot cell facility, termed the ACPF, has also been developed. The ACPF consists of two air-sealed hot cells. The results of a safety analysis as part of the license procurement process stipulated by the Korean Government showed that the facility was designed safely. After its construction, an integrated performance test was performed. The results of this test confirmed that the facility satisfies the design requirements.

Neutron and Gamma Shielding Estimation for the KN-12 Cask

The comparison between calculated and measured dose rates of the cask for 12 spent fuels has been performed and this result confirms the shielding integrity of KN-12 transport cask to transport the spent fuel with safe. In February 2007, the dose rate measurements of KN-12 cask were performed in the spent fuel decontamination pit at the KORI Nuclear Power Plant in Korea. The general specifications of spent fuels being loaded into the cask were a burnup of around 33 GWD/MTU, an initial enrichment of 3.4 wt% and cooling times ranging from 15.8 years to 17 years. The discrete measurements were performed at several points for acquiring axial and radial dose rate profiles along the cask’s surface. All calculated and measured values showed the far less than dose rate requirements of 2000 μSv/h. The C/E ratios for neutron cases were generally about 1.0~2.8 except for the trunnions regions at cask’s side. The C/E ratios in gamma ray cases were about 1.1~2.7 at cask’s side. By this program the shielding integrity test for preservice inspection of KN-12 cask was successfully completed.

ERGONOMIC ANALYSIS OF A TELEMANIPULATION TECHNIQUE FOR A PYROPROCESS DEMONSTRATION FACILITY

In this study, remote handling strategies for a large-scale argon cell facility were considered. The suggested strategies were evaluated by several types of field test. The teleoperation tasks were performed using a developed remote handling system, which enabled traveling over entire cell area using a bridge transport system. Each arm of the system had six DOFs (degrees of freedom), and the bridge transport system had four DOFs. However, despite the dexterous manipulators and redundant monitoring system, many operators, including professionals, experienced difficulties in operating the remote handling system. This was because of the lack of a strategy for handling the installed camera system, and the difficulty in recognizing the gripper pose, which might fall outside the FOV (field of vision) of the system during teleoperation. Hence, in this paper, several considerations for the remote handling tasks performed in the target facility were discussed, and the tasks were analyzed based on ergonomic factors such as the workload. Toward the development of a successful operation strategy, several ergonomic issues, such as active/passive view of the remote handling system, eye/hand alignment, and FOV were considered. Furthermore, using the method for classifying remote handling tasks, several unit tasks were defined and evaluated.

Development of a remote maintenance manipulation tool in the PRIDE Ar cell

This paper introduces a manipulator that is under development as a remote maintenance tool in the argon-filled cell of PRIDE, a nuclear facility. This remote manipulator was designed to be able to operate in areas where other remote equipment such as a mechanical master-slave manipulator or bridge-transported dual servo manipulator cannot reach. The remote maintenance tool can be used to support the maintenance of process and cell equipment. In this paper, the mechanical design and manufacturing of the remote manipulation tool are addressed.