• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.288-293
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• 2003

Mechanical alloying (MA) by high energy ball mill of Pure chromium Powders was carried out under the nitrogen gas atmosphere. Cr-N amorphous alloy powders have been produced through the solid-gas reaction subjected to MA. The atomic structure during amorphization process was observed by X-ray and neutron diffractions. An advantage of the neutron diffraction technique allows us to observe the local atomic structure surrounding a nitrogen atom. The coordination number of metal atoms around a N atom turns out to be 5.5 atoms. This implies that a nitrogen atom is located at both of centers of the tetrahedron and octahedron formed by metal atoms to stabilize an amorphous Cr-N structure. Also, we have revealed that a Cr-N amorphous alloy may produced from a mixture of pure Cr and Cr nitrides powders by solid-solid reaction during mechanical alloying.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.36 no.spc1
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• pp.41-46
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• 2006

Interfacial atomic structure (chemical structure) of a Pd/ZnO hetero junction was investigated by atomic resolution high voltage transmission electron microscopy (ARHVTEM). A misfit dislocation did not work as a stress accommodation mechanism in the ZnO(0001)/Pd (111) interface. But the periodic stress localization occurred in the ZnO($10\bar{1}0$)/(200) interface. The periodicity of the local strain coincided with that of misfit dislocation. Atomic structure image of the ARHVTEM showed that an atomic arrangement across the interface was in the order of O-Zn-Pd. It was shown that mechanical weakness of the ZnO(0001)/Pd(111) interface against cyclic heating is attributable to the absence of the periodic stress localization of the misfit dislocation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.93-101
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• 2001

The spacer grid is one of the main structural components in the fuel assembly, which supports the fuel rods, guides cooling water, and protects the system from an external impact load, such as earthquakes. Therefore, the mechanical and structural properties of the spacer grids must be extensively examined while designing them. In this paper, a numerical method for predicting the buckling strength of spacer grids is presented. Numerical analyses on the buckling behavior of the spacer grids are performed for a various array of sizes of the grids considering that the spacer grid is an assembled structure with thin-walled plates and imposing proper boundary conditions by nonlinear dynamic finite element method using ABAQUS/Explicit. Buckling tests on several numbers of specimens of the spacer grid were also carried out in order to compare the results between the test and the simulation result. The drop test is accomplished by dropping a carriage on the specimen at a pre-determined position. From this test, the specimens are buckled only at the uppermost and the lowermost layer among the multi-cells, which is similar to the local buckling at the weakest point of the grid structure. The simulated results also similarly predicted the local buckling phenomena and were found to give good correspondence with the experimental values for the thin-walled grid structures.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.164-173
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• 2012

The relaxor ferroelectric feature in lead-free perovskite oxides, where the dipoles are randomly oriented and they can be feasibly aligned parallel to the external bias, is attracting lots of attention in the field of piezoelectric materials science, since it is one of candidates to replace the toxic lead-based materials that are still being commercially used. However, the origin of relaxor characteristic and its related atomic structure are still ambiguous. In this study, $Na_{1/2}Bi_{1/2}TiO_3$, chosen as a model relaxor system, was found to exhibit a cationic-disordered atomic structure; and furthermore the nonpolar atomic structure and its related oxygen tilting were ascertained via annular bright field imaging skill. We also found that this cationic disordering gives rise to the local formation of atomic vacancies.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.202-210
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• 2002

The details of the electronic structure of the perfect crystal provides a critically important foundation for understanding the various defect states in uranium dioxide. In order to understand the local defect and impurity mechanism, the calculation of electronic structure of UO$_2$ in the one-electron approximation was carried out, using a semi-empirical tight-binding formalism(LCAO) with and without f-orbitals. The energy band, local and total density of states for both spin states are calculated from the spectral representation of Green’s function. The bonding mechanism in Perfect lattice of UO$_2$ is discussed based upon the calculations of band structure, local and total density of states.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.139-146
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• 2006

An experimental study was performed to evaluate the effects of surface coating and an enhanced insulation structure on the downward facing boiling process and the critical heat flux on the outer surface of a hemispherical vessel. Steady-state boiling tests were conducted in the Subscale Boundary Layer Boiling (SBLB) facility using an enhanced vessel/insulation design for the cases with and without vessel coatings. Based on the boiling data, CHF correlations were obtained for both plain and coated vessels. It was found that the nucleate boiling rates and the local CHF limits for the case with micro-porous layer coating were consistently higher than those values for a plain vessel at the same angular location. The enhancement in the local CHF limits and nucleate boiling rates was mainly due to the micro-porous layer coating that increased the local liquid supply rate toward the vaporization sites on the vessel surface. For the case with thermal insulation, the local CHF limit tended to increase from the bottom center at first, then decrease toward the minimum gap location, and finally increase toward the equator. This non-monotonic behavior, which differed significantly from the case without thermal insulation, was evidently due to the local variation of the two-phase motions in the annular channel between the test vessel and the insulation structure.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.8
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• pp.1109-1114
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• 2009

The evolution of a high burnup structure (HBS) in a light water reactor (LWR) $UO_2$ fuel was simulated using the Potts model. A simulation system for the Potts model was defined as a two-dimensional triangular lattice, for which the stored energy was calculated from both the irradiation damage of the $UO_2$ matrix and the formation of a grain boundary in the newly recrystallized small HBS grains. In the simulation, the evolution probability of the HBS is calculated by the system energy difference between before and after the Monte Carlo simulation step. The simulated local threshold burnup for the HBS formation was 62 MWd/kgU, consistent with the observed threshold burnup range of 60-80 MWd/kgU. The simulation revealed that the HBS was heterogeneously nucleated on the intergranular bubbles in the proximity of the threshold burnup and then additionally on the intragranular bubbles for a burnup above 86 MWd/kgU. In addition, the simulation carried out under a condition of no bubbles indicated that the bubbles played an important role in lowering the threshold burnup for the HBS formation, thereby enabling the HBS to be observed in the burnup range of conventional high burnup fuels.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.857-862
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• 2009

We model lattice-mismatched group III-V semiconductor $In_{x}Ga_{1-x}$ alloys with the three-parameter anharmonic Kirkwood-Keating potential, which includes realistic distortion effect by introducing anharmonicity. Although the potential parameters were determined based on optical properties of the binary parent alloys InAs and GaAs, simulated dielectric functions, reflectance, and Raman spectra of alloys agree excellently with experimental data for any arbitrary atomic composition. For a wide range of atomic composition, InAs- and GaAs-bond retain their respective properties of binary parent crystals despite lattice and charge mismatch. It implies that use of the anharmonic Kirkwood-Keating potential may provide an optimal model system to investigate diverse and unique optical properties of quantum dot heterostructures by circumventing potential parameter searches for particular local structures.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.47-52
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• 2003

Ferromagnetic tunnel junctions were fabricated by dc magnetron sputtering and plasma oxidation process. The local transport properties of the ferromagnetic tunnel junctions were studied using contact-mode Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and the local current-voltage analysis. Tunnel junctions with the structure of sub./Ta/Cu/Ta/NiFe/Cu/Mn$\_$75/Ir$\_$25//Co$\_$70/Fe$\_$30//Al-oxide were prepared on thermally oxidized Si wafers. Al-oxide layers were formed with microwave excited plasma using radial line slot antenna (RLSA) for 5 and 7 sec. Kr gas was used as the inert gas mixed with $O_2$ gas for the plasma oxidization. No correlation between topography and current image was observed while they were measured simultaneously. The local current distribution was well identified with the distribution of local barrier height. Assuming the gaussian distribution of the local barrier height, the ferromagnetic tunnel junction with longer oxidation time was well fitted with the experimental results. As contrast, in the case of the shorter time oxidation junction, the current mainly flow through the low barrier height area for its insufficient oxygen. Such leakage current might result in the decrease of tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio.

• Proceedings of the Korean Magnetic Resonance Society Conference
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• 2002.08a
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• pp.72-72
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• 2002

In most traditional sorption study in environmental conditions, experimental sorption data have been measured and interpreted by empirical ways such as partition coefficient and sorption isotherms. A mechanistic understanding of heavy metal interactions with various minerals (metal oxides, clay minerals) in aqueous medium is required to describe the behavior of radioactive metal ions in the environment. Various spectroscopic methods provide direct or indirect information on sorption mechanisms involved. We applied EPR (Electron Paramagnetic Resonance) spectroscopy to investigate the nature of metal ion sorption at water/mineral interfaces using Cu(II) as a spin probe. The major sorbed species and their motional state was identified by their EPR spectra. They showed distinct signals due to their strength of binding, local structure and motional state. The EPR results together with macroscopic sorption data show that sorption involved at least three different mechanisms depending on chemical environments (1).