• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.206-210
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• 2020

Super fine-grained graphite is a type of advanced nuclear graphite which was developed for Molten Salt Reactor (MSR). It is necessary to establish a failure assessment method used for nuclear graphite components in MSR. A modified assessment approach based on ASME BPVC-III-5_2017 is presented. The new approach takes a new parameter, KIC, into account and abandons the parameter, grain size, which is unrealistic for super fine-grained graphite as the computation is enormous if we use conventional methods. Three methodologies (KTA 3232, ASME, New approach) were also evaluated by theoretical prediction and experimental verification. The results indicated the new developed code can be used for design and failure assessment of super fine-graphite components and has more extensive applicability.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.8
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• pp.1210-1216
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• 2018

Site or multi-unit (MU) risk assessment has been a major issue in the field of nuclear safety study since the Fukushima accident in 2011. There have been few methods or experiences for MU risk assessment because the Fukushima accident was the first real MU accident and before the accident, there was little expectation of the possibility that an MU accident will occur. In addition to the lack of experience of MU risk assessment, since an MU nuclear power plant site is usually very complex to analyze as a whole, it was considered that a systematic method such as probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) is difficult to apply to MU risk assessment. This paper proposes a new MU risk assessment methodology by using the conventional PSA methodology which is widely used in nuclear power plant risk assessment. The logical failure structure of a site with multiple units is suggested from the definition of site risk, and a decomposition method is applied to identify specific MU failure scenarios.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.95-101
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• 2016

This study proposes a multi-scale dynamic system reliability analysis of control system as a method of quantitative evaluation of its performance in probabilistic terms. In this second paper, we discuss the control effect of the viscous damper on the seismic performance of the structure-level failure. Since the failure of one structural member does not necessarily cause the collapse of the structural system, we need to consider a set of failure scenarios of the structural system and compute the sum of the failure probabilities of the failure scenarios where the statistical dependence between the failure scenarios should be taken into account. Therefore, this computation requires additional system reliability analysis. As a result, the proposed approach takes a hierarchial framework where the failure probability of a structural member is computed using a lower-scale system reliability with the union set of time-sequential member failures and their statistical dependence, and the failure probability of the structural system is again computed using a higher-scale system reliability with the member failure probabilities obtained by the lower-scale system reliability and their statistical dependence. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed approach can provide an accurate and stable reliability assessment of the control performance of the viscous damper system on the system failure. Also, the parametric study of damper capacity on the seismic performance has been performed to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach through the probabilistic assessment of the seismic performance improvement of the damper system.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.2305-2311
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• 2002

The pressure tube is a major component of the CANDU reactor, which supports nuclear fuel bundle and heavy water coolant. Pressure tubes are installed horizontally inside the reactor and only selected samples are periodically examined during in-service inspection. In this respect, a probabilistic safety assessment method is more appropriate fur the assessment of overall pressure tube safety. The failure behavior of CANDU pressure tubes, however, is governed by delayed hydride cracking which is the major difference from pipings and reactor pressure vessels. Since the delayed hydride cracking has more widely distributed governing parameters, it is impossible to apply a general PFM methodology directly. In this paper, a PFM methodology for the safety assessment of CANDU pressure tubes is introduced by applying Monte Carlo simulation in determining failure probability Initial hydrogen concentration, flaw shape and depth, axial and radial crack growth rate and fracture toughness were considered as probabilistic variables. Parametric study has been done under the base of pressure tube dimension and hydride precipitation temperature in calculating failure probability. Unstable fracture and plastic collapse are used for the failure assessment. The estimated failure probability showed about three-order difference with changing dimensions of pressure tube.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.15-23
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• 2005

For reliability assessment for machine tools, failure mode analyses by two viewpoints were studied in this paper. First, this study developed the reliability data analysis program, which searches f3r optimal failure distribution like failure rate or MTBF(Mean Time Between Failure) using failure data and reliability test data of mechanical parts in the web. Moreover, this data analysis program saves both failure data or reliability data and their failure rate or MTBF for database establishment. Second, this paper conducted failure mode analysis through such performance tests as circular movement test and vibration testing for machine tools when reliability data is not available. A developed web-based analysis program shows correlations between failure mode and performance test result and also accumulates all the data. These kinds of data analysis programs and stored data furnish valuable information for improving the reliability of mechanical system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.12
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• pp.4522-4533
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• 2022

For severe accident assessment of reactor pressure vessel (RPV), it is important to develop an accurate model that can predict transient thermo-mechanical behavior of the RPV lower head under the given condition. The present study revisits the lower head failure with two- and three-dimensional finite element models. In particular, we aim to give clear insight regarding the effect of the three-dimensionality present in the distribution of the thickness and thermal load of the lower head. For a rigorous validation of the result, both the OLHF-1 and the OLHF-2 tests are considered in this study. The result suggests that the three-dimensional effect is not negligible as far as the failure location is concerned. The non-uniformity of the thickness distribution is found to affect the failure location and time. The thermal load, which may not be axisymmetric in general, has the most significant effect on the failure assessment. We also observe that the creep property can affect the global deformation of the lower head, depending on the applied mechanical load.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2007

Once assessment of material failure characteristics is captured precisely in a unified way, it can bedirectly incorporated into the structural failure assessment under various loading environments, based on the theoretical backgrounds so called Local Approach to Fracture. The aim of this study is to develop a numerical fatigue test method by continuum damage mechanics applicable for the assessment of structural integrity throughout crack initiation and structural failure based on the Local Approach to Fracture. The generalized elasto-visco-plastic constitutive equation, which can consider the internal damage evolution behavior, is developed and employed in the 3-D FEA code in order to numerically evaluate the material and/or structural responses. Explicit information of the relationships between the mechanical properties and material constants, which are required for the mechanical constitutive and damage evolution equations for each material, are implemented in numerical fatigue test method. The material constants selected from constitutive equations are used directly in the failure assessment of material and/or structures. The performance of the developed system has been evaluated with assessing the S-N diagram of stainless steel materials.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.37-41
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• 2018

Process safety technology has developed from qualitative methods such as HAZOP (hazard and operability study) to semi-quantitative methods such as LOPA (layer of protection analysis), and quantitative methods are actively studied these days. Quantitative risk assessment (QRA) is often based on fault tree analysis (FTA). FTA is efficient, but difficult to apply when failure events are not independent of each other. This problem can be avoided using a Markov process (MP). MP requires definition of all possible states, and thus, generally, is more complicated than FTA. A method is proposed in this work that uses an MP model and a Weibull distribution model in order to construct a reliability model for multiple dependent failures. As a case study, a pressure safety valve (PSV) is considered, for which there are three kinds of failure, i.e. open failure, close failure, and gas tight failure. According to recently reported inspection results, open failure and close failure are dependent on each other. A reliability model for a PSV group is proposed in this work that is to reproduce these results. It is expected that the application of the proposed method can be expanded to QRA of various systems that have partially dependent multiple failure states.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.147-154
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• 2005

The creep resistance of geogrids is one of the most significant long-term safety characteristics used as the reinforcement in slopes and embankments. The failure of geogrids is defined as creep strain greater than 10%. In this study, the accelerated creep tests were applied to polyester geogrids at various loading levels of 30, 50% of the yield strengths and temperatures using newly designed test equipment. Also, the new test equipment permitted the creep testing at or above glass transition temperature($T_g$) of 75, 80, $85^{\circ}C$. The time-dependent creep behaviors were observed at various temperatures and loading levels. And then the creep curves were shifted and superposed in the time axis by applying time-temperature supposition principles. The shifting factors(AFs) were obtained using WLF equation. In predicting the lifetimes of geogrids, the underlying distribution for failure times were determined based on identification of the failure mechanism. The results confirmed that the failure distribution of geogrids followed Weibull distribution with increasing failure rate and the lifetimes of geogrids were close to 100 years which was required service life in the field with 1.75 of reduction factor of safety. Using the newly designed equipment, the creep test of geogrids was found to be highly accelerated. Furthermore, the time-temperature superposition with the newly designed test equipment was shown to be effective in predicting the lifetimes of geogrids with shorter test times and can be applied to the other geosynthetics.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.65-72
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• 2020

In this study, the purpose is to identify the risks of the facilities of packaged hydrogen stations. As a risk identification method, failure mode & effect analysis (FMEA), a qualitative risk assessment, was used to analyze failure mode and effects of component of each facility. The analysis criteria were used to derive the risk priority number (RPN) using the 5-point method according to severity, incidence, and detectability. The study analyzed a total of 141 components of 23 types that can be identified on the design of the packaged hydrogen filling station. As a result, 683 types of failures and their causes and effects were identified. and the RPN was number of a total of 1,485. Of these, 10 failure types with a RPN value of 40 or more were deemed necessary. In addition, a list of failure types with a severity score of 5 was identified and analyzed.