• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.3236-3246
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• 2021

Lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident directed that multiple failures should be considered more seriously rather than single failure in the licensing bases and safety cases because attempts to take accident management measures could be unsuccessful under the high radiation environment aggravated by multiple failures, such as complete loss of electric power, uncontrollable loss of coolant inventory, failure of essential safety function recovery. In the case of the complete loss of electric power called station blackout (SBO), if there is no mitigation action for recovering safety functions, the reactor core would be overheated, and severe fuel damage could be anticipated due to the failure of the active heat sink. In such a transient condition at CANDU-6 plants, the seal failure of the primary heat transport (PHT) pumps can facilitate a consequent increase in the fuel sheath temperature and eventually lead to degradation of the fuel integrity. Therefore, it is necessary to specify the regulatory guidelines for multiple failures on a licensing basis so that licensees should prepare the accident management measures to prevent or mitigate accident conditions. In order to explore the efficiency of implementing accident management strategies for CANDU-6 plants, this study proposed a realistic accident analysis approach on the SBO transient with multiple-failure sequences such as seal failure of PHT pumps without operator's recovery actions. In this regard, a comparative study for two PHT pump seal failure modes with and without coolant seal leakage was conducted using a best-estimate code to precisely investigate the behaviors of thermal-hydraulic parameters during transient conditions. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis for different PHT pump seal leakage rates was also carried out to examine the effect of leakage rate on the system responses. This study is expected to provide the technical bases to the accident management strategy for unmitigated transient conditions with multiple failures.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.144-149
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• 2016

Nowaday, most of the low-rise concrete structures which have less than five stories were built before the intensified seismic code was established 2005. According to the fact that our country is not a safety zone ay more, studies are need to reinforce the seismic performance of that structures. The basic frame of low-rise structure are consist of beams and columns with partition walls, therefore that are very weak about secondary wave of earthquake because of the high stiffness. The partition wall are consist of open channel for sunlight or ventilation and intermediate wall. The intermediate walls will enhance the stiffness of columns, but will cause shear failure with short column effects because of the reduced effective depth. But we don't have studies and adequate design code for partition wall effects, therefore some more studies are need for these facts.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.839-856
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• 2012

To enable remodeling of the exterior of buildings more convenient, such finishing materials as curtain walls, metal panels, concrete panels or dry stones need to be easily detached. In this respect, this study proposed a new design of the slab for the purposes. In the new design, the sides of the slab were properly modified, and the capabilities of anchors fixed in the modified slab were experimentally tested. In details, a number of concrete specimens with different sizes and compressive strengths were prepared, and the effect of anchors with different diameters and embedment depths applied in the concrete specimens were tested. The test results of the maximum capacities of the anchors were compared with the number of current design codes and the stress distribution was identified. This study found that the embedment depth specified in the current design code (ACI318-08) should be revised to be more than 1.5 times the edge distance. However, with the steel sheet reinforcement, the experiment acquired higher tensile strength than the design code proposed. In addition, for two types of specimens in the tensile strength experiment, the current design code (ACI 318-08) is overestimated for the anchor depth of 75 mm. This study demonstrated that the ideal breakout failure was attainable for the side slot details of a slab with more than 180 mm of a slab thickness and less than 75 mm of an anchor embedment depth. It is expected that these details of the modified slab can be specified in the upgraded construction design codes.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.973-979
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• 2024

In the framework of the Generation IV research and development project, in which the French Commission of Alternative and Atomic Energies (CEA) is involved, a main objective for the design of Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) is to meet the safety goals for severe accidents. Among the severe ones, the Unprotected Transient OverPower (UTOP) accidents can lead very quickly to a global melting of the core. UTOP accidents can be considered either as slow during a Control Rod Withdrawal (CRW) or as fast. The paper focuses on fast UTOP accidents, which occur in a few milliseconds, and three different scenarios are considered: rupture of the core support plate, uncontrolled passage of a gas bubble inside the core and core mechanical distortion such as a core flowering/compaction during an earthquake. Several levels and rates of reactivity insertions are also considered and the thermal-mechanical behavior of an ASTRID fuel pin from the ASTRID CFV core is simulated with the GERMINAL code. Two types of fuel pins are simulated, inner and outer core pins, and three different burn-up are considered. Moreover, the feedback from the CABRI programs on these type of transients is used in order to evaluate the failure mechanism in terms of kinetics of energy injection and fuel melting. The CABRI experiments complete the analysis made with GERMINAL calculations and have shown that three dominant mechanisms can be considered as responsible for pin failure or onset of pin degradation during ULOF/UTOP accident: molten cavity pressure loading, fuel-cladding mechanical interaction (FCMI) and fuel break-up. The study is one of the first step in fast UTOP accidents modelling with GERMINAL and it has shown that the code can already succeed in modelling these type of scenarios up to the sodium boiling point. The modeling of the radial propagation of the melting front, validated by comparison with CABRI tests, is already very efficient.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.11
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• pp.1257-1264
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• 2014

Efforts are presently underway for developing an optimal design methodology for GEN-IV nuclear reactors based on target failure probabilities. A typical example is the system-based code, in which the results are represented in the form of partial safety factors (PSFs). Thus, a PSF is one of the crucial elements in either component design or integrity assessment based on target failure probabilities during the operation period. In the present study, a procedure for calculating the PSF of a circumferential through-wall cracked pipe based on the elastic-plastic crack initiation criterion is established, in which the importance of each input variable is assessed. Elastic-plastic J-integrals are calculated using the GE/EPRI and reference stress methods, and the PSF values are calculated using both first- and second-order reliability methods. Moreover, the effect of statistical distributions of assessment variables on the PSF is also evaluated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.14-29
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• 1992

COMCAF, a computer code for the common-cause failure analysis, is developed to treat the common-cause failures in nuclear power plants. In the treatment of common-cause failures, the minimal cut sets of the system are obtained first without changing the fault-tree structure. The occurrence probabilities of the minimal cut sets are then calculated accounting for the common-cause failures among components in the same minimal cut set or in different minimal cut sets. The basic parameter model is used to model the common-cause failures between similar or identical components. For dissimilar components, the assumption of symmetry used in the basic parameter model is applied to the basic events affecting two or more components. The top event probability is evaluated using the inclusion-exclusion method. In addition to the common-cause failures of components in the same minimal cut sets, failures of components in the different minimal cut sets are also easily accounted for by this method. This study applied this common-cause failure analysis to the PWR auxiliary feedwater system. The results in the top event probability for the system are compared with those of no common-cause failures.

• Composites Research
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.38-43
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• 2002

Rapid Prototyping(RP) technologies provide the ability to fabricate initial prototypes from various model materials. Stratasys' Fused Deposition Modeling(FDM) is a typical RP process that can fabricate prototypes out of plastic materials, and the parts made from FDM were often used as load-carrying elements. Because FDM deposits materials in about 300$\mu$m thin filament with designated orientation, parts made from FDM show anisotropic material properties. In this paper an analytic model was proposed to predict the tensile strength of FDM parts. Applying the Classical Lamination Theory, which was developed for laminated composite materials, a computer code was implemented. Tsai-Wu failure criterion was added to the code to predict the failure of the FDM parts. The tensile strengths predicted by the analytic model were compared with experimental data. The data and prediction agreed reasonably well to prove the validity of the model. In addition, a web-based advisory service(FDMAS) was developed to provide strength prediction and design rules for FDM parts.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.69 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2019

The biaxial failure mechanism of transversally bedding concrete layers was numerically simulated using a sophisticated two-dimensional discrete element method (DEM) implemented in the particle flow code (PFC2D). This numerical modelling code was first calibrated by uniaxial compression and Brazilian testing results to ensure the conformity of the simulated numerical model's response. Secondly, 21 rectangular models with dimension of $54mm{\times}108mm$ were built. Each model contains two transversely bedding layers. The first bedding layer has low mechanical properties, less than mechanical properties of intact material, and second bedding layer has high mechanical properties, more than mechanical properties of intact material. The angle of first bedding layer, with weak mechanical properties, related to loading direction was $0^{\circ}$, $15^{\circ}$, $30^{\circ}$, $45^{\circ}$, $60^{\circ}$, $75^{\circ}$ and $90^{\circ}$ while the angle of second layer, with high mechanical properties, related to loading direction was $90^{\circ}$, $105^{\circ}$, $120^{\circ}$, $135^{\circ}$, $150^{\circ}$, $160^{\circ}$ and $180^{\circ}$. Is to be note that the angle between bedding layer was $90^{\circ}$ in all bedding configurations. Also, three different pairs of the thickness were chosen in models, i.e., 5 mm/10 mm, 10 mm/10 mm and 20 mm/10 mm. The result shows that in all configurations, shear cracks develop between the weaker bedding layers. Shear cracks angel related to normal load change from $0^{\circ}$ to $90^{\circ}$ with increment of $15^{\circ}$. Numbers of shear cracks are constant by increasing the bedding thickness. It's to be noted that in some configuration, tensile cracks develop through the intact area of material model. There is not any failure in direction of bedding plane interface with higher strength.

• Journal of Platform Technology
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.47-54
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• 2018

Predictive analysis in the hardware industry can be performed at an appropriate point in time to prevent failure of production facilities and reduce management costs. This helps to perform more efficient and scientific maintenance through automation of failure analysis. Among them, predictive management aims to prevent the occurrence of anomalous state by identifying and improving the abnormal state based on the gathering, analysis, and scientific data management of facilities using information technology and constructing prediction model do. In this study, we made a fault tree through the Relex tool and analyzed the error code of the hardware to study the safety.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.816-822
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• 2000

In the core of the nuclear power plant of PWR, several cases of fuel failure by unknown causes have been experienced for various fuel types. From the common features of the failure pattern, failure lead time, flow conditions, and flow induced vibration characteristics in nuclear fuel bundles, it is deduced that the fretting wear failure of the fuel rod at the spacer grid position is due to the fluidelastic vibration. In the past, fluidelastic vibration was simulated by quasi -static semi-analytical model, so called the static model, which could not account for the interaction between the rods within a bundle. To overcome this defect and to provide for more flexibilities applicable to the fuel bundle, Tanaka's unsteady model was modified to accomodate the geometrical differences and governing parameter changes during the operations such as the number of rods, pitch to diameter ratio (P/D), spring force, damping coefficient, etc. The critical velocity was calculated by solving the governing equations with the MATLAB code. A comparison between the estimated critical velocity and the test result shows a good agreement. Finally, the level of decrease of the critical velocity due to the reduction in the spring force and reduced damping coefficient due to the radiation exposure is also estimated.