• Journal of Auto-vehicle Safety Association
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.27-34
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• 2023

The registration rate of eco-friendly vehicles, such as hydrogen vehicles, is increasing rapidly, however, few first responders have experienced related accidents. Accident scenarios at hydrogen refueling stations and hydrogen vehicles on a road were investigated, and the relative importance of each scenario was analyzed using AHP analysis. Leakage, jet flame, and explosion that occurred inside and outside the hydrogen refueling station were reviewed, and the hydrogen gas explosion in the compartment showed the highest importance value. In case of the hydrogen vehicle, traffic accident statistics and actual accidents were used. It was analyzed that the hydrogen vessel explosion on the road due to the failure of TPRD and the leakage in the underground parking area were difficult to respond. The developed accident scenarios are expected to be used for first responder training.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.659-677
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• 2022

Hydrogen is emerging as a next-generation energy source and development and supply of FCEV (hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle) is expected to occur rapidly. Accordingly, measures to respond to hydrogen car accidents are required and researches on the safety of hydrogen cars are being actively conducted. In this study, In this study, we developed a hydrogen car accident scenarios suitable for domestic conditions for the safety evaluation of hydrogen car in road tunnels through analysis of existing experiments and research data and analyzed and presented the hazard distance according to the accident results of the hydrogen car accident scenarios. The accident results according to the hydrogen car accident scenario were classified into minor accidents, general fires, jet flames and explosions. The probability of occurrence of each accident results are predicted to be 93.06%, 1.83%, 2.25%, and 2.31%. In the case of applying the hydrogen tank specifications of FCEV developed in Korea, the hazard distance for explosion pressure (based on 16.5 kPa) is about 17.6 m, about 6 m for jet fire, up to 35 m for fireball in road tunnel with a standard cross section (72 m²).

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.605-613
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• 2020

In July and October of this year, the government announced the 'Green new deal plan within the Korean new deal policy' and 'Strategies for proliferation of future vehicles and market preoccupation'. And, in response to changes in the global climate agreement, it has decided to expand green mobility such as electric vehicles and hydrogen electric vehicles with the aim of a "net-zero" society. Accordingly, the goal is to build 310 hydrogen refueling stations along with the supply of 60,000 hydrogen vehicles in 2022, and the hydrogen infrastructure is being expanded. however, it is difficult to secure hydrogen infrastructure due to expensive construction costs and difficulty the selection of a site. In Korea, it is possible to build a mobile hydrogen station according to the safety standards covering special case of the Ministry of Industry. Since the mobile hydrogen station can be charged while moving between authorized place, it has the advantage of being able to meet a large number of demands with only one hydrogen refueling station, so it is proposed as a model suitable for the early market of hydrogen infrastructure. This study demonstrates the establishment of a hydrogen refueling station by deriving a virtual accident scenario for leakage and catastrupture for each facility for the risk factors in a mobile hydrogen station, and performing a quantitative risk assessment through the derived scenario. Through the virtual accident scenario, direction of demonstration and implications for the construction of a mobile hydrogen refueling station were derived.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.82-87
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• 2004

Hydrogen is considered to be the most important future energy carrier in many applications reducing greenhouse gas emissions significantly. To be applicable as energy carrier the safety issues associated with hydrogen applications needs to be investigated and fully understood. In order to analyze the risks associated with hydrogen applications, accidents associated with hydrogen in Korea from 1963 to 2002 have been analysed in this work. From analysis of accidents, we propose the necessity of research on hydrogen releases, dispersion in air, and explosion due to high hazardous of hydrogen.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.881-892
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• 2016

Following the Fukushima accident and its extended station blackout, attention was brought to the importance of the spent fuel pools' (SFPs) behavior in case of a prolonged loss of the cooling system. Since then, many analytical works have been performed to estimate the timing of hypothetical fuel uncovery for various SFP types. Experimentally, however, little was done to investigate issues related to the formation of a flammable gas mixture, distribution, and stratification in the SFP building itself and to some extent assess the capability for the code to correctly predict it. This paper presents the main outcomes of the Experiments on Spent Fuel Pool (ESFP) project carried out under the auspices of Swissnuclear (Framework 2012-2013) in the PANDA facility at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland. It consists of an experimental investigation focused on hydrogen concentration build-up into a SFP building during a predefined scaled scenario for different venting positions. Tests follow a two-phase scenario. Initially steam is released to mimic the boiling of the pool followed by a helium/steam mixture release to simulate the deterioration of the oxidizing spent fuel. Results shows that while the SFP building would mainly be inerted by the presence of a high concentration of steam, the volume located below the level of the pool in adjacent rooms would maintain a high air content. The interface of the two-gas mixture presents the highest risk of flammability. Additionally, it was observed that the gas mixture could become stagnant leading locally to high hydrogen concentration while steam condenses. Overall, the experiments provide relevant information for the potentially hazardous gas distribution formed in the SFP building and hints on accident management and on eventual retrofitting measures to be implemented in the SFP building.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.8
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• pp.2960-2973
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• 2022

Since Fukushima nuclear power plant (NPP) accident in 2011, the importance of research on various severe accident phenomena has been emphasized. Particularly, detailed analysis of combustion risk is necessary following the containment damage caused by combustion in the Fukushima accident. Many studies have been conducted to evaluate the risk of local hydrogen concentration increases and flame propagation using computational code. In particular, the potential for combustion by local hydrogen concentration in specific areas within the containment has been emphasized. In this study, the process of flame propagation generated inside a reactor core to containment during a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) was analyzed using MELCOR 2.1 code. Later in the LOCA scenario, it was expected that hydrogen combustion occurred inside the reactor core owing to oxygen inflow through the cold leg break area. The main driving force of the oxygen intrusion is the elevated containment pressure due to the molten corium-concrete interaction. The thermal and mechanical loads caused by the flame threaten the integrity of the containment. Additionally, the containment spray system effectiveness in this situation was evaluated because changes in pressure gradient and concentrations of flammable gases greatly affect the overall behavior of ignition and subsequent containment integrity.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.8
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• pp.1939-1950
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• 2019

The MELCOR code useful for a plant-specific hydrogen risk analysis has inevitable limitations in prediction of a turbulent flow of a hydrogen mixture. To investigate the accuracy of the hydrogen risk analysis by the MELCOR code, results for the turbulent gas behavior at pipe rupture accident were compared with CFX results which were verified by the American National Standard Institute (ANSI) model. The postulated accident scenario was selected to be surge line failure induced by station blackout of an Optimized Power Reactor 1000 MWe (OPR1000). When the surge line failure occurred, the flow out of the surgeline was strongly turbulent, from which the MELCOR code predicted that a substantial amount of hydrogen could be released. Nevertheless, the results indicated nonflammable mixtures owing to the high steam concentration released before the failure. On the other hand, the CFX code solving the three-dimensional fluid dynamics by incorporating the turbulence closure model predicted that the flammable area continuously existed at the jet interface even in the rising hydrogen mixtures. In conclusion, this study confirmed that the MELCOR code, which has limitations in turbulence analysis, could underestimate the existence of local combustible gas at pipe rupture accident. This clear comparison between two codes can contribute to establishing a guideline for computational hydrogen risk analysis.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.156-168
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• 2023

This study investigates the high temperature oxidation behaviour of a Ni-20Cr-1.2Si (wt.%) alloy in steam from 1200 ℃ to 1350 ℃ by Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The results demonstrate that exposed Ni-based alloy developed a thin oxide scale, consisted mainly of Cr₂O₃. The oxidation kinetics obtained from the experimental results was applied to evaluate the hydrogen generation considering a simplified reactor core model with different cladding alloys following an unmitigated Loss-Of-Coolant Accident (LOCA) scenario in a hypothetical Small Modular Reactor (SMR). Overall, experimental data and simulations results show that both Fe-based and Ni-based alloys may enhance cladding survivability, delaying its melting, as well as reducing hydrogen generation under accident conditions compared to Zr-based alloys. However, a substantial neutron absorption occurs when Ni-based alloys are used as cladding for current uranium-dioxide fuel systems, even when compared to Fe-based alloys.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.24-35
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• 2004

In order to analyze the hydrogen distribution during a severe accident in the APR1400 containment, GASFLOW II was used. For the APR1400 NPP, a hydrogen mitigation system is considered from the design stage, but a fully time-dependent, three-dimensional analysis has not been performed yet. In this study GASFLOW code II is used for the three-dimensional analysis. The first step to analysis involving hydrogen behavior in a full containment with the GASLOW code is to generate a realistic geometry model, which includes nodalization and modeling of the internal structures such as walls, ceilings and equipment. Geometry modeling of the APR1400 is conducted using GUI program by overlapping the containment cut drawings in a graphical file format on the mesh view. The total number of mesh cells generated is 49,476. And the calculated free volume of the APR1400 containment by GASFLOW is almost the same as the value from the GOTHIC modeling. A hypothetical SB-LOCA scenario beyond design base accident was selected to analyze the hydrogen behavior with the hydrogen mitigation system. The source of hydrogen and steam for the GASFLOW II analysis is obtained from a MAAP calculation. Combustion pressure and temperature load possibilities within the compartments used in the GOTHIC analysis are studied based on the Sigma-Lambda criteria. Finally the effectiveness of HMS installed in the APR1400 containment is evaluated from the point of severe accident management

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.13-22
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• 2023

As an alternative to environmental pollution generated from fossil fuels currently in use, research is being actively conducted to use hydrogen that does not cause air pollution. As fire and explosion accidents caused by hydrogen leakage have occurred until recently, research on safety is needed to commercialize hydrogen on ships, which are special environments. In this study, a seasonal alternative scenario for each season and the worst scenario were assumed in the event of a leakage accident while a hydrogen fuel cell propulsion ship equipped with a hydrogen storage tank was navigating at JangSaengPo port in Ulsan. In order to consider environmental variables, the damage impact range was derived through ALOHA and probit analysis based on the annual average weather data for 2021 by the Korea Meteorological Administration and on geographic information data from the National Statistical Office. Radiation showed a wider damage range than that of Overpressure and Flame in both the alternative and worst-case scenarios, and as a result of probit analysis, a fatality rate of 99% was confirmed in all areas.