• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.225-236
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• 2012

The Fukushima-Daiichi accident shook the world, as a well-known plant design, the General Electric BWR Mark I, was heavily damaged in the tsunami, which followed the Great Japanese Earthquake of 11 March 2011. Plant safety functions were lost and, as both AC and DC failed, manoeuvrability of the plants at the site virtually came to a full stop. The traditional system of Emergency Operating Procedures (EOPs) and Severe Accident Management Guidelines (SAMG) failed to protect core and containment, and severe core damage resulted, followed by devastating hydrogen explosions and, finally, considerable radioactive releases. The root cause may not only have been that the design against tsunamis was incorrect, but that the defence against accidents in most power plants is based on traditional assumptions, such as Large Break LOCA as the limiting event, whereas there is no engineered design against severe accidents in most plants. Accidents beyond the licensed design basis have hardly been considered in the various designs, and if they were included, they often were not classified for their safety role, as most system safety classifications considered only design basis accidents. It is, hence, time to again consider the Design Basis Accident, and ask ourselves whether the time has not come to consider engineered safety functions to mitigate core damage accidents. Associated is a proper classification of those systems that do the job. Also associated are safety criteria, which so far are only related to 'public health and safety'; in reality, nuclear accidents cause few casualties, but create immense economical and societal effects-for which there are no criteria to be met. Severe accidents create an environment far surpassing the imagination of those who developed EOPs and SAMG, most of which was developed after Three Mile Island - an accident where all was still in place, except the insight in the event was lost. It requires fundamental changes in our present safety approach and safety thinking and, hence, also in our EOPs and SAMG, in order to prevent future 'Fukushimas'.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.29-33
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• 2012

This paper is an attempt to give a concise overview of the state-of-the-art in the recent liquid hydrogen safety researches with unwanted event progress. The vessel of liquified hydrogen may fail and liquid hydrogen spilled. The hydrogen will immediately start to evaporate above a pool and make a hydrogen cloud. The cloud will disperse and can produce a vapor cloud explosion. The vessel containing the liquid hydrogen may not be able to cope with the boil-off due to heat influx, especially in case of a fire, and a BLEVE may occur. In equipment where it exists as compressed gas, a leak generates a jet of gas that can self-ignite immediately or after a short delay and produce a jet flame, or in case it ignites at a source a certain distance from the leak (delayed ignition), a flash fire occurs in the open and with confinement a deflagration or even detonation may develop. The up-to-date knowledge in these events, recent progress and future research are discussed in brief.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.1-9
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• 2020

In Korea, hydrogen stations are being promoted and commercialized. However, the risk assessment for the hydrogen station is not clear. In particular, it is not clear how to calculate the risk and acceptable criteria for a hydrogen station. Therefore, in this study, three hydrogen stations being installed were selected and general risks were calculated and the social risk of each hydrogen station was calculated. In general, the method of risk assessment is individual/social risk. This is an individual's death rate considering the frequency of accidents, And the likelihood of death according to the number of nearby residents. These can be used to calculate the level of risk for a hydrogen station. However, this method of calculate risks is the criteria for judging whether it is acceptable are unclear. For this reason, this study investigated the allowable standards for foreign risks and considered that they were acceptable by applying the risks of selected domestic hydrogen stations.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.7-12
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• 2018

Hydrogen energy has been attracting attention as an alternative energy source for petroleum and stoneware. In addition, the benefits of hydrogen energy, such as no dust, abundant energy source and no ecological impact, were to compare favorably with other renewable energy sources. However, unclear product development standards and usage of hydrogen energy increase the risk of accidents in hydrogen energy related product lines. And, the high energy level of hydrogen has implications for large social problems in the event of an accident. Therefore, this study suggests the standardization method of fast hydrogen energy to help secure the safe market of hydrogen energy related products, which are mostly developed new products.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.92-101
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• 2023

To solve the problem of climate change, carbon neutrality has now become a necessity rather than an option. Hydrogen is not only a energy storage that can supplement the intermittent production of renewable energy, but is also considered a good alternative in the field of utilization as it does not emit carbon dioxide after reaction. In order to revitalize hydrogen vehicles, one of the fields of hydrogen utilization, the construction of hydrogen station infrastructure must be preceded. Prioritization of risk factors is necessary for efficient operation and risk assessment of hydrogen stations, but due to the short operation period of domestic hydrogen stations, there is a lack of frequency data on accidents and their reliability is low. In this study, we aim to identify the causes and consequences of deviations in hydrogen stations through HAZOP analysis. Additionally, we intend to analyze them using Fuzzy-AHP. Through this, we intend to derive the decision values for the causes of deviations in hydrogen stations and apply them to hydrogen accident cases and risk assessments to confirm the reliability and utility of the data.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.609-619
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• 2014

In the present study, the frequency of the undesired accident was estimated for a quantitative risk assessment of a large-scale hydrogen liquefaction plant. As a representative example, the hydrogen liquefaction plant located in Ingolstadt, Germany was chosen. From the analysis of the liquefaction process and operating conditions, it was found that a $LH_2$ storage tank was one of the most dangerous facilities. Based on the accident scenarios, frequencies of possible accidents were quantitatively evaluated by using both fault tree analysis and event tree analysis. The overall expected frequency of the loss containment of hydrogen from the $LH_2$ storage tank was $6.83{\times}10^{-1}$times/yr (once per 1.5 years). It showed that only 0.1% of the hydrogen release from the $LH_2$ storage tank occurred instantaneously. Also, the incident outcome frequencies were calculated by multiplying the expected frequencies with the conditional probabilities resulting from the event tree diagram for hydrogen release. The results showed that most of the incident outcomes were dominated by fire, which was 71.8% of the entire accident outcome. The rest of the accident (about 27.7%) might have no effect to the population.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.87-101
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• 2012

In gas industries, the potential risks of serious accidents have been increased due to high technology application and process complexities. Especially, in case of gas-related accidents, the extent of demage is out of control since gas plants handle and produce combustible, flammable, explosive and toxic materials in large amounts. The characteristics of this kind of disaster is that accident frequency is low, while the impact of damage is high, extending to the neighboring residents, environment and related industries as well as employees involved. The hydrogen gases treated important things and it used the basic material of chemical plants and industries. Since 2000, this gas stood in the spotlight the substitution energy for reduction of the global warming in particular however it need to compress high pressure(more than 150 bar.g) and store by using the special cylinders due to their low molecular weight. And this gas led to many times the fire and explosion due to leak of it. To reduce these kinds of risks and accidents, it is necessary to improve the new safety management system through a risk management after technically evaluating potential hazards in this process. This study is to carry out the quantitative risk assesment for hydrogen filling plant which are very dangerous(fire and explosive) and using a basic materials of general industries. As a results of this risk assessment, identified the elements important for safety(EIS) and suggested the practical management tools and verified the reliability of this risk assessment model through case study of accident.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.29-34
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• 2019

In this study, a quantitative risk assessment was carried out for a hydrogen complex station. The complex fueling station to be evaluated was hydrogen-LPG, and the components of each station were analyzed and the risk was evaluated. The final risk is assessed by individual and societal risks, taking into account the impact of damage and the frequency of accidents. As a result of individual risk calculation for the hydrogen-LPG fueling station that is the subject of this study, the hydrogen-LPG type fueling station does not show the unacceptable hazardous area (> 1 × 10E-3) proposed by HSE. The level of individual risk for both the public and the worker is within acceptable limits. In societal risk assessment, the model to be interpreted shows the distribution of risks in an acceptable range(ALARP, As Low As Reasonably Practicable). To ensure improved safety, we recommend regular inspections and checks for high-risk hydrogen reservoirs, dispensers, tube trailer leaks, and LPG vapor recovery lines.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.26-32
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• 2015

During the course of a severe accident in a light water nuclear reactor, large amounts of hydrogen can be generated and released into the containment during reactor core degradation. Additional burnable gases [hydrogen ($H_2$) and carbon monoxide (CO)] may be released into the containment in the corium/concrete interaction. This could subsequently raise a combustion hazard. As the Fukushima accidents revealed, hydrogen combustion can cause high pressure spikes that could challenge the reactor buildings and lead to failure of the surrounding buildings. To prevent the gas explosion hazard, most mitigation strategies adopted by European countries are based on the implementation of passive autocatalytic recombiners (PARs). Studies of representative accident sequences indicate that, despite the installation of PARs, it is difficult to prevent at all times and locations, the formation of a combustible mixture that potentially leads to local flame acceleration. Complementary research and development (R&D) projects were recently launched to understand better the phenomena associated with the combustion hazard and to address the issues highlighted after the Fukushima Daiichi events such as explosion hazard in the venting system and the potential flammable mixture migration into spaces beyond the primary containment. The expected results will be used to improve the modeling tools and methodology for hydrogen risk assessment and severe accident management guidelines. The present paper aims to present the methodology adopted by Institut de Radioprotection et de $S{\hat{u}}ret{\acute{e}}$ $Nucl{\acute{e}}aire$ to assess hydrogen risk in nuclear power plants, in particular French nuclear power plants, the open issues, and the ongoing R&D programs related to hydrogen distribution, mitigation, and combustion.

• 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