• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.37 no.3
• /
• pp.231-244
• /
• 2005

In recent decades, significant effort has led to risk-informed improvements to regulation. Performance-based approaches also promise significant gains in efficiency (level of safety versus effort). However, significant work remains to be done before performance-based approaches realize their full potential in regulation of nuclear power plants. This paper reviews key concepts related to performance-based regulation, discusses some applications of performance-based approaches, and identifies issues that still need to be addressed. Realistic, experience-based models of licensee performance are still lacking; this makes it difficult to assess the prospective effectiveness of any given regulatory approach, in light of the performance issues that it will actually face. Also, while 'compliance' is an intuitively straightforward concept to apply within a prescriptive implementation, its analog in a performance-based approach remains unclear. An overarching theme of the paper is that formal methods of decision analysis are very helpful in developing appropriate regulatory approaches, especially performance-based ones; this theme is illustrated at several points.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.48 no.3
• /
• pp.684-701
• /
• 2016

The Gaussian process model (GPM) is a flexible surrogate model that can be used for nonparametric regression for multivariate problems. A unique feature of the GPM is that a prediction variance is automatically provided with the regression function. In this paper, we estimate the safety margin of a nuclear power plant by performing regression on the output of best-estimate simulations of a large-break loss-of-coolant accident with sampling of safety system configuration, sequence timing, technical specifications, and thermal hydraulic parameter uncertainties. The key aspect of our approach is that the GPM regression is only performed on the dominant input variables, the safety injection flow rate and the delay time for AC powered pumps to start representing sequence timing uncertainty, providing a predictive model for the peak clad temperature during a reflood phase. Other uncertainties are interpreted as contributors to the measurement noise of the code output and are implicitly treated in the GPM in the noise variance term, providing local uncertainty bounds for the peak clad temperature. We discuss the applicability of the foregoing method to reduce the use of conservative assumptions in best estimate plus uncertainty (BEPU) and Level 1 probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) success criteria definitions while dealing with a large number of uncertainties.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
• /
• v.44 no.1
• /
• pp.106-113
• /
• 2012

The present study was conducted to assess the dietary exposure to mercury and the associated risks for Koreans resulting from their food intake. The probabilistic approach in the Monte Carlo simulation was used to estimate dietary exposures. Based on several reports regarding heavy metals published by KFDA in the 2000s, 178 types of representative foods were selected and data were collected on the occurrence of mercury. The contents of mercury in foods ranged: agricultural products 0.1 (fruits)-45.4 ${\mu}g/kg$ (mushrooms), 3.7 ${\mu}g/kg$ (meat), and 9.3 (Echinodermata, chordata)-194.9 ${\mu}g/kg$ (fish). Others categories investigated were alcoholic beverages (0.7 ${\mu}g/kg$) and processed food (4.4 ${\mu}g/kg$). The mean and 95th percentile for exposure to dietary mercury were 4.29 and 12.48 ${\mu}g/day$, corresponding to 13.6% and 39.7% of PTWI (Provisional Tolerable Weekly Intake), respectively. Therefore, overall level of mercury exposure for Koreans through food intake is below levels recommended by JECFA, indicating the least possibility of risk, and is less than or similar to levels reported in other countries.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
• /
• 1998.05a
• /
• pp.899-905
• /
• 1998

The analysis priority makings the recommendation to reduce the total core damage frequency (CDF) of Wolsong nuclear Power Plant nits 2/3/4 was Performed in this paper. In order to derive the recommendation, the sensitivity analysis of CDF on which major contributors effect m performed based on the accident quantification results during Level 1 Probabilistic safety assessment (PSA). Priorities were ranked in tile way that compares the CDF reduction rate with efforts required to implement those recommendations using risk matrix

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.316-322
• /
• 2011

BACKGROUND: Pesticides concentration was monitored in 50 agricultural lakes, and ecological risk for aquatic organism was assessed using risk quotient (RQ) and probabilistic methods. METHODS AND RESULTS: Pesticides concentrations detected in 50 agricultural lakes during peak season (June and September) were in the range of $0.17{\sim}0.99{\mu}g/L$. The RQ for algae and the other species was estimated to be 0.25 and below 0.01, indicating medium risk and no risk. Oxadiazon predominantly contributed to RQ value of 99% for algae, fishes, and amphibians. In terms of hazardous concentration at 5% of species ($HC_5$), ecological risk quotients (ERQ) for oxadiazon ranged from 0.18~0.33, showing a medium risk level. Overall, the concentrations of pesticides were much lower than $HC_5$), value. Probability of combined ecological risk for pesticides ranged from 1.82% to 2.41%. CONCLUSION(s): Combined ecological risk probability did not exceed the acceptable level of 5%, indicating no ecological risk for selected aquatic species. This study suggests that regular ecological risk assessment (ERA) will be required to protect and manage an agricultural lake. Not only ERA at screening level by comparing exposure with toxic effects for aquatic species also advanced ERA technique considering species in indigenous to Korea, chronic toxicity, pulse dose, fate, and environmental factors should be required.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.43 no.2
• /
• pp.50-58
• /
• 2018

Background: In terms of the Level 3 probabilistic safety assessment (Level 3 PSA), ingestion of food that had been exposed to radioactive materials is important to assess the intermediate- and long-term radiological dose. Because the ingestion dose is considerably dependent upon the agricultural and dietary characteristics of each country, the reliability of the assessment results may become diminished if the characteristics of a foreign country are considered. Thus, this study intends to evaluate and analyze the ingestion dose of Korean during a severe accident by completely considering the available agricultural and dietary characteristics in Korea. Materials and Methods: This study uses COMIDA2, which is a program based on dynamic food chain model. It sets the parameters that are appropriate to Korean characteristics so that we can evaluate the inherent ingestion dose of Korean. The results were analyzed by considering the accident date and food category with regard to the $^{137}Cs$. Results and Discussion: The dose and contribution of the food category depicted distinctive differences based on the accident date. Particularly, the ingestion dose during the first and second years depicted a considerable difference by the accident date. However, after the third year, the effect of foliar absorption was negligible and exhibited a similar tendency along with the order of root uptake rate based on the food category. Conclusion: In this study, the agricultural and dietary characteristics of Korea were analyzed and evaluated the ingestion dose of Korean during a severe accident using COMIDA2. By considering the inherent characteristics of Korean, it can be determined that the results of this study will significantly contribute to the reliability of the Level 3 PSA.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.27 no.5
• /
• pp.219-223
• /
• 2012

For an off-site consequence analysis at nuclear power plant, MELCOR Accident Consequence Code System(MACCS) II code is widely used as a software tool. In this study, the algorithm of web-based off-site consequence analysis program(OSCAP) using the MACCS II code was developed for an Integrated Leak Rate Test (ILRT) interval extension and Level 3 probabilistic safety assessment(PSA), and verification and validation(V&V) of the program was performed. The main input data for the MACCS II code are meteorological, population distribution and source term information. However, it requires lots of time and efforts to generate the main input data for an off-site consequence analysis using the MACCS II code. For example, the meteorological data are collected from each nuclear power site in real time, but the formats of the raw data collected are different from each site. To reduce the efforts and time for risk assessments, the web-based OSCAP has an automatic processing module which converts the format of the raw data collected from each site to the input data format of the MACCS II code. The program also provides an automatic function of converting the latest population data from Statistics Korea, the National Statistical Office, to the population distribution input data format of the MACCS II code. For the source term data, the program includes the release fraction of each source term category resulting from modular accident analysis program(MAAP) code analysis and the core inventory data from ORIGEN. These analysis results of each plant in Korea are stored in a database module of the web-based OSCAP, so the user can select the defaulted source term data of each plant without handling source term input data.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.811-827
• /
• 2015

This paper presents a probabilistic investigation of American and European specifications (i.e., AISC and Eurocode 4) for square concrete-filled steel tubular (CFT) stub columns. The study is based on experimental results of 100 axially loaded square CFT stub columns from the literature. By comparing experimental results for ultimate loads with code-predicted column resistances, the uncertainty of resistance models is analyzed and it is found that the modeling uncertainty parameter can be described using random variables of lognormal distribution. Reliability analyses were then performed with/without considering the modeling uncertainty parameter and the safety level of the specifications is evaluated in terms of sufficient and uniform reliability criteria. Results show that: (1) The AISC design code provided slightly conservative results of square CFT stub columns with reliability indices larger than 3.25 and the uniformness of reliability indices is no better because of the quality of the resistance model; (2) The uniformness of reliability indices for the Eurocode 4 was better than that of AISC, but the reliability indices of columns designed following the Eurocode 4 were found to be quite below the target reliability level of Eurocode 4.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.53 no.10
• /
• pp.3298-3313
• /
• 2021

The objective of this study is to estimate the occurrence probabilities of severe accident phenomena based on a fuzzy elicitation technique. Normally, it is difficult to determine these probabilities due to the lack of information on severe accident progression and the highly uncertain values currently in use. In this case, fuzzy set theory (FST) can be best exploited. First, questions were devised for expert elicitation on technical issues of severe accident phenomena. To deal with ambiguities and the imprecision of previously developed (reference) probabilities, fuzzy aggregation methods based on FST were employed to derive the occurrence probabilities of severe accidents via four phases: 1) choosing experts, 2) quantifying weighting factors for the experts, 3) aggregating the experts' opinions, and 4) defuzzifying the fuzzy numbers. In this way, this study obtained expert elicitation results in the form of updated occurrence probabilities of severe accident phenomena in the OPR-1000 plant, after which the differences between the reference probabilities and the newly acquired probabilities using fuzzy aggregation were compared, with the advantages of the fuzzy technique over other approaches explained. Lastly, the impact of applying the updated severe accident probabilities on containment integrity was quantitatively investigated in a Level 2 PSA model.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.42 no.2
• /
• pp.130-140
• /
• 2017

Background: With the need for a domestic level 3 probabilistic safety assessment (PSA), it is essential to develop a Korea-specific code. Health effect assessments study radiation-induced impacts; in particular, long-term health effects are evaluated in terms of cancer risk. The objective of this study was to analyze the latest cancer risk models developed by foreign organizations and to compare the methodology of how they were developed. This paper also provides suggestions regarding the development of Korean cancer risk models. Materials and Methods: A review of cancer risk models was carried out targeting the latest models: the NUREG model (1993), the BEIR VII model (2006), the UNSCEAR model (2006), the ICRP 103 model (2007), and the U.S. EPA model (2011). The methodology of how each model was developed is explained, and the cancer sites, dose and dose rate effectiveness factor (DDREF) and mathematical models are also described in the sections presenting differences among the models. Results and Discussion: The NUREG model was developed by assuming that the risk was proportional to the risk coefficient and dose, while the BEIR VII, UNSCEAR, ICRP, and U.S. EPA models were derived from epidemiological data, principally from Japanese atomic bomb survivors. The risk coefficient does not consider individual characteristics, as the values were calculated in terms of population-averaged cancer risk per unit dose. However, the models derived by epidemiological data are a function of sex, exposure age, and attained age of the exposed individual. Moreover, the methodologies can be used to apply the latest epidemiological data. Therefore, methodologies using epidemiological data should be considered first for developing a Korean cancer risk model, and the cancer sites and DDREF should also be determined based on Korea-specific studies.