• 한국압력기기공학회 논문집
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• 제10권1호
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• pp.70-74
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• 2014

An Operating Experience Report(OER) has written about events and accidents happened at a Nuclear Power Plant(NPP). The purpose of publishing the OER is to prevent the similar event or accident repeatedly by spreading the experience of a single plant to other plants personnel. In this paper, it is analyses that the foreign NPPs' OERs on JIT published by the International Nuclear Agency(WANO, INPO, COG, BE). The analysis introduced in this paper is performed along with the various factors such as type of work, root-cause, and equipment. The root-cause analysis about the OERs shows that the Human-error is the major factor in foreign NPPs, but on the other hand equipment problem is the main part of the Domestic NPPs. The ratio of the foreign NPP's OERs on JIT according to the type of work was applied to KHNP-JIT developed nowadays for the first time in KOREA.

• 한국전산구조공학회논문집
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• 제26권6호
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• pp.415-421
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• 2013

본 논문에서는 면진시스템이 원전에 적용될 경우 원전구조물의 생애주기 성능에 미치는 영향을 소개한다. 최근 내진설계와 더불어 강진발생 예상 지역에 적용을 목적으로 개발되는 면진시스템은 구조물을 장주기화하여 응답가속도를 줄이고 상대변위를 늘려줌으로써 구조물의 안전성을 증진시키는 것으로 알려져 있다. 따라서, 구조물의 안전성이 중요시되는 원전구조물에 면진시스템을 적용하기 위한 연구가 국내에서 진행 중에 있다. 본 연구에서는 원전구조물의 생애주기 성능분석에 있어서 특징을 분석하고, 면진시스템이 적용될 경우 원전구조물의 생애주기성능에 있어서 미치는 영향을 평가함으로써, 도출된 결과를 면진시스템 적용의 정량적인 타당성 평가에 활용할 수 있다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권8호
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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.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국전산유체공학회 2009년 추계학술대회논문집
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• pp.121-128
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• 2009

During a hypothetical high-pressure accident in a nuclear power plant (NPP), molten corium can be ejected through a breach of a reactor pressure vessel (RPV) and dispersed by a following jet of a high-pressure steam in the RPV. The dispersed corium is fragmented into smaller droplets in a reactor cavity of the NPP by the steam jet and released into other compartments of the NPP by a overpressure in the cavity. The fragments of the corium transfer thermal energy to the ambient air in the containment or interact chemically with steam and generate hydrogen which may be burnt in the containment. The thermal loads from the ejected molten corium on the containment which is called direct containment heating (DCH) can threaten the integrity of the containment. DCH in a NPP containment is related to many physical phenomena such as multi-phase hydrodynamics, thermodynamics and chemical process. In the evaluation of the DCH load, the melt dispersion rates depending on the RPV pressure are the most important parameter. Mostly, DCH was evaluated by using lumped-analysis codes with some correlations obtained from experiments for the dispersion rates. In this study, MC3D code was used to evaluate the dispersion rates in the APR1400 NPP during the high-pressure accidents. MC3D is a two-phase analysis code based on Eulerian four-fields for melt jet, melt droplets, gas and water. The dispersion rates of the corium melt depending on the RPV pressure were obtained from the MC3D analyses and the values specific to the APR1400 cavity geometry were compared to a currently available correlation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권7호
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• pp.1431-1441
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• 2017

The Fukushima accident reveals the vulnerability of existing active nuclear power plant (NPP) design against prolonged loss of external electricity events. The passive safety system is considered an attractive alternative to cope with this kind of disaster. Also, the passive safety system enhances both the safety and the economics of NPPs. The adoption of a passive safety system reduces the number of active components and can minimize the construction cost of NPPs. In this paper, reflecting on the experience during the development of the APR+ design in Korea, we propose the concept of an innovative Power Reactor (iPower), which is a kind of passive NPP, to enhance safety in a revolutionary manner. The ultimate goal of iPower is to confirm the feasibility of practically eliminating radioactive material release to the environment in all accident conditions. The representative safety grade passive system includes a passive emergency core cooling system, a passive containment cooling system, and a passive auxiliary feedwater system. Preliminary analysis results show that these concepts are feasible with respect to preventing and/or mitigating the consequences of design base accidents and severe accidents.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권9호
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• pp.1983-1989
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• 2020

The human reliability analysis is a method by which, in general terms, the human impact to the safety and risk of a nuclear power plant operation can be modelled, quantified and analysed. It is an indispensable element of the PSA process within the nuclear industry nowadays. The paper herein presents a sensitivity study of the human reliability analysis performed on a real nuclear power plant-specific probabilistic safety assessment model. The analysis is performed on a pre-selected set of post-initiator operator actions. The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of these operator actions on the plant risk by altering their corresponding human error probabilities in a wide spectrum. The results direct the fact that the future effort should be focused on maintaining the current human reliability level, i.e. not letting it worsen, rather than improving it.

• 한국산업정보학회논문지
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• 제27권6호
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• pp.95-103
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• 2022

원자력발전소의 중대사고 발생 시 신속하고 정확하게 사고 상황을 파악해야 하며, 이러한 사고진단 정보를 획득했을 때 적절한 사고관리 및 대응을 수행할 수 있다. 본 연구에서는 국가원자력 재난관리 시스템인 AtomCARE (Computerized technical Advisory system for a Radiological Emergency)로 전송되는 주요 발전소 정보로부터 중대사고 상황을 진단하는데 있어 딥러닝 기술의 접목을 고려하였다. 이를 위하여 주요 시나리오를 선정하고 사고 진행에 따른 상세 시나리오에 대하여 중대사고 해석 코드인 MAAP5 다량 계산을 통한 학습 DB를 구축하였다. 그리고 이 DB의 학습을 통하여 주요 발전소 정보로부터 중대사고 상세 시나리오를 분류할 수 있는, 즉 중대사고 상황을 진단할 수 있는 기술을 개발하였다. 또한 블라인드 테스트와 주성분분석을 통한 검증을 수행하였다. 본 연구에서 개발한 기술은 향후 전체 중대사고 시나리오로 확장 및 적용 가능할 것으로 판단되며 신속하고 정확한 사고진단의 기반기술로 활용 가치가 높을 것으로 기대된다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권6호
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• pp.2069-2087
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• 2023

In nuclear power plant (NPP) accidents, the containment is subject to high temperatures and high internal pressures, which may further trigger serious chain accidents such as core meltdown and hydrogen explosion, resulting in a significantly higher accident level. Therefore, studying the mechanical performance of a containment under high temperature and high internal pressure is relevant to the safety of NPPs. Based on similarity principles, the 1:3.2 scale model of a prestressed concrete containment vessel (PCCV) of a NPP was designed. The loading method, which considers the thermal-pressure coupling conditions, was used. The mechanical response of the PCCV was investigated with a simultaneous increase in internal pressure and temperature, and the failure mechanism of the PCCV under thermal-pressure coupling conditions was revealed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제48권1호
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• pp.236-245
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• 2016

In a reactor coolant system of a nuclear power plant (NPP), an overpressure protection system keeps pressure in the loop within 110% of design pressure. However if the system does not work properly, pressure in the loop could elevate hugely in a short time. It would be seriously disastrous if a weak point in the pressure boundary component bursts and releases radioactive material within the containment; and it may lead to a leak outside the containment. In this study, a gross deformation that leads to a burst of pressure boundary components was investigated. Major components in the primary pressure boundary that is structurally important were selected based on structural mechanics, then, they were used to study the burst pressure of components by finite element method (FEM) analysis and by number of closed forms of theoretical relations. The burst pressure was also used as a metric of design optimization. It revealed which component was the weakest and which component had the highest margin to bursting failure. This information is valuable in severe accident progression prediction. The burst pressures of APR-1400, AP1000 and VVER-1000 reactor coolant systems were evaluated and compared to give relative margins of safety.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제50권3호
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• pp.494-503
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• 2018

As public acceptance of nuclear energy in Korea worsens due to the Fukushima accident and the earthquakes that occurred in the Gyeongju area near the Wolsong nuclear power plant (NPP), estimating the effects of earthquakes has become more essential for the nuclear industry. Currently, most countermeasures against earthquakes are limited to large-scale disasters. Minor-scale earthquakes used to be ignored. Even though people do not feel the shaking due to minor earthquakes and minor earthquakes incur little damage to NPPs, they can change the environmental conditions, for instance, underground water level and the conductivity of the groundwater. This study conducted a questionnaire survey of residents living in the vicinity of an NPP to determine their perception and acceptance of plant safety against minor earthquakes. The results show that the residents feel earthquakes at levels that can be felt by people, but incur little damage to NPPs, as minor earthquakes (magnitude of 2.0-3.9) and set this level as a standard for countermeasures. Even if a minor earthquake has little impact on the safety of an NPP, there is still a possibility that public opinion will get worse. This study provides analysis results about problems of earthquake measures of Korean NPPs and specific things that can bring about an effect of deterioration of public acceptance. Based on these data, this article suggests that active management of minor earthquakes is necessary for the sustainability of nuclear energy.