• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제50권8호
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• pp.1199-1209
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• 2018

After the Fukushima-Daiichi accident in 2011, the multi-unit risk, i.e., the risk due to several nuclear power plants (NPPs) in a site has become an important issue in several countries such as Korea, Canada, and China. However, the multi-unit risk has been discussed for a long time in the nuclear community before the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident occurred. The regulatory authorities around the world and the international organizations had proposed requirements or guidelines to reduce the multi-unit risk. The concerns regarding the multi-unit risk can be summarized in the following three questions: How much the accident of an NPP in a site affects the safety of other NPPs in the same site? What is the total risk of a site with many NPPs? Will the risk of the simultaneous accidents at several NPPs in a site such as the Fukushima Daiichi accident be low enough? The multi-unit risk assessment (MURA) in an integrated framework is a practical approach to obtain the answers for the above questions. Even though there were few studies to assess the multi-unit risk before the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident, there are still several issues to be resolved to perform the complete MURA. This article aims to provide an overview of the multi-unit risk issues and its assessment. We discuss the several critical issues in the current MURA to get useful insights regarding the multi-unit risk with the current state art of probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) technologies. Also, the qualitative answers for the above questions are addressed.

• 한국화재소방학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국화재소방학회 2003년도 춘계학술논문발표회논문집
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• pp.259-264
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• 2003

The fire protection system of Nuclear Power Plants(NPPs) is an integrated system that is applied multi-field technology. So, it needs synthetic design and analysis, that is, the plan of fire protection, fire compartment, fire detection, fire suppression, and success of safety shut down, etc. In case of a fire in NPPs, secure the safety of reactor and minimize the radioactivity contamination. For this purpose, perform the fire risk analysis and make up the deducted problem through the improvement of design or the change of operation process.

• 한국압력기기공학회 논문집
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• 제9권1호
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• pp.35-39
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• 2013

The Operating Experience Report(OER) has written about the event and accident 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. Before initiating the analysis mentioned in this paper, 2,298 review reports for the same number of OER published from 2007 to June 2012 have been written to achieve the correct and objective statistics. The analysis introduced in this paper is performed with the various factors such as year, plant type, equipment, type of work, root-cause. The root-cause analysis is showed that the equipment problem is the major factor in domestic NPPs, but on the other hand human-error is the main part of the foreign NPPs. Moreover, while the number of the man-made event is decreasing, the equipment-made event is rapidly increasing in domestic NPPs.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.77-83
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to assess the organizational types and the job stress factors that affect the procedure-based job performances in nuclear power plants(NPPs). We derived 24 organizational factors affecting to the job stress in NPPs from the job stress analysis models of NIOSH(1989), Cooper(1990), and Karasek(1990). onsidering the safety characteristic in operating tasks of NPPs, we individuate among the tasks in NPPs through the division of duty and the analysis of cost activity. Through the questionnaire survey, a structured interview with the responsible employees, and expert panels, we assess 70 tasks among 777 tasks managed officially under the procedures. They are the representative tasks to the duties of each division and are directly related to the safety. We utilize the OPTI(organizational personality type indicators) to characterize the personality type of each organization in NPPs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권7호
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• pp.2237-2250
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• 2021

The analog-based Ex-core Neutron Flux Monitoring System (ENFMS) in Korean Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) has been performing its intended functions successfully for a long time. On the other hand, the primary concern with the extended use of analog systems is the aging effect, such as mechanical failures, environmental degradation, and obsolescence. The transition to a digital-based Man-Machine Interface Systems (MMIS) in Korea and other countries has been accelerating, but some systems are still analog-based IC systems, such as the ENFMS in APR1400 NPPs. Digitalized ENFMS can become a reality using computers and microprocessors owing to the progress in digital electronics and information technology. This paper presents the result of the first phase of the research on the digitalization of the ENFMS signal processing electronics for NPPs operated or produced in Korea. It has two main parts: (1) review engineering bases of ex-core neutron flux monitoring system, including nuclear engineering, instrumentation techniques, and analog and digital signal processing techniques, and (2) analysis of analog signal processing electronics of ENFMS for OPR1000 and APR1400 power plants. They are prerequisite to the second phase of the research which is the detailed implementation of the digitalization.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권3호
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• pp.1003-1015
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• 2022

The new methodologies to derive discharge limits considering operational flexibility according to international safety standards were developed to help reduce the environmental releases of radioactive effluents from nuclear power plants (NPPs). To overcome the limitations of the two existing methods to set up discharge limits assuming a specific statistical distribution of the effluent discharge, two modified equations were newly proposed to directly derive a particular discharge limits corresponding to the target 'compliance probability' based on the actual annual discharge data for a specific NPP and radionuclide groups. By applying these to the actual yearly discharge data of 14 Korean NPPs for 7 radionuclide groups for the past 20 years, the applicability of two new methodologies to actual cases was demonstrated. The 'characteristic value' with approximately a 90% compliance probability for each Korean NPP and radionuclide group was proposed based on the results. The new approaches for setting up the discharge limits and the characteristic values developed in this study are expected to be effectively utilized to foster operator's efforts to progressively reduce the environmental releases of radioactive effluents of NPPs relative to the previous discharge data considering operational flexibilities.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권9호
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• pp.2888-2898
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• 2021

Vital area identification (VAI) is an essential procedure for the design of physical protection systems (PPSs) for nuclear power plants (NPPs). The purpose of PPS design is to protect vital areas. VAI has been improved continuously to overcome the shortcomings of previous VAI generations. In first-generation VAI, a sabotage fault tree was developed directly without reusing probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) results or information. In second-generation VAI, VAI model was constructed from all PSA event trees and fault trees. While in third-generation VAI, it was developed from the simplified PSA event trees and fault trees. While VAIs have been performed for NPPs in full-power operations, VAI for NPPs in low-power and shutdown (LPSD) operations has not been studied and performed, even though NPPs in LPSD operations are very vulnerable to sabotage due to the very crowded nature of NPP maintenance. This study is the first to research and apply VAI to LPSD operation of NPP. Here, the third-generation VAI method for full-power operation of NPP was adapted to the VAI of LPSD operation. In this study, LPSD VAI for a few plant operational states (POSs) was performed. Furthermore, the operation strategy of vital areas for both full-power and LPSD operations was discussed. The LPSD VAI method discussed in this paper can be easily applied to all POSs. The method and insights in this study can be important for future LPSD VAI that reflects various LPSD operational states. Regulatory bodies and electric utilities can take advantage of this LPSD VAI method.

• 한국정보통신학회논문지
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• 제22권10호
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• pp.1392-1397
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• 2018

원자력 발전소는 주요 국가에서 관리하는 핵심 시설로 보호되고 있으며, 원자력 발전소의 설비들에 일반적인 IT 기술을 적용하여 기존에 설치된 아날로그 방식의 운용자원을 제외한 나머지 자산에 대해 디지털화된 자원을 활용하는 비중이 높아지고 있다. 네트워크를 사용하여 원전의 IT자산을 제어하는 것은 상당한 이점을 제공할 수 있지만 기존 IT자원이 지닌 잠정적인 보안 취약점(Vulnerability)으로 인해 원자력 시설 전반을 위협하는 중대한 사이버 보안 침해사고를 야기할 수 있다. 이에 본 논문에서는 원전 사이버 보안 취약점 규제 요건과 기존 취약점 스캐너의 특징 및 이들이 지닌 요건들을 분석하였고, 상용 및 무료 취약점 스캐너를 조사 하였다. 제안된 적용 방안을 바탕으로 취약점 스캐너를 원전에 적용할 시 원전의 네트워크 보안 취약점 점검 효율성을 향상시킬 수 있을 것으로 판단된다.

• 한국화재소방학회논문지
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• 제26권6호
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• pp.38-44
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• 2012

원자력발전소 화재방호의 목표는 화재 시 원자로의 안전정지 상태를 유지하여 환경으로의 방사성물질 누출을 최소화하며, 종사자 인명안전 및 재산을 보호하는데 있다. 소방시설은 발생된 화재를 조기 감지 및 진압하여 화재로 인한 피해를 완화시킬 수 있는 심층방어개념에 입각한 중요한 방어수단의 하나이다. 그러나 소방방재청에서 제시하고 있는 소방시설 설치기준이 원자력발전소에 특화되어 있지 않아 인허가 시 별도의 심의 절차가 요구되고 있다. 또한, 성능위주설계와 같은 규정은 작업자의 인구밀도가 비교적 낮은 원자력발전소에 적용하는데 어려움이 있다. 이 논문에서는 원전 화재방호와 관련된 법령의 상세 검토를 통하여 도출된 근본적인 문제점과 KEPIC FPN의 국내 원전 적용성에 대한 평가를 통하여 소방시설에 대한 기술기준에 대한 개선방향을 제시하였다.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1997년도 추계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.443-448
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• 1997

The intelligent software system for nuclear power plants (NPPs) has been conceptually designed in this study. Its design goals are to operate NPPs in n improved manner and to support operators' cognitive tasks. It consists of six major modules such as "Information Processing," "Alarm Processing," "Procedure Tracking," "Performance Diagnosis," and "Event Diagnosis" modules for operators and "Malfunction Diagnosis" module for maintenance personnel. Most of the modules have been developed for several years and the others are under development. After the completion of development, they will be combined into one system that would be main parts of advanced control rooms in NPPs. that would be main parts of advanced control rooms in NPPs.