• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.22-29
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• 2020

In this study, combustion and smoke release characteristics of a non-class 1E cable for nuclear power plants were investigated according to aging period. The aging was reproduced through an accelerated aging method for interval of 10 years :10, 20, 30 and 40 year, which was applied the Arrhenius equation. The cable was subjected to accelerated aging. In order to understand combustion and smoke release characteristics, the cone calorimeter test was performed according to the standard code of KS F ISO 5660-1. Heat release rate, mass loss rate, average rate of heat emission and smoke production rate were examined through cone calorimeter test. Fire performance index, fire growth index and smoke factor were derived from test results for the comparison of quantitative fire risk. When comparing the fire performance index and the fire growth index, the early fire risk tends to decrease as aging progresses, which might be attributed from the fact that the volatile substances of cables were evaporated. However, when comparing the heat release rate, average rate of heat emission and mass loss rate, which represent the mid and late periods of the fire risk, the values of accelerated aging cables were much higher than those of non-aged cable, which signifies the unstable formation of the char layer resulted in the change in the performance of flame retardants. In addition, the results from the smoke characteristics show that the accelerated aging cables were lager than the non-aged cables in terms of overall fire risk. These results can be used as baseline data when assessing fire risk of cables and establishing fire safety code for nuclear power plants.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.62 no.7
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• pp.987-993
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• 2013

Integrity of the control and instrumental cables in nuclear power plant is important to maintain the stability of the nuclear power plants. In order to diagnose the integrity of the cables, the diagnostic methods based on reflectometry have been studied. The reflectometry is a non-destructive method and it is applicable to diagnose the live cables. We introduce a Gaussian enveloped linear chirp reflectometry to diagnose the cables in the nuclear power plants. In this paper, we estimate the instantaneous frequency of the Gaussian enveloped linear chirp signal by using the weighted robust least squares filtering to localize the impedance discontinuities in the class 1E instrumental cable.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.105-113
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• 2019

This study investigates the toxicity characteristics of two Non-Class 1E Cables (For security reasons, we refer to company A and company B) used in nuclear power plants according to the accelerated deterioration period. In accordance with NES 713 test equipment and standards, tests were carried out on non-aged cables and the cables subjected to 20- and 40-year-accelerated-deterioration; each of the cables was further classified into sheath and insulation. The test results showed that the toxicity indices of 20- and 40-year-accelerated-aged cables were higher than those for the non-aged cables, and 20-year-aged cables of both A and B companies showed the highest toxicity indices. This is attributed to the extensive emissions of carbon monoxide and halide gases such as hydrogen chloride and hydrogen bromide. Furthermore, to analyze the toxicity indices of sheath and insulation in detail, the US Department of Defense standard (MIL-DTL) was applied to determine whether the Toxicity index (T.I.) allowance was exceeded, and the results showed that the insulating materials emitted considerably more than the allowable limit.