• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.149-161
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• 2008

As Programmable Logic Controllers(PLCs) are frequently used to implement real-time safety critical software, testing of PLC software is getting more important. We propose a structural testing technique on Function Block Diagram(FBD) which is one of the PLC programming languages. In order to test FBD networks, we define templates for function blocks including timer function blocks and propose an algorithm based on the templates to transform a unit FBD into a flowgraph. We generate test cases by applying existing testing techniques to the generated flowgraph. While the existing FBD testing technique do not consider infernal structure of FBD to generate test cases and can be applied only to FBD from which the specific intermediate model can be generated, this approach has advantages of systematic test case generation considering infernal structure of FBD and applicability to any FBD without regard to its intermediate format. Especially, the proposed method enables FBD networks including timer function blocks to be tested thoroughly. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, we use trip logic of bistable processor of digital nuclear power plant protection systems which is being developed in Korea.

• Journal of KIISE
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.569-578
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• 2016

The PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) has been widely used for the development of digital control system of nuclear power plant. The PLC has high maintenance costs and increasing complexity, hence, FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based digital control system has been considered as an alternative. However, the development of FPGA based digital control system is a challenge for PLC engineers because they are required to learn about new language to develop FPGA and knowledge and know-how acquired in the development of PLC is not transferable. In this study, we proposed and implemented an automatic translation tool for translation of FBD (Function Block Diagram), a programming language of PLC software, into VHDL (VHSIC Hardware Description Language). Automatically translating the FBD to VHDL using this tool allows PLC engineers to develop FPGA without any knowledge of the hardware description language.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.103-112
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• 1990

This study examines the characteristics of soil behavior which includes many uncertainties in seismic design, evaluates the dynamic soil properties and studies the soil-structure interaction to generalize the applicability and economy of the available sites. An example analysis is performed for soil-structure system response assuming a containment structure built on site which includes soil layers using both elastic halfspace analysis and FEM analysis against the seismic loads from the actual design. This exercise is performed as a part of the safety analysis and economic assessment of the nuclear power plant built on soils. It includes the preparation of computer program capable of incorporating large nonlinearity in the analysis, resonable evaluation procedures to determine input soil data. Nonlinear FEM analysis of Seed and Idriss model is found suitable for the accurate analysis of dynamic response of soils. Linear FEM analysis using dynamic soil properties at strain level obtained by one-dimensional seismic response, and elastic half-space analysis using dynamic soil properties at strain level under static loads are recommended to evaluate the dynamic soil properties.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.35-42
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• 2008

In the nuclear power plant, early detection of fatigue crack by non-destructive test (NDT) equipment due to the thermal cyclic load is very important in terms of strict safety regulation. To this end, many efforts are exerted to the fabrication of artificial cracked specimen for practicing engineers in the NDT company. The crack of this kind, however, cannot be made by conventional machining, but should be made under thermal cyclic load that is close to the in-situ condition, which takes tremendous time due to the repetition. In this study, thermal loading condition is investigated to minimize the time for fabricating the cracked specimen using simulation technique which predicts the crack initiation and propagation behavior. Simulation and experiment are conducted under an initial assumed condition for validation purpose. A number of simulations are conducted next under a variety of heating and cooling conditions, from which the best solution to achieve minimum time for crack with wanted size is found. In the simulation, general purpose software ANSYS is used for the stress analysis, MATLAB is used to compute crack initiation life, and ZENCRACK, which is special purpose software for crack growth prediction, is used to compute crack propagation life. As a result of the study, the time for the crack to reach the size of 1mm is predicted from the 418 hours at the initial condition to the 319 hours at the optimum condition, which is about 24% reduction.