• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.36 no.5
• /
• pp.475-484
• /
• 2004

Extending the lifetime of a nuclear power plant [(hereafter referred to simply as NPP)] is one of the most important concerns in the global nuclear industry. Cables are one of the long-life items that have not been considered for replacement during the design life of a NPP. To extend the cable life beyond the design life, it is first necessary to prove that the design life is too conservative compared with actual aging. Condition monitoring is useful means of evaluating the aging condition of cable. In order to simulate natural aging in a nuclear power plant. a study on accelerated aging must first be conducted. In this paper, evaluations of mechanical aging degradation for a neoprene cable jacket were performed after accelerated aging under tcontinuous and intermittent heating conditions. Contrary to general expectations, intermittent heating to the neoprene cable jacket showed low aging degradation, 50% break-elongation, and 60% indenter modulus, compared with continuous heating. With a plant maintenance period of 1 month after every 12 or 18 months operation, we can easily deduce that the life time of the cable jacket of neoprene can be extended much longer than extimated through the general EQ test. which adopts continuous accelerated aging for determining cable life. Therefore, a systematic approach that considers the actual environment conditions of the nuclear power plant is required for determining cable life.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.26 no.5
• /
• pp.41-45
• /
• 2011

The fire event occurred in fire proof zone often causes serious electrical problems such as shorts, ground faults, or open circuits in nuclear power plants. These would be directed to the loss of safe shutdown capabilities performed by safety related systems and equipments The fire event can treat the basic design principle that safety systems should keep their functions with redundancy and independency. In case of a cable fire, operators can not perform their mission properly and can misjudge the situation because of spurious operation, wrong indication or instrument. These would deteriorate the plant capabilities of safety shutdown and make disastrous conditions. In this paper, the cables of the representative nuclear power plant in korea is selected and the cable functional failure temperature by exposed fire using Cable Response to Live Fire(CAROLFIRE) is studied. It is expected that the results are very useful to know the cable failure temperature by exposed fire. We confirmed the safety and integrity of the cable by exposed fire and those results will use the based data of cable exposed fire characteristics.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.20-25
• /
• 2011

The fire event occurred in fire proof zone often causes serious electrical problems such as shorts, ground faults, or open circuits in nuclear power plants. These would be directed to the loss of safe shutdown capabilities performed by safety related systems and equipments. The fire event can treat the basic design principle that safety systems should keep their functions with redundancy and independency. In case of a multi-core cable fire, operators can not perform their mission properly and can misjudge the situation because of spurious operation, wrong indication or instrument. These would deteriorate the plant capabilities of safety shutdown and make disastrous conditions. In this paper, the characteristic of cable fire is investigated and the heat-flux evaluation for cable fire is studied. Moreover, a diagnostic methodology for degraded cable in nuclear power plants is presented.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.48 no.4
• /
• pp.982-996
• /
• 2016

In this paper, new tethered aerial robots including roaming tethered aerial robots (RTARs) for radioactive material sampling and stationary tethered aerial robots (STARs) for environment monitoring are proposed to meet extremely-long-endurance missions of nuclear power plants. The flight of the proposed tethered aerial robots may last for a few days or even a few months as long as the tethered cable provides continuous power. A high voltage AC or DC power system was newly adopted to reduce the mass of the tethered cable. The RTAR uses a tethered cable spooled from the aerial robot and an aerial tension control system. The aerial tension control system provides the appropriate tension to the tethered cable, which is accordingly laid down on the ground as the RTAR roams. The STAR includes a tethered cable spooled from the ground and a ground tension control system, which enables the STAR to reach high altitudes. Prototypes of the RTAR and STAR were designed and successfully demonstrated in outdoor environments, where the load power, power type, operating frequency, and flight attitude of the RTAR and STAR were: 180 W, AC 100 kHz, and 20 m; and 300 W, AC or DC 100 kHz, and 80 m, respectively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.53 no.10
• /
• pp.3314-3318
• /
• 2021

This paper presents a mode-matching analysis of the electromagnetic coupling between open cable trays in an indoor structure when an electric-line current is generated as an electromagnetic source. We validated the mode-matching method by comparing the mode-matching results with those computed from a commercial electromagnetic simulator and then investigated the strength of the electric-field coupled in a victim cable tray while varying the distances between cable trays and architectural surfaces. The results of this study provide geometrical information on the placement of open cable trays to avoid electromagnetic interference problems.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.53 no.7
• /
• pp.2396-2406
• /
• 2021

The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center has been developing a performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) methodology, which is based on explicit determination of performance, e.g., monetary losses, in a probabilistic manner where uncertainties in earthquake ground motion, structural response, damage estimation, and losses are explicitly considered. To carry out the PEER PBEE procedure for a component of the nuclear power plant (NPP) such as the cable tray system, hazard curve and spectra were defined for two hazard levels of the ground motions, namely, operation basis earthquake, and safe shutdown earthquake. Accordingly, two sets of spectral compatible ground motions were selected for dynamic analysis of the cable tray system. In general, the PBEE analysis of the cable tray in NPP was introduced where the resulting floor motions from the time history analysis (THA) of the NPP structure should be used as the input motion to the cable tray. However, for simplicity, a finite element model of the cable tray was developed for THA under the effect of the selected ground motions. Based on the structural analysis results, fragility curves were generated in terms of specific engineering demand parameters. Loss analysis was performed considering monetary losses corresponding to the predefined damage states. Then, overall losses were evaluated for different damage groups using the PEER PBEE methodology.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.12
• /
• pp.4628-4636
• /
• 2023

Cables are indispensable in nuclear power plants for transmitting data measured by various types of detectors, such as self-powered neutron detectors (SPNDs). These cables will generate disturbing signals that must be accurately distinguished and eliminated. Given that the cable current is not very significant, previous research has focused on SPND, with little attention paid to cable evaluation and validation. This paper specifically focuses on the quantitative analysis of cables and proposes a theoretical model to predict cable noise. In this model, the reaction characteristics between irradiated neutrons and cables were discussed thoroughly. Based on the Monte Carlo method, a comprehensive simulation approach of neutron sensitivity was introduced and long-term irradiation experiments in a heavy water reactor (HWR) were designed to verify this model. The theoretical results of this method agree quite well with the experimental measurements, proving that the model is reliable and exhibits excellent accuracy. The experimental data also show that the cable current accounts for approximately 0.2% of the total current at the initial moment, but as the detector gradually depletes, it will contribute more than 2%, making it a non-negligible proportion of the total signal current.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.4
• /
• pp.1571-1584
• /
• 2023

In this study, a numerical analysis was performed as part of an international joint research project to reproduce a real cable tray fire that occurred in the heater bay area of the turbine building of a nuclear power plant. A sensitivity analysis was performed on various input parameters to derive results consistent with the sprinkler activation time obtained from the fire event analysis. For all sensitive parameters, the normalized sprinkler activation time correlated well with the power function of the normalized sprinkler height. A correlation equation was developed to identify the sprinkler activation time at any location when determining the slope or fire growth rate under the conditions assuming a linear or t-squared heat release rate (HRR) time curve. Various cable fire growth assumptions were used to determine which assumption was better to provide the prediction coincident with the information given from the fire event analysis in terms of the sprinkler activation time and total energy generated from cables damaged by fire. In the comprehensive analysis of all the sensitive parameters, the standard deviation of the input parameters increased as the sprinkler height decreased. Within the range of the sensitivity parameter values given in this study, when considering all sprinkler heights, the standard deviation of the cable model change was the largest and that of the overhang position change was the smallest.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
• /
• v.45 no.4
• /
• pp.969-980
• /
• 2017

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to estimate the lifetime, and verify the target lifetime at steady state temperature, of communication cable jackets used in nuclear power plants. Method: This study was completed according to test and analysis methods required by international standards. After measuring the residual elongation(%) of specimens at specific points in time with the accelerated degradation test, average failure time of each temperature was computed. Thus, the activation energy could be derived by applying the temperature-Arrhenius law to estimate cable jacket lifetime at steady state temperature. Results: The cable jacket lifetime was estimated as 363.8 years assuming a normal nuclear power plant operating temperature of $90^{\circ}C$. Conclusion: To ascertain stable operating conditions for a nuclear power plant, accelerated degradation tests were performed according to the Arrhenius law for components of the nuclear power plants. The lifetime was estimated from the degradation data collected during the accelerated degradation test.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.54 no.5
• /
• pp.1652-1656
• /
• 2022

Fire tests were conducted on cables using fire-retardant paint employed in nuclear power plants that transmit electrical power, control and instrument signals. The failure criteria of various power and control cables coated with fire retardant coating at three different coating thicknesses (~0.5 mm, 1.0 mm & 1.5 mm) were studied under direct flame test using Container Fire Test Facility (CFTF) based on standard tests for bare cables. A direct flame fire test was conducted for 10 min with an LPG ribbon burner rated at ten by fixing the cable samples in a vertical cable track. Inner sheath temperature was measured until ambient conditions were achieved by natural convection. The cables are visually evaluated for damage and the mass loss percentage. Cable functionality is ascertained by checking for electrical continuity for each sample. The thickness of cable coating on fire exposure is also studied by comparing the transient variation of inner sheath temperature along the Cable length. This study also evaluated the adequacy of fire-retardant coating on cables used for safety-critical equipment in nuclear power plants.