• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제36권5호
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• pp.430-449
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• 2004

A quantitative model for a control system that integrates human operators, systems, and their interactions is developed based on discrete functions. After identifying the major entities and the key factors that are important to each entity in the control system, a quantitative analysis to estimate the recovery failure probability from an abnormal state is performed. A numerical analysis based on assumed values of related variables shows that this model produces reasonable results. The concept of 'relative sensitivity' is introduced to identify the major factors affecting the reliability of the control system. The analysis shows that the hardware factor and the design factor of the instrumentation system have the highest relative sensitivities in this model. T도 probability of human operators performing incorrect actions, along with factors related to human operators, are also found to have high relative sensitivities. This model is applied to an analysis of the TMI-2 nuclear power plant accident and systematically explains how the accident took place.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권3호
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• pp.459-465
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• 2017

The goal of this study is to evaluate the effective thermal conductivity and diffusivity of containment walls as heat sinks or passive cooling systems during nuclear power plant (NPP) accidents. Containment walls consist of steel reinforced concrete, steel liners, and tendons, and provide the main thermal resistance of the heat sinks, which varies with the volume fraction and geometric alignment of the rebar and tendons, as well as the temperature and chemical composition. The target geometry for the containment walls of this work is the standard Korean NPP OPR1000. Sample tests and numerical simulations are conducted to verify the correlations for models with different densities of concrete, volume fractions, and alignments of steel. Estimation of the effective thermal conductivity and diffusivity of the containment wall models is proposed. The Maxwell model and modified Rayleigh volume fraction model employed in the present work predict the experiment and finite volume method (FVM) results well. The effective thermal conductivity and diffusivity of the containment walls are summarized as functions of density, temperature, and the volume fraction of steel for the analysis of the NPP accidents.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권6호
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• pp.2079-2091
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• 2024

In this paper, a model is developed for calculating pH in the presence of organic impurities due to dissolution of paint and/or continuous injection of organic impurities in the sump. The model is implemented in the AnCheBi code for the analysis of chemical behaviors of the iodine in the containment when the pH changes during a severe accident. Validation of the model is performed with P10T2 and P11T1 experiments carried out by AECL in Canada under the BIP project. Importance analyses of the pH calculation model in the AnCheBi code are then performed with the aforementioned experimental data via Latin hypercube sampling on the reaction coefficients, sensitivity analyses of AnCheBi, and calculation of the correlation coefficients between the reaction coefficients and figure of merits (the pH and the concentrations of the various iodine species). From the importance analyses, we provide the sensitivity of the pH calculation model to the change of pH and the concentrations of the various iodine species and the reaction coefficients related with the dominant phenomena underlying the change of pH and the concentrations of the species.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제45권1호
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• pp.2-10
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• 2020

Background: Huge amounts of radionuclides were released into the environment due to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident, which caused not only serious contamination on the ground, but also radiation exposure to the public. One problem that remains in performing the dose estimation is the difficulty of estimating the internal thyroid dose due to the intake of radioiodine (mainly, ¹³¹I) because of limitations to the human data available. Materials and Methods: The relevant papers were collected and reviewed by the authors. The results of thyroid dose estimates from different studies were tabulated for comparison. Results and Discussion: The thyroid dose estimates from the studies varied widely. The dose estimates by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation were higher than the others due to the ingestion dose being based on conservative assumptions. The dose estimates by Japanese experts were mostly below 20-30 mSv. The recent studies suggested that exposure on March 12, 2011 would be crucial for late evacuees from the areas near the FD-NPP because of the possible intake of short-lived radionuclides other than ¹³¹I. Further multilateral studies are vital to reduce uncertainties in the present dose estimations. Conclusion: The estimation of the thyroid doses to Fukushima residents still has many uncertainties. However, it is considered unlikely that the thyroid doses exceeded 50 mSv except in some extreme cases. Further multilateral studies are thus necessary to reduce the uncertainties in the present dose estimations.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제37권3호
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• pp.273-278
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• 2005

Key concepts in South Korean nuclear safety regulation are safety and risk. Nuclear regulation in South Korea has required reactor designs and safeguards that reduce the risk of a major accident to less than one in a million reactor-years-a risk supposedly low enough to be acceptable. To date, in South Korean nuclear safety regulation has involved the establishment of many technical standards to enable administration enforcement. In scientific lawsuits in which the legal issue is the validity of specialized technical standards that are used for judge whether a particular nuclear power plant is to be licensed, the concept of uncertainty law is often raised with regard to what extent the examination and judgment by the judicial power affects a discretion made by the administrative office. In other words, the safety standards for nuclear power plants has been adapted as a form of the scientific technical standards widely under the idea of uncertainty law. Thus, the improvement of nuclear safety regulation in South Korea seems to depend on the rational lawmaking and a reasonable, judicial examination of the scientific standards on nuclear safety.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제41권4호
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• pp.391-402
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• 2009

This paper introduces the development of safety assessment technology in Korea, focusing on the activities of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in the areas of system thermal hydraulics, severe accidents and probabilistic safety assessment. In the 1970s and 1980s, safety analysis codes and methodologies were introduced from the United States, France, Canada and other developed countries along with technology related to the construction and operation of nuclear power plants. The main focus was on understanding and utilizing computer codes that were sourced from abroad up to the early 1990s, when efforts to develop domestic safety analysis codes and methodologies became active. Remarkable achievements have been made over the last 15 years in the development and application of safety analysis technologies. In addition, significant experimental work has been performed to verify the safety characteristics of reactors and fuels as well as to support the development and validation of analysis methods.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제31권5호
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• pp.177-186
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• 2016

When an event is occurred in a nuclear power plant (NPP), the NPP operator reports it referred by the regulation on reporting and public announcement of accidents and incidents. Some of the events do not need to be reported because they are not included in the reporting criteria of the regulation. However, it is necessary that they should be managed effectively because the accident can be occurred by the recurrence of a lot of them as precursors. Among the events not included in the reporting criteria of the regulation, near miss is the event that is not occurred but can generate a significant consequence. This can provide the cause of the event which does not result an accident. So, it is able to offer insightful knowledges to prevent higher level events about the function and process of NPP. The objective of this study is to analyze the issues of near miss events, prepare the defence against the risk, and improve the management process of NPP. To achieve it, this study performed to analyze the management structure and status of near miss events as well as the accident reporting system of the domestic and foreign regulation bodies. In case of Korea, the status was analyzed by quantitative data, licensee event reports and procedures. Based on these, we could find the causes that near miss events were not managed effectively. Then, systematic alternatives that reflected the perspective of man, technology and organization were drawn.

• 한국방사선학회논문지
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• 제6권6호
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• pp.435-440
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• 2012

본 연구는 2011년 일본 후쿠시마 원자력 발전소 방사선 누출사고가 방사능 오염식품과 방사선 조사식품에 관한 유치원 부모의 인식에 미치는 영향을 분석하여 국민건강자료를 제공하는데 의의가 있다. 본 연구는 2012년 8월 J시의 K와 M유치원의 학부모 205명을 대상으로 설문지를 배부하여 회수된 178명의 자료를 분석하였다. 본 연구의 결과, 일본 원전사고는 방사능 오염식품에 대한 학부모의 불안감에 영향을 미쳤으며, 방사선조사 식품에 대한 부모들의 인식은 낮았다. 결론적으로 방사선조사 식품에 대한 유치원 부모들의 인식을 높이고, 방사능 오염식품과의 명확한 구분 및 올바른 인식을 돕는 적극적인 홍보와 부모교육이 이루어져야 할 것이다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제46권4호
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• pp.557-568
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• 2014

This paper presents the results of an analysis of wind characteristics and atmosphere dispersion modeling that are based on computational simulation and part of a preliminary study evaluating environmental radiation monitoring system (ERMS) positions within the Barakah nuclear power plant (BNPP). The return period of extreme wind speed was estimated using the Weibull distribution over the life time of the BNPP. In the annual meteorological modeling, the winds from the north and west accounted for more than 90 % of the wind directions. Seasonal effects were not represented. However, a discrepancy in the tendency between daytime and nighttime was observed. Six variations of cesium-137 ($^{137}Cs$) dispersion test were simulated under severe accident condition. The $^{137}Cs$ dispersion was strongly influenced by the direction and speed of the main wind. A virtual receptor was set and calculated for observation of the $^{137}Cs$ movement and accumulation. The results of the surface roughness effect demonstrated that the deposition of $^{137}Cs$ was affected by surface condition. The results of these studies offer useful information for developing environmental radiation monitoring systems (ERMSs) for the BNPP and can be used to assess the environmental effects of new nuclear power plant.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제41권4호
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• pp.368-372
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• 2016

Background: Methodologies for a series of radiological consequence assessments show a distinctive difference according to the design principles of the original nuclear suppliers and their technical standards to be imposed. This is due to the uncertainties of the accidental source term, radionuclide behavior in the environment, and subsequent radiological dose. Both types of PWR and PHWR are operated in Korea. However, technical standards for evaluating atmospheric dispersion have been enacted based on the U.S. NRC's positions regardless of the reactor types. For this reason, it might cause a controversy between the licensor and licensee of a nuclear power plant. Materials and Methods: It was modelled under the framework of the NRC Regulatory Guide 1.145 for light-water reactors, reflecting the features of heavy-water reactors as specified in the Canadian National Standard and the modelling features in MACCS2, such as atmospheric diffusion coefficient, ground deposition, surface roughness, radioactive plume depletion, and exposure from ground deposition. Results and Discussion: An integrated accident consequence assessment code, ACCESS (Accident Consequence Assessment Code for Evaluating Site Suitability), was developed by taking into account the unique regulatory positions for reactor types under the framework of the current Korean technical standards. Field tracer experiments and hand calculations have been carried out for validation and verification of the models. Conclusion: The modelling approaches of ACCESS and its features are introduced, and its applicative results for a hypothetical accidental scenario are comprehensively discussed. In an applicative study, the predicted results by the light-water reactor assessment model were higher than those by other models in terms of total doses.