• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.51 no.2
• /
• pp.607-617
• /
• 2019

Global warming and climate change are increasing the intensity of typhoons and hurricanes and thus increasing the risk effects of typhoon and hurricane hazards on nuclear power plants (NPPs). To reflect these changes, a new NPP should be designed to endure design-basis hurricane wind speeds corresponding to an exceedance frequency of $10^{-7}/yr$. However, the short typhoon and hurricane observation records and uncertainties included in the inputs for an estimation cause significant uncertainty in the estimated wind speeds for return periods of longer than 100,000 years. A logic-tree framework is introduced to handle the epistemic uncertainty when estimating wind speeds. Three key parameters of a typhoon wind field model, i.e., the central pressure difference, pressure profile parameter, and radius to maximum wind, are used for constructing logic tree branches. The wind speeds of the simulated typhoons and the probable maximum wind speeds are estimated using Monte Carlo simulations, and wind hazard curves are derived as a function of the annual exceedance probability or return period. A logic tree decreases the epistemic uncertainty included in the wind intensity models and provides reasonably acceptable wind speeds.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.44 no.3
• /
• pp.277-282
• /
• 2024

Recently, the intensity and frequency of typhoons have been increasing due to climate change, and typhoons can cause a loss of offsite power (LOOP) at nuclear power plants (NPPs). Therefore, it is necessary to prepare for typhoon-induced high winds through the probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) of offsite power systems. However, research on PSA for offsite power system in NPPs under typhoon-induced high winds is still lacking. In this study, PSA was performed for offsite power systems subjected to typhoon-induced high winds at the Kori NPP site, which has experienced frequent damages to its offsite power system among NPP sites in Korea. In order to perform PSA for typhoon-induced high winds in offsite power systems, the typhoon hazard at Kori NPP site was derived using logic tree and Monte Carlo simulation. Utilizing the fragility of components constituting the power system, performed a fragility analysis of the power system. Lastly, the probability that offsite power system will not be able to supply power to the NPP was derived.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.28 no.6
• /
• pp.625-633
• /
• 2015

In this study, a coupled probabilistic framework is developed to assess wind risk on apartment buildings by using the convolution of wind hazard and fragility functions. In this framework, typhoon induced extreme wind is estimated by applying the developed Monte Carlo simulation model to the climatological data of typhoons affecting Korean peninsular from 1951 to 2013. The Monte Carlo simulation technique is also used to assess wind fragility function for 4 different damage states by comparing the probability distributions of the window system's resistance performance and wind load. Wind hazard and fragility functions are modeled by the Weibull and lognormal probability distributions based on simulated wind speeds and failure probabilities. The modeled functions are convoluted to obtain the wind risk for the different damage levels. The developed probabilistic framework clearly shows that wind risk are influenced by various important characteristics of terrain and apartment building such as location of building, exposure category, topographic condition, roof angle, height of building, etc. The risk model presented in this paper can be used as tools to predict economic loss estimation and to establish wind risk mitigation plan for the existing building inventory.