• Title/Summary/Keyword: Severe accident

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Contribution of production and loss terms of fission products on in-containment activity under severe accident condition for VVER-1000

  • Jafarikia, S.;Feghhi, S.A.H.
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.51 no.1
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    • pp.125-137
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    • 2019
  • The purpose of this paper is to study the source term behavior after severe accidents by using a semi-kinetic model for simulation and calculation of in-containment activity. The reactor containment specification and the safety features of the containment under different accident conditions play a great role in evaluating the in-containment activity. Assuming in-vessel and instantaneous release of radioactivity into the containment, the behavior of in-containment isotopic activity is studied for noble gasses (Kr and Xe) and the more volatile elements of iodine, cesium, and aerosols such as Te, Rb and Sr as illustrative examples of source term release under LOCA conditions. The results of the activity removal mechanisms indicates that the impact of volumetric leakage rate for noble gasses is important during the accident, while the influence of deposition on the containment surfaces for cesium, mainly iodine isotopes and aerosol has the largest contribution in removal of activity during evolution of the accident.

Comparison Between Direct- and Indirect-Cooling Core Catchers (직접냉각방식 및 간접냉각방식 Core Catcher의 성능비교)

  • Suh, Jung-Soo;Lee, Jong-Ho;Bae, Byung-Hwan
    • Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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    • v.36 no.10
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    • pp.1043-1047
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    • 2012
  • The European nuclear design requirements, which should be satisfied by nuclear reactors in Europe, usually recommend a so-called core catcher, which is a molten core ex-vessel cooling facility, to manage a severe accident at a nuclear reactor. Two different types of core catcher concepts are compared to determine their abilities to manage severe accidents and cool core melts. The study reveals that direct cooling is better for cooling capacity and is convenient to construct, while indirect cooing is better for the management of a severe accident.

Study of contact melting of plate bundles by molten material in severe reactor accidents

  • J.J. Ma;W.Z. Chen;H.G. Xiao
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.55 no.11
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    • pp.4266-4273
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    • 2023
  • In a severe reactor accident, a crust will form on the surface of the molten material during the core melting process. The crust will have a contact melting with the internal components of the reactor. In this paper, the contact melting process of the molten material on the austenitic stainless steel plate bundles is studied. The contact melting model of parabolic molten material on the plate bundles is proposed, and the rule and main effect factors of the contact melting are analyzed. The results show that the melting velocity is proportional to the slope of the paraboloid, the heat flux and the distance between two plates D. The influence of melt gravity and the plate width on melting velocity is negligible. The thickness of the molten liquid film is proportional to the heat flux and plate width, and it is inversely proportional to the gravity. With the increase of D, the liquid film thickness decreases at first and then increases gradually. The liquid film thickness has a minimum against D. When the width of the plate is small, the width of the plate is the main factor affecting the thickness of the liquid film. The parameters are coupled with each other. In a severe reactor accident, the wider internal components of reactor, which can increase the thickness of the melting liquid film and reduce the net input heat flux from the molten material to the components, are the effective measures to delay the melting process.

Analysis of Relative Risk by Accident Types at Intersections, Crosswalk and Tunnel Sections (교차로, 횡단보도, 터널 구간에서 사고유형에 따른 상대적 위험도 분석)

  • Lee, Hyunmi;Jeon, Gyoseok;Kim, Hyung Jun;Jang, Jeong Ah
    • KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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    • v.39 no.6
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    • pp.841-851
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    • 2019
  • This study presents risk ranking by accident types at intersections, crosswalk and tunnel sections. An ordered logit model was used to estimate the accident severity of traffic accidents based on 58,868 accident records that have occurred on the Seoul and Gyeonggi-do over the period 2014-2017. The factors affecting the injury severity were identified by the estimated model first, and risk ranking was proposed according to conditions of accident occurrence using relative ratio analysis later. The analysis results showed that the injury severity dramatically depends on the location and time of the accident. The analysis results showed that the injury severity dramatically depends on the location and time of the accident. Furthermore, there are severe injury cases in terms of the injury severity despite the small number of occurrence of traffic accident, or there are severe injury cases in terms of the injury severity despite the high frequency of occurrence of traffic accident.

EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS RELEVANT FOR HYDROGEN AND FISSION PRODUCT ISSUES RAISED BY THE FUKUSHIMA ACCIDENT

  • GUPTA, SANJEEV
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.47 no.1
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    • pp.11-25
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    • 2015
  • The accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011, caused by an earthquake and a subsequent tsunami, resulted in a failure of the power systems that are needed to cool the reactors at the plant. The accident progression in the absence of heat removal systems caused Units 1-3 to undergo fuel melting. Containment pressurization and hydrogen explosions ultimately resulted in the escape of radioactivity from reactor containments into the atmosphere and ocean. Problems in containment venting operation, leakage from primary containment boundary to the reactor building, improper functioning of standby gas treatment system (SGTS), unmitigated hydrogen accumulation in the reactor building were identified as some of the reasons those added-up in the severity of the accident. The Fukushima accident not only initiated worldwide demand for installation of adequate control and mitigation measures to minimize the potential source term to the environment but also advocated assessment of the existing mitigation systems performance behavior under a wide range of postulated accident scenarios. The uncertainty in estimating the released fraction of the radionuclides due to the Fukushima accident also underlined the need for comprehensive understanding of fission product behavior as a function of the thermal hydraulic conditions and the type of gaseous, aqueous, and solid materials available for interaction, e.g., gas components, decontamination paint, aerosols, and water pools. In the light of the Fukushima accident, additional experimental needs identified for hydrogen and fission product issues need to be investigated in an integrated and optimized way. Additionally, as more and more passive safety systems, such as passive autocatalytic recombiners and filtered containment venting systems are being retrofitted in current reactors and also planned for future reactors, identified hydrogen and fission product issues will need to be coupled with the operation of passive safety systems in phenomena oriented and coupled effects experiments. In the present paper, potential hydrogen and fission product issues raised by the Fukushima accident are discussed. The discussion focuses on hydrogen and fission product behavior inside nuclear power plant containments under severe accident conditions. The relevant experimental investigations conducted in the technical scale containment THAI (thermal hydraulics, hydrogen, aerosols, and iodine) test facility (9.2 m high, 3.2 m in diameter, and $60m^3$ volume) are discussed in the light of the Fukushima accident.

A Study on Drone's Liability on Flight in South Korea

  • Kwak, Young-Am
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.14 no.3
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    • pp.5-10
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    • 2016
  • Purpose - This paper analyzed the accident of drone and related insurance goods which can be coverable with regard to drone accident. The study range is limited in the owner's care, custody, and the control of drone in South Korea, but military area and law and regulation of the drone would be exceptional. Research design, data, and methodology - With regard to drone's flight, drone can make possible risks and can give severe damage to the people. To carry out this research, literature survey and review such as journal, thesis and publications were adopted. Results - As for the insurance coverage from drone's accident involved in the purpose of business, insurance coverage depends on 'commercial general liability insurance'. However, in case of personal hobby including leasure intention, insurance coverage depends on 'living liability insurance'. Conclusions - From a drone's accident, operator and owner of the drone may face the property damage to the drone itself, and then can give severe damage or loss to the people such as physical injuries and property damage. Peoples should be concerned about having the awareness of drone's accident with insurance coverage.

Numerical analysis on in-core ignition and subsequent flame propagation to containment in OPR1000 under loss of coolant accident

  • Song, Chang Hyun;Bae, Joon Young;Kim, Sung Joong
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.54 no.8
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    • pp.2960-2973
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    • 2022
  • Since Fukushima nuclear power plant (NPP) accident in 2011, the importance of research on various severe accident phenomena has been emphasized. Particularly, detailed analysis of combustion risk is necessary following the containment damage caused by combustion in the Fukushima accident. Many studies have been conducted to evaluate the risk of local hydrogen concentration increases and flame propagation using computational code. In particular, the potential for combustion by local hydrogen concentration in specific areas within the containment has been emphasized. In this study, the process of flame propagation generated inside a reactor core to containment during a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) was analyzed using MELCOR 2.1 code. Later in the LOCA scenario, it was expected that hydrogen combustion occurred inside the reactor core owing to oxygen inflow through the cold leg break area. The main driving force of the oxygen intrusion is the elevated containment pressure due to the molten corium-concrete interaction. The thermal and mechanical loads caused by the flame threaten the integrity of the containment. Additionally, the containment spray system effectiveness in this situation was evaluated because changes in pressure gradient and concentrations of flammable gases greatly affect the overall behavior of ignition and subsequent containment integrity.

Uncertainties impact on the major FOMs for severe accidents in CANDU 6 nuclear power plant

  • R.M. Nistor-Vlad;D. Dupleac;G.L. Pavel
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.55 no.7
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    • pp.2670-2677
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    • 2023
  • In the nuclear safety studies, a new trend refers to the evaluation of uncertainties as a mandatory component of best-estimate safety analysis which is a modern and technically consistent approach being known as BEPU (Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty). The major objectives of this study consist in performing a study of uncertainties/sensitivities of the major analysis results for a generic CANDU 6 Nuclear Power Plant during Station Blackout (SBO) progression to understand and characterize the sources of uncertainties and their effects on the key figure-of-merits (FOMs) predictions in severe accidents (SA). The FOMs of interest are hydrogen mass generation and event timings such as the first fuel channel failure time, beginning of the core disassembly time, core collapse time and calandria vessel failure time. The outcomes of the study, will allow an improvement of capabilities and expertise to perform uncertainty and sensitivity analysis with severe accident codes for CANDU 6 Nuclear Power Plant.

A Study on the Link between the Severe Accident Punishment Act and ISO 45001 of SMEs (중소기업의 「중대재해처벌법」과 ISO 45001의 연계방안 연구)

  • Woo, Sang-Sun
    • Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.333-342
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    • 2022
  • Purpose: This study proposes a plan for linking the Severe Accident Punishment Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Management System so that SMEs can meet the requirements of the Severe Accident Punishment Act only by maintaining and implementing the Occupational Health and Safety Management System. Method: Conduct a theoretical approach, such as a literature review. First, as a theoretical approach, the safety and health management system of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act was examined, the requirements of ISO 45001 were analyzed, and the statistics of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 5 to 49 to which the 2024 Serious Accidents Punishment Act was applied and the number of accident deaths were investigated. Result: No problems were found in linking with the Serious Accident Punishment Act when constructing Occupational health and safety management systems (ISO 45001). Conclusion: It is judged that the establishment of Occupational health and safety management systems (ISO 45001) and management of implementation performance will be able to satisfy the Act on the Punishment of Serious Disasters.