• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.311-322
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• 2012

Since the crisis at the Fukushima plants, severe accident progression during a station blackout accident in nuclear power plants is recognized as a very important area for accident management and emergency planning. The purpose of this study is to investigate the comparative characteristics of anticipated severe accident progression among the three typical types of nuclear reactors. A station blackout scenario, where all off-site power is lost and the diesel generators fail, is simulated as an initiating event of a severe accident sequence. In this study a comparative analysis was performed for typical pressurized water reactor (PWR), boiling water reactor (BWR), and pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR). The study includes the summarization of design differences that would impact severe accident progressions, thermal hydraulic/severe accident phenomenological analysis during a station blackout initiated-severe accident; and an investigation of the core damage process, both within the reactor vessel before it fails and in the containment afterwards, and the resultant impact on the containment.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.179-190
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• 2013

A station blackout experiment called SBO-01 was performed at the ATLAS facility. From the SBO-01 test, the station blackout scenario can be characterized into two typical phases: A first phase characterized by decay heat removal through secondary safety valves until the SG dryouts, and a second phase characterized by an energy release through a blowdown of the primary system after the SG dryouts. During the second phase, some physical phenomena of the change over a pressurizer function, i.e., the pressurizer being full before the POSRV $1^{st}$ opening and then its function being taken by the RV, and the termination of normal natural circulation flow were identified. Finally, a core heatup occurred at a low core water level, although under a significant amount of PZR inventory, whose drainage seemed to be hindered owing to the pressurizer function by the RV. The transient of SBO-01 is well reproduced in the calculation using the MARS code.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.32-45
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• 2023

Implementing Severe Accident Management (SAM) strategies is crucial for enhancing a nuclear power plant's resilience and safety against severe accidents conditions represented in the analysis of Station Blackout (SBO) event. Among these critical approaches, the In-Vessel Retention (IVR) through External Reactor Vessel Cooling (IVR-ERVC) strategy plays a key role in preventing vessel failure. This work is designed to evaluate the efficacy of the IVR strategy for a high-power density reactor APR1400. The APR1400's plant is represented and simulated under steady-state and transient conditions for a station blackout (SBO) accident scenario using the computer code, ASYST. The APR1400's thermal-hydraulic response is analyzed to assess its performance as it progresses toward a severe accident scenario during an extended SBO. The effectiveness of emergency operating procedures (EOPs) and severe accident management guidelines (SAMGs) are systematically examined to assess their ability to mitigate the accident. A group of associated key phenomena selected based on Phenomenon Identification and Ranking Tables (PIRT) and uncertain parameters are identified accordingly and then propagated within DAKOTA Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) framework until a statistically representative sample is obtained and hence determine the uncertainty bands of key system parameters. The Systems Engineering methodology is applied to direct the progression of work, ensuring systematic and efficient execution.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.37-41
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• 2011

This paper presents a Combined solar-wave Power Generation (CPG) concept that the CPG unit is maintained as buoyant at the level of sea water and it is also supported by a submerged tunnel, with the aim of supplying emergency electric power during the station blackout events of nuclear power plants. The CPG concept has been motivated from the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi Accidents due to the loss of both offsite AC power and emergency diesel power caused by natural hazards such as earthquake and tsunami. The CPG is conceptualized by applying different types and different sites for emergency power generation, in order to reduce common cause failures of emergency power suppliers due to natural hazards. Thus, the CPG can provide a new mean for supplying emergency electric power during station blackout events of nuclear power plants. For this application, the CPG requirements are described with a typical configuration at the ocean side of a submerged tunnel.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.542-552
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• 2018

Operators face challenges to plan alternative countermeasures when no procedure exists to address the current plant state. A model-based approach is desired to aid operators in acquiring plant resources and deriving response plans. Multilevel flow modeling (MFM) is a functional modeling methodology that can represent intentional knowledge about systems, which is essential in response planning. This article investigates the capabilities of MFM to plan alternatives. It is concluded that MFM has a knowledge capability to represent alternative means that are designed for given ends and a reasoning capability to identify alternative functions that can causally influence the goal achievement. The second capability can be applied to find originally unassociated means to achieve a goal. This is vital in a situation where all designed means have failed. A technique of procedure synthesis can be used to express identified alternatives as a series of operations. A case of station blackout occurring at the boiling water reactor is described. An MFM model of a boiling water reactor is built according to the analysis of goals and functions. The accident situations are defined by the model, and several alternative countermeasures in terms of operating procedures are generated to achieve the goal of core cooling.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.60-72
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• 2019

The air-cooled passive decay heat removal system (APDHR) was proposed to provide the ultimate heat sink for non-LOCA accidents. The APDHR is a modified one of Passive Auxiliary Feed-water system (PAFS) installed in APR+. The PAFS has a heat exchanger in the Passive Condensate Cooling Tank (PCCT) and can remove decay heat for 8 h. After that, the heat transfer rate through the PAFS drastically decreases because the heat transfer condition changes from water to air. The APDHR with a vertical heat exchanger in PCCT will be able to remove the decay heat by air if it has sufficient natural convection in PCCT. We conducted the thermal-hydraulic simulation by the MARS code to investigate the behavior of the APR + selected as a reference plant for the simulation. The simulation contains two phases based on water depletion: the early phase and the late phase. In the early phase, the volume of water in PCCT was determined to avoid the water depletion in three days after shutdown. In the late phase, when the number of the HXs is greater than 4089 per PCCT, the MARS simulation confirmed the long-term cooling by air is possible under extended Station Blackout (SBO).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.12
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• pp.4534-4550
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• 2022

Integrated severe accident codes should be capable of simulating not only specific physical phenomena but also entire plant behaviors, and in a sufficiently fast time. However, significant uncertainty may exist owing to the numerous parametric models and interactions among the various phenomena. The primary objectives of this study are to present best-practice uncertainty and sensitivity analysis results regarding the evolutions of severe accidents (SAs) and fission product source terms and to determine the effects of mitigation measures on them, as expected during a short-term station blackout (STSBO) of a reference pressurized water reactor (optimized power reactor (OPR)1000). Three reference scenarios related to the STSBO accident are considered: one base and two mitigation scenarios, and the impacts of dedicated severe accident mitigation (SAM) actions on the results of interest are analyzed (such as flammable gas generation). The uncertainties are quantified based on a random set of Monte Carlo samples per case scenario. The relative importance values of the uncertain input parameters to the results of interest are quantitatively evaluated through a relevant sensitivity/importance analysis.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.141-146
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• 2024

Station blackout (SBO) risk is one of the most significant contributors to nuclear power plant risk. In this paper, the sequence probability formulas derived by the convolution approach are compared with those derived by the conventional event tree/fault tree (ET/FT) approach for the SBO situation in which emergency diesel generators fail to start. The comparison identifies what makes the ET/FT approach more conservative and raises the issue regarding the mission time of a turbine-driven auxiliary feedwater pump (TDP), which suggests a possible modeling improvement in the ET/FT approach. Monte Carlo simulations with up-to-date component reliability data validate the convolution approach. The sequence probability of an alternative alternating current diesel generator (AAC DG) failing to start and the TDP failing to operate owing to battery depletion contributes most to the SBO risk. The probability overestimation of the scenario in which the AAC DG fails to run and the TDP fails to operate owing to battery depletion contributes most to the SBO risk overestimation determined by the ET/FT approach. The modification of the TDP mission time renders the sequence probabilities determined by the ET/FT approach more consistent with those determined by the convolution approach.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.1522-1528
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• 2007

Electric Power cable is the apparatus that receives electric power from the Korea Electric Power Corporation and supplies electric power to electric train and annex facilities of each railway station. With substantial ripple effect during power blackout accidents, such power blackout accidents must be coped with by discriminating the status of insulation deterioration of electric power cable in advance. Discrimination of insulation deterioration of the electric power cable is normally executed while the power is disconnected and it is very difficult to discover, at early stage, the insulation deterioration of the power cable in operational state since the duration of inspection is limited. This research aims to consider method of diagnosing the insulation deterioration of electric power cable in On-Line state rather than diagnosis in Off-Line state in order to secure reliability of power supply by reducing duration of power blackout (accidental blackout and blackout during works) and by seeking reduction in equipment and manpower used in diagnosis of deterioration through prevention of the accident itself prior to occurrence through early restoration of accident due to insulation deterioration of the electric power cable and assessment of performance of the cable under operation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.195-200
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• 2006

In order to confirm the integrity of IRWST following a severe accident, the hydrogen behavior inside and around the IRWST has been investigated for an SBO accident. A detailed containment model, including 18 control volumes for IRWST, has been developed. Analysis results show that the peak hydrogen concentration is about 57% during the core melting period. The combustion regime shows that flame acceleration and DDT are possible in the IRWST. The flame acceleration criterion is met when the peak hydrogen concentration occurs; the 7 -DDT criterion is also met during some periods. These results show certain measures may be required to assure IRWST integrity against an SBO accident.