• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권9호
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• pp.1983-1989
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• 2020

The human reliability analysis is a method by which, in general terms, the human impact to the safety and risk of a nuclear power plant operation can be modelled, quantified and analysed. It is an indispensable element of the PSA process within the nuclear industry nowadays. The paper herein presents a sensitivity study of the human reliability analysis performed on a real nuclear power plant-specific probabilistic safety assessment model. The analysis is performed on a pre-selected set of post-initiator operator actions. The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of these operator actions on the plant risk by altering their corresponding human error probabilities in a wide spectrum. The results direct the fact that the future effort should be focused on maintaining the current human reliability level, i.e. not letting it worsen, rather than improving it.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권4호
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• pp.764-775
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• 2020

Periodic safety reviews (PSRs) are conducted on operating nuclear power plants (NPPs) and have been mandated also for research reactors in Korea, in response to the Fukushima accident. One safety review tool, the probabilistic safety assessment (PSA), aims to identify weaknesses in the design and operation of the research reactor, and to evaluate and compare possible safety improvements. However, the PSA for research reactors is difficult due to scarce data availability. An important element in the analysis of research reactors is the reactor protection system (RPS), with its functionality and importance. In this view, we consider that of the AGN-201K, a zero-power reactor without forced decay heat removal systems, to demonstrate a risk-informed safety improvement study. By incorporating risk- and safety-significance importance measures, and sensitivity and uncertainty analyses, the proposed method identifies critical components in the RPS reliability model, systematically proposes potential safety improvements and ranks them to assist in the decision-making process.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제37권2호
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• pp.43-53
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• 2022

This paper describes an attempt to improve and optimize the operational safety level of a domestic research reactor by conducting a probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) under full-power operating conditions. The PSA was undertaken to assess the level of safety at an operating research reactor in Korea, to evaluate whether it is probabilistically safe and reliable to operate, and to obtain insights regarding the requisite procedural and design improvements for achieving safer operation. The technical objectives were to use the PSA to identify the accident sequences leading to core damage, and to conduct sensitivity analyses based thereon to derive insights regarding potential design and procedural improvements. Based on the dominant accident sequences identified by the PSA, eight types of sensitivity analysis were performed, and relevant insights for achieving safer operation were derived. When these insights were applied to the reactor design and operating procedure, the risk was found to be reduced by approximately ten times, and the safety was significantly improved. The results demonstrate that the PSA methodology is very effective for improving reactor safety in the full-power operating phase. In particular, it is a highly suitable approach for identifying the deficiencies of a reactor operating at full power, and for improving the reactor safety by overcoming those deficiencies.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권3호
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• pp.967-973
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• 2021

In 2011, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing simultaneous accidents in several reactors. This accident shows us that if there are several reactors on site, the seismic risk to multiple units is important to consider, in addition to that to single units in isolation. When a seismic event occurs, a seismic-failure correlation exists between the nuclear power plant's structures, systems, and components (SSCs) due to their seismic-response and seismic-capacity correlations. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the multi-unit seismic risk by considering the SSCs' seismic-failure-correlation effect. In this study, a methodology is proposed to obtain the seismic-response-correlation coefficient between SSCs to calculate the risk to multi-unit facilities. This coefficient is calculated from a probabilistic multi-unit seismic-response analysis. The seismic-response and seismic-failure-correlation coefficients of the emergency diesel generators installed within the units are successfully derived via the proposed method. In addition, the distribution of the seismic-response-correlation coefficient was observed as a function of the distance between SSCs of various dynamic characteristics. It is demonstrated that the proposed methodology can reasonably derive the seismic-response-correlation coefficient between SSCs, which is the input data for multi-unit seismic probabilistic safety assessment.

• 한국환경보건학회지
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• 제43권3호
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• pp.223-232
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• 2017

Objectives: In response to increased interest in the safety of children's products, a risk management system is being prepared through exposure assessment of hazardous chemicals. To estimate exposure levels, risk assessors are using deterministic and probabilistic approaches to statistical methodology and a commercialized Monte Carlo simulation based on tools (MCTool) to efficiently support calculation of the probability density functions. This study was conducted to analyze and discuss the usage patterns and problems associated with the results of these two approaches and MCTools used in the case of probabilistic approaches by reviewing research reports related to exposure assessment for children's products. Methods: We collected six research reports on exposure and risk assessment of children's products and summarized the deterministic results and corresponding underlying distributions for exposure dose and concentration results estimated through deterministic and probabilistic approaches. We focused on mechanisms and differences in the MCTools used for decision making with probabilistic distributions to validate the simulation adequacy in detail. Results: The estimation results of exposure dose and concentration from the deterministic approaches were 0.19-3.98 times higher than the results from the probabilistic approach. For the probabilistic approach, the use of lognormal, Student's T, and Weibull distributions had the highest frequency as underlying distributions of the input parameters. However, we could not examine the reasons for the selection of each distribution because of the absence of test-statistics. In addition, there were some cases estimating the discrete probability distribution model as the underlying distribution for continuous variables, such as weight. To find the cause of abnormal simulations, we applied two MCTools used for all reports and described the improper usage routes of MCTools. Conclusions: For transparent and realistic exposure assessment, it is necessary to 1) establish standardized guidelines for the proper use of the two statistical approaches, including notes by MCTool and 2) consider the development of a new software tool with proper configurations and features specialized for risk assessment. Such guidelines and software will make exposure assessment more user-friendly, consistent, and rapid in the future.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제33권6호
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• pp.136-143
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• 2018

In this study, we conducted a pilot study on the multiple spurious operations (MSO) analysis in the fire probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) of domestic nuclear power plant (NPP) to identify the degree of influence of the operator actions used in the MSO mitigation strategies. The MSO scenario of the domestic reference NPP selected for this study is refueling water tank (RWT) drain down event. It could be caused by spurious operations of the containment spray system (CSS) of the reference NPP. The RWT drain down event can be stopped by the main control room (MCR) operator actions for stopping the operation of CSS pump or closing the CSS motor operated valve if the containment spray actuation signal (CSAS) is spuriously actuated. Outside the MCR, it can be stopped by operator actions for closing the CSS manual valves or motor operated valve or stopping the operation of CSS pump. The quantification result of a fire PSA model that takes into account all recovery actions for the RWT drain down event lead to risk reduction by about 95%, compared with quantification result of fire PSA model without considering them. Among the various operator actions, the recovery action for the spurious CSAS operations and the operator action for the manual valve are identified as the most important operator actions. This study quantitatively showed the extent to which the operator actions used as MSO countermeasures have affected the fire PSA quantification results. In addition, we can see the rank of importance among the operator recovery actions in quantitative terms.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권5호
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• pp.1307-1313
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• 2019

Recent analysis results with realistic assumptions provide the variability of operator allowable time for the initiation of aggressive cooldown under small break loss of coolant accident or steam generator tube rupture with total failure of high pressure safety injection. We investigated how plant risk may vary depending on the variability of operators' failure probability of timely initiation of aggressive cooldown. Using a probabilistic safety assessment model of a nuclear power plant, we showed that plant risks had a linear relation with the failure probability of aggressive cooldown and could be reduced by up to 10% as aggressive cooldown is more reliably performed. For individual accident management, we found that core damage potential could be gradually reduced by up to 40.49% and 63.84% after a small break loss of coolant accident or a steam generator tube rupture, respectively. Based on the importance of timely initiation of aggressive cooldown by main control room operators within the success criteria, implications for improvement of emergency operating procedures are discussed. We recommend conducting further detailed analyses of aggressive cooldown, commensurate with its importance in reducing risks in nuclear power plants.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제26권4호
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• pp.7-13
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• 2011

A study on reliability estimation of sequential-ordered multiple failure modes, which are sequentially ordered between failure modes in a considering system, was performed. Especially, an approach to estimate the probabilities of failure modes has been proposed under an assumption that failure modes are mutually exclusive and sequentially ordered by only a critical variable. A feasibility of the proposed approach were studied by a practical example, which is a reliability estimation of passive safety systems for a probabilistic safety assessment(PSA) of a very high temperature reactor(VHTR) that is under development as a future nuclear system with enhanced safety features. It is difficult to define a robust failure state of this nuclear system because of its enhanced radiation release characteristics, so the new approach is a useful concept to estimate not only its safety but also a PSA. A feasibility study applied two failure modes(e.g., small and large release of radioactive materials) with considering the integrated behavior of this nuclear system. It is expected that the multiple release states for a practical estimation can be easily extended to the aforementioned example. It was found out that the proposed approach was a useful technique to cover the unfavorable features of this nuclear system as to performing a VHTR PSA.

• 대한안전경영과학회지
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• 제10권4호
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• pp.93-104
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• 2008

A successful fire risk assessment is depends on identification of risk, the analytical process of potential risk, on estimation of likelihood and the width and depth of consequence. Take the influence on enterprise into consideration, Fire risk assessment could carry out along the evaluation of the risk importance, the risk level and the risk acceptance. A large part of the limitation of choosing the risk assessment techniques impose restrictions on expense and time. If it is unnecessary high level risk assessment or Probabilistic Risk Assessment of buildings, in compliance with the Relative Ranking Method, Fire risk indexing and assessing is possible. As working-level technique, AHP method is useful with practical technique.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권1호
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• pp.103-110
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• 2021

In the development of a Risk Monitor probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) model from the basic PSA model of a nuclear power plant, the modeling of common-cause failure (CCF) is very important. At present, some approximate modeling methods are widely used, but there lacks criterion of modeling accuracy and error analysis. In this paper, aiming at ensuring the accuracy of risk assessment and minimizing the Risk Monitor PSA models size, we present three basic issues of CCF model resulted from the changes of a nuclear power plant configuration, put forward corresponding modeling methods, and derive accuracy criteria of CCF modeling based on minimum cut sets and risk indicators according to the requirements of risk monitoring. Finally, a nuclear power plant Risk Monitor PSA model is taken as an example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed modeling method and accuracy criteria, and the application scope of the idea of this paper is also discussed.