• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권7호
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• pp.1414-1422
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• 2017

Remote response technology has advanced to the extent that a robot system, if properly designed and deployed, may greatly help respond to beyond-design-basis accidents at nuclear power plants. Particularly in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident, there is increasing interest in developing disaster robots that can be deployed in lieu of a human operator to the field to perform mitigating actions in the harsh environment caused by extreme natural hazards. The nuclear robotics team of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) is also endeavoring to construct disaster robots and, first of all, is interested in finding out to what extent safety benefits can be achieved by such a disaster robotic system. This paper discusses a new approach based on the probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) technique, which can be used to quantify safety benefits associated with disaster robots, along with a case study for seismic-induced station blackout condition. The results indicate that to avoid core damage in this special case a robot system with reliability > 0.65 is needed because otherwise core damage is inevitable. Therefore, considerable efforts are needed to improve the reliability of disaster robots, because without assurance of high reliability, remote response techniques will not be practically used.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권2호
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• pp.426-433
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• 2017

This paper describes the development process, the innovative techniques used and insights gained from the latest integrated, full scope, multistate Level 2 PSA analysis conducted at the Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant (KKL), Switzerland. KKL is a modern single-unit General Electric Boiling Water Reactor (BWR/6) with Mark III Containment, and a power output of $3600MW_{th}/1200MW_e$, the highest among the five operating reactors in Switzerland. A Level 2 Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) analyses accident phenomena in nuclear power plants, identifies ways in which radioactive releases from plants can occur and estimates release pathways, magnitude and frequency. This paper attempts to give an overview of the advanced modeling techniques that have been developed and implemented for the recent KKL Level 2 PSA update, with the aim of systematizing the analysis and modeling processes, as well as complying with the relatively prescriptive Swiss requirements for PSA. The analysis provides significant insights into the absolute and relative importances of risk contributors and accident prevention and mitigation measures. Thanks to several newly developed techniques and an integrated approach, the KKL Level 2 PSA report exhibits a high degree of reviewability and maintainability, and transparently highlights the most important risk contributors to Large Early Release Frequency (LERF) with respect to initiating events, components, operator actions or seismic component failure probabilities (fragilities).

• 한국지반신소재학회논문집
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• 제17권4호
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• pp.103-108
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• 2018

본 연구에서는 지반진동 강도에 따른 콘크리트 표면차수벽 석괴댐(CFRD)의 확률론적 피해예측을 위하여 취약도 함수를 개발하였다. 댐의 손상평가에 널리 사용되는 지표인 댐마루 침하량을 손상지수로 사용하여 경미(Minor), 중간(Moderate), 심각(Severe) 손상수준을 정의하였다. 침하량은 댐 표준단면에 대한 비선형 동적 수치해석을 통하여 계산하였다. 수치해석 모델은 원심모형시험결과와 비교하여 정확성을 검증하였다. 취약도 곡선은 대수정규분포함수로 나타내어 최대지반가속도를 기준으로 도출하였다. 본 연구에서 도출된 취약도 곡선은 댐의 실시간 피해예측에 활용될 수 있을 것으로 판단된다.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제22권6호
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• pp.571-584
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• 2022

The residual displacement ratio (RDRs) response spectra have been generally used as an important means to evaluate the post-earthquake repairability, and the ratios of residual to maximum inelastic displacement are considered to be more appropriate for development of the spectra. This methodology, however, assumes that the expected residual displacement can be computed as the product of the RDRs and maximum inelastic displacement, without considering the correlation between these two variables, which inevitably introduces potential systematic error. For providing an adequately accurate estimate of residual displacement, while accounting for the collapse resistance performance prior to the repairability evaluation, a probability-based procedure to estimate the residual displacement demands using the nonlinear static analysis (NSA) is developed for single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems. To this end, the energy-based equivalent damping ratio used for NSA is revised to obtain the maximum displacement coincident with the nonlinear time history analysis (NTHA) results in the mean sense. Then, the possible systematic error resulted from RDRs spectra methodology is examined based on the NTHA results of SDOF systems. Finally, the statistical relation between the residual displacement and the NSA-based maximum displacement is established. The results indicate that the energy-based equivalent damping ratio will underestimate the damping for short period ranges, and overestimate the damping for longer period ranges. The RDRs spectra methodology generally leads to the results being non-conservative, depending on post-yield stiffness. The proposed approach emphasizes that the repairability evaluation should be based on the premise of no collapse, which matches with the current performance-based seismic assessment procedure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제80권6호
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• pp.645-655
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• 2021

Performance-based reliability analysis is a practical approach to investigate the seismic performance and stochastic nonlinear response of structures considering a random process. This is significant due to the uncertainties involved in every aspect of the analysis. Therefore, the present study aims to evaluate the performance-based reliability within a stochastic finite element (FE) framework for reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls that are considered as one of the most essential elements of structures. To accomplish this purpose, deterministic FE analyses are conducted for both squat and slender shear walls to validate numerical models through experimental results. The presented numerical analysis is performed by using the ABAQUS FE program. Afterwards, a random-effects investigation is carried out to consider the influence of different random variables on the lateral load-top displacement behavior of RC members. Using these results and through utilizing the Monte-Carlo simulation method, stochastic nonlinear analyses are also performed to generate random FE models based on input parameters and their probabilistic distributions. In order to evaluate the reliability of RC walls, failure probabilities and corresponding reliability indices are calculated at life safety and collapse prevention levels of performance as suggested by FEMA 356. Moreover, based on reliability indices, capacity reduction factors are determined subjected to shear for all specimens that are designed according to the ACI 318 Building Code. Obtained results show that the lateral load and the compressive strength of concrete have the highest effects on load-displacement responses compared to those of other random variables. It is also found that the probability of shear failure for the squat wall is slightly lower than that for slender walls. This implies that 𝛽 values are higher in a non-ductile mode of failure. Besides, the reliability of both squat and slender shear walls does not change significantly in the case of varying capacity reduction factors.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제31권4호
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• pp.90-96
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• 2016

This study proposes a dynamic reliability analysis of control system as a method of quantitative evaluation of its performance in probabilistic terms. In this dynamic reliability analysis, the failure event is defined as an event that the dynamic response of the structural system exceeds a displacement limit, whereas the conventional reliability analysis method has limitations that do not properly assess the actual time history response of the structure subjected to dynamic loads, such as earthquakes and high winds, by taking the static response into account in the failure event. In this first paper, we discuss the control effect of the viscous damper on the seismic performance of the member-level failure where the failure event of the structural member consists of the union set of time-sequential member failures during the earthquake excitations and the failure probability of the earthquake-excited structural member is computed using system reliability approach to consider the statistical dependence of member failures between the subsequent time points. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed approach can present a reliable assessment of the control performance of the viscous damper system in comparison with MCS method. The most important advantage of the proposed approach can provide us more accurate estimate of failure probability of the structural control system by using the actual time-history responses obtained by dynamic response analysis.

• 콘크리트학회논문집
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• 제20권1호
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• pp.51-58
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• 2008

해석적 방법에 의한 지진 취약성 분석 (fragility analysis)은 입력 거동과 응답 특성의 불확실성을 고려하기 위해 임의화된 확률 변수들 (randomized response variables)로 인하여 해석 과정에 상당한 노력과 시간이 요구된다. 본 연구에서는 구조물의 기본적인 특성인 강성, 강도 및 연성 능력에 따라 지진 취약도 곡선을 바로 도출할 수 있는 새로운 방법을 제안한다. 광범위한 구조물을 대표할 수 있는 일반화된 단자유도계의 동적 해석 결과로부터 로그 정규 취약성 곡선의 도출에 필요한 파라미터를 응답 데이터베이스에 저장한다. 이를 이용함으로써 구조물의 기본적인 특성 (강성, 강도, 연성 능력)만으로 동적해석 과정을 수행하지 않고도 한계상태 취약성 곡선을 도출할 수 있다. 본 논문의 적용 사례를 통해서 제안된 방법이 지진 취약성 곡선을 얻는데 매우 효율적임을 확인 할 수 있다.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제21권5호
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• pp.515-530
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• 2021

In a tall reinforced concrete (RC) core wall system subjected to strong ground motions, inelastic behavior near the base as well as mid-height of the wall is possible. Generally, the formation of plastic hinge in a core wall system may lead to extensive damage and significant repairing cost. A new configuration of core structures consisting of buckling restrained braced frames (BRBFs) and RC walls is an interesting idea in tall building seismic design. This concept can be used in the plan configuration of tall core wall systems. In this study, tall buildings with different configurations of combined core systems were designed and analyzed. Nonlinear time history analysis at severe earthquake level was performed and the results were compared for different configurations. The results demonstrate that using enough BRBFs can reduce the large curvature ductility demand at the base and mid-height of RC core wall systems and also can reduce the maximum inter-story drift ratio. For a better investigation of the structural behavior, the probabilistic approach can lead to in-depth insight. Therefore, incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) curves were calculated to assess the performance. Fragility curves at different limit states were then extracted and compared. Mean IDA curves demonstrate better behavior for a combined system, compared with conventional RC core wall systems. Collapse margin ratio for a RC core wall only system and RC core with enough BRBFs were almost 1.05 and 1.92 respectively. Therefore, it appears that using one RC core wall combined with enough BRBF core is an effective idea to achieve more confidence against tall building collapse and the results demonstrated the potential of the proposed system.