• International Journal of Safety
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.50-56
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• 2003

There are a lot of uncertainties in the severe accident phenomena and scenarios in nuclear power plants (NPPs) and one of the major issues for severe accident management is the reduction of these uncertainties. The severe accident management aid system using Probabilistic Safety Assessments (PSA) technology is developed for the management staff in order to reduce the uncertainties. The developed system includes the graphical display for plant and equipment status, previous research results by a knowledge-base technique, and the expected plant behavior using PSA. The plant model used in this paper is oriented to identify plant response and vulnerabilities via analyzing the quantified results, and to set up a framework for an accident management program based on these analysis results. Therefore the developed system may playa central role of information source for decision-making for severe accident management, and will be used as a training tool for severe accident management.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.61-72
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• 2022

This study aims to propose a conceptual design of information displays for supporting responsive actions under severe accidents in Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). Severe accidents in NPPs can be defined as accident conditions that are more severe than a design basis accident and involving significant core degradation. Since the Fukushima accident in 2011, the management of severe accidents is increasing important in nuclear industry. Dealing with severe accidents involves several cognitively complex activities, such as situation assessment; accordingly, it is significant to provide human operators with appropriate knowledge support in their cognitive activities. Currently, severe accident management guidelines (SAMG) have been developed for this purpose. However, it is also inevitable to develop information displays for supporting the management of severe accidents, with which human operators can monitor, control, and diagnose the states of NPPs under severe accident situations. It has been reported that Ecological Interface Design (EID) framework can be a viable approach for developing information displays used in complex socio-technical systems such as NPPs. Considering the design principles underlying the EID, we can say that EID-based information displays can be useful for dealing with severe accidents effectively. This study developed a conceptual design of information displays to be used in severe accidents, following the stipulated design process and principles of the EID framework. We particularly attempted to develop a conceptual design to make visible the principle knowledge to be used for coping with dynamically changing situations of NPPs under severe accidents.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.367-367
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• 2002

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.484-497
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• 2021

This paper proposes an extended time uncertainty analysis approach in Level 2 human reliability analysis (HRA) considering severe accident management (SAM) strategies. The method is a time-based model that classifies two time distribution functions-time required and time available-to calculate human failure probabilities from delayed action when implementing SAM strategies. The time required function can be obtained by the combination of four time factors: 1) time for diagnosis and decision by the technical support center (TSC) for a given strategy, 2) time for strategy implementation mainly by the local emergency response organization (ERO), 3) time to verify the effectiveness of the strategy and 4) time for portable equipment transport and installation. This function can vary depending on the given scenario and includes a summation of lognormal distributions and a choice regarding shifting the distribution. The time available function can be obtained via thermal-hydraulic code simulation (MAAP 5.03). The proposed approach was applied to assess SAM strategies that use portable equipment and safety depressurization system valves in a total loss of component cooling water event that could cause reactor vessel failure. The results from the proposed method are more realistic (i.e., not conservative) than other existing methods in evaluating SAM strategies involving the use of portable equipment.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.653-662
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• 2012

We evaluate the technical and organizational aspects of the severe accident management guideline (SAMG), focusing on the decision-making process in the technical support center (TSC). From the technical aspects, we conclude that the present SAMG is a good tool that can assist the TSC in efficiently managing probable severe accidents. However, we suggest that the clear separation of the emergency operating procedure (EOP) and SAMG, which shifts plant control from the main control room (MCR) to the TSC, might not be an effective framework from an organizational perspective. Studies on organizational behavior demonstrate that a group decision made under a risky situation might be polarized in either a risky or cautious way. We recognize that we cannot be free from the polarization effect since the current SAMG recommends that the TSC evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of strategies to be implemented and choose the best one based on a group decision process. Illustrative examples of accident management under risky conditions are recapitulated from previous studies of the authors and we propose that the SAMG should be more proceduralized to remove this polarization from the decision-making process.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.157-162
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• 2018

There have been 1,039 accidents in laboratory(National Research Safety Headquarters). Accidents in laboratory has increased by 71.5% from 158 cases in 2011 to 271 cases in 2016. Accident analysis results show that there has been no death accident after 2011 when 5 death accidents happened. The results also show that severe injuries have been 23 cases(2%) from 2011 to 2016(7 cases in 2011, 2 cases in 2012, 2013 and 2014, 3 cases in 2015, 7 cases in 2016). Minor injuries shows increasing trend from 151 cases in 2011(92.6%) to 294 cases in 2016(97.6%). Among the causes of accidents in laboratory, piercing injuries by injector were 69 cases(10.4%) for recent 3 years, i.e. 22 cases(12.6%) in 2014, 18 cases(14.2%) in 2015 and 29 cases(16%). Piercing injuries by injector with infection such as viral hepatitis and HIV/AIDS were identified in 10 cases in 2014, 5 cases in 2015, and 10 cases in 2016.Therefore, we would like to contribute to the safety of laboratories by suggesting a guideline for prevention and post management of laboratory accidents.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.135-142
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• 2016

Objective: Objective of this study is to provide characteristics of injury frequency and severity by driving condition in large truck-related traffic collisions. Background: Traffic accidents involving large trucks draw a lot of attention in accident prevention and management policies since they bring about severe human and financial damages. Method: In order to identify the major risk factors of accidents by driving condition, 255 recognized traffic accidents by large truck drivers were analyzed in terms of time of the day, road type, and shape of the road. Results: The driving conditions in the results are represented by the following form of combination, "Road Type (Non-expressway or Express) - Shape of Roads (Straight, Curved, Downhill, or Intersection) - Time of Accidents (Day or Night)". In the analysis of injury frequency, Non-expressway-Straight-Day condition was the most frequent one. Meanwhile, Expressway-Curved-Day, Non-expressway-Curved-Night and Non-expressway-Intersection-Night were evaluated as high level in view of injury severity. Also, Expressway-Straight-Night is the driving condition that is the highest in risk among the conditions that have to be managed as grade "High". Non-expressway-Straight-Night, Non-expressway-Downhill-Day, and Non-expressway-Curved-Day are also categorized as grade "High". Conclusion and Application: Safety managers in the fields require basic information on accident prevention that can be easily understood. The research findings will serve as a practical guideline for establishing preventive measures for traffic accidents.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.1297-1306
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• 2019

Probabilistic safety assessments (PSA) have been used for several decades to visualize the risk level of commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs). Since the role of a human reliability analysis (HRA) is to provide human error probabilities for safety critical tasks to support PSA, PSA quality is strongly affected by HRA quality. Therefore, it is important to understand the underlying limitations or problems of HRA techniques. For this reason, this study conducted a survey among 14 subject matter experts who represent the HRA community of domestic Korean NPPs. As a result, five significant HRA issues were identified: (1) providing a technical basis for the K-HRA (Korean HRA) method, and developing dedicated HRA methods applicable to (2) diverse external events to support Level 1 PSA, (3) digital environments, (4) mobile equipment, and (5) severe accident management guideline tasks to support Level 2 PSA. In addition, an HRA method to support multi-unit PSA was emphasized because it plays an important role in the evaluation of site risk, which is one of the hottest current issues. It is believed that creating such a catalog of prioritized issues will be a good indication of research direction to improve HRA and therefore PSA quality.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.743-749
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• 2014

Even if many studies for the prevention of accidents in chemical plant have been carried out, recently more severe accidents in chemical plants have occurred continuously. These have a large potential impact and the loss of casualties and economic can vary according to the activities of early emergency responses. Thus, in order to mitigate the impact of accidents, the studies preparing the guidelines for emergency response have to be urgently needed. In this study, the current emergency responses guidelines and regulations in Korea were investigated to find out the drawbacks. And, to tackle these, BCP(Business continuity plan) method was used to improve the activities of early emergency responses as suggesting the basic components, response steps, feedback and procedures of the emergency responses.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.99-108
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• 2011

Almost all companies have paid much attention to the safety management ranging from maintenance to operation even at the stage of designing in order to prevent accidents, but fatal accidents continue to increase throughout the world. In particular, it is essential to systematically prevent such fatal accidents as fire, explosion or leakage of toxic gas at factories in order to not only protect the workers and neighbors but also prevent economic losses and environmental pollution. Though it is well known that accident probability is very low in NPP(Nuclear Power Plants), the reason why many researches are still being performed about the accidents is the results may be so severe. HRA is the main process to make preparation for possibility of human error in designing of the NPP. But those techniques have some problems and limitation as follows; the evaluation sensitivity of those techniques are out of date. And the evaluation of human error is not coupled with the design process. Additionally, the scope of the human error which has to be included in reliability assessment should be expanded. This work focuses on the coincidence of human error and mechanical failure for some important performance shaping factors to propose a method for improving safety effectively of the process industries. In order to apply in these purposes into the thesis, I found 63 critical Performance Shaping Factors of the eight dimensions throughout studies that I executed earlier. In this study, various analysis of opinion of specialists(Personal Factors, Training, Knowledge or Experience, Procedures and Documentation, Information, Communications, HMI, Workplace Design, Quality of Environment, Team Factors) and the guideline for construction of PSF were accomplished. The selected method was AHP which simplifies objective conclusions by maintaining consistency. This research focused on the implementation process of PSF to evaluate the process of PSF at each phase. As a result, we propose an evaluation model of PSF as a tool to find critical problem at each phase and improve on how to resolve the problems found at each phase. This evaluation model makes it possible to extraction of PSF succesfully by presenting the basis of assessment which will be used by enterprises to minimize the trial and error of construction process of PSF.