The Tohoku earthquake (Mw9.0) occurred on March 11, 2011 and caused a large tsunami. The Fukushima Dai-ichi NPP (F1-NPP) were overwhelmed by the tsunami and core damage occurred. This paper describes the overview of F1-NPP accident and the usability of tsunami PRA at Tohoku earthquake. The paper makes reference to the following current issues: influence on seismic hazard of gigantic aftershocks and triggered earthquakes, concepts for evaluating core damage frequency considering common cause failure with correlation coefficient against seismic event at multi units and sites, and concepts of "seismic-tsunami PSA" considering a combination of seismic motion and tsunami effects.

A major issue for all nuclear stakeholders is to keep the probability of circumstances that could lead to core damage as low as possible. In addition, for NPP, appropriate accident management provisions are to be implemented to limit the consequences associated with an accident. Development and application of L2 PSA is a structured way to demonstrate that such objectives are achieved. The paper presents the efforts recently done in Europe to harmonize some best-practices in that field, from research area to risk assessment. The Fukushima Daiichi accident reiterated the importance of these activities and the need to efficiently reinforce the NPP safety based on risk assessment conclusions. New perspectives in Europe are briefly presented.

From the PSA point of view, the Fukushima accident of Japan in 2011 reveals some issues to be re-considered and/or improved in the PSA such as the limited scope of the PSA, site risk, etc. KAERI (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) has performed researches on the development of an integrated risk assessment framework related to some issues arisen after the Fukushima accident. This framework can cover the internal PSA model and external PSA models (fire, flooding, and seismic PSA models) in the full power and the low power-shutdown modes. This framework also integrates level 1, 2 and 3 PSA to quantify the risk of nuclear facilities more efficiently and consistently. We expect that this framework will be helpful to resolve the issue regarding the limited scope of PSA and to reduce some inconsistencies that might exist between (1) the internal and external PSA, and (2) full power mode PSA and low power-shutdown PSA models. In addition, KAERI is starting researches related to the extreme external events, the risk assessment of spent fuel pool, and the site risk. These emerging issues will be incorporated into the integrated risk assessment framework. In this paper the integrated risk assessment framework and the research activities on the emerging issues are outlined.

To assess the risk of nuclear power plant operation and to determine the risk impact of digital systems, there is a need to quantitatively assess the reliability of the digital systems in a justifiable manner. The Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA) is a tool which can reveal shortcomings of the NPP design in general and PRA analysts have not had sufficient guiding principles in modelling particular digital components malfunctions. Currently digital I&C systems are mostly analyzed simply and conventionally in PRA, based on failure mode and effects analysis and fault tree modelling. More dynamic approaches are still in the trial stage and can be difficult to apply in full scale PRA-models. As basic events CPU failures, application software failures and common cause failures (CCF) between identical components are modelled.The primary goal is to model dependencies. However, it is not clear which failure modes or system parts CCF:s should be postulated for. A clear distinction can be made between the treatment of protection and control systems. There is a general consensus that protection systems shall be included in PRA, while control systems can be treated in a limited manner. OECD/NEA CSNI Working Group on Risk Assessment (WGRisk) has set up a task group, called DIGREL, to develop taxonomy of failure modes of digital components for the purposes of PRA. The taxonomy is aimed to be the basis of future modelling and quantification efforts. It will also help to define a structure for data collection and to review PRA studies.

PWR spent fuels produced in the Republic of Korea are expected to be recycled by pyroprocess in the long term future. Even though pyroprocess waste amounts can be smaller than that of PWR spent fuel assembly in case of direct disposal, this process essentially will produce various and unique radioactive wastes. The goals of this article are to characterize these wastes, calculate the amount of wastes, design disposal systems for each waste and evaluate the radiation safety of each system by dose assessment. The absorbed dose results of the metal and ceramic waste for the engineering barrier system (EBS) showed $2.21{\times}10^{-2}$ Gy/h and $1.15{\times}10^{-2}$ Gy/h, which are lower than the recommended value of 1 Gy/h. These results confirmed that the newly proposed disposal systems have a safety margin for the radiation produced from each waste.

The dissimilar metal joints welded between Ni-based alloy, Alloy 690 and low alloy steel, A533 Gr. B with Alloy 152 filler metal were characterized by using optical microscope, scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, secondary ion mass spectrometry and 3-dimensional atom probe tomography. It was found that in the weld root region, the weld was divided into several regions including unmixed zone in Ni-base alloy, fusion boundary, and heat-affected zone in the low alloy steel. The result of nanostructural and nanochemical analyses in this study showed the non-homogeneous distribution of elements with higher Fe but lower Mn, Ni and Cr in A533 Gr. B compared with Alloy 152, and the precipitation of carbides near the fusion boundary.

Many innovative design features are employed in the reactor vessel internals of SMART, a small integral-type pressurized water reactor, one of which is the flow skirt, which uniformly distributes flow and horizontally restrains the lower part of the core support barrel. This new design requires a comprehensive investigation of vibration characteristics. Therefore, in this study, modal characteristics of flow skirts are investigated with finite element analysis. Specifically, we investigate how the presence of holes, the presence of three rings attached to the flow skirt, and the thickness of the lowest shell effect vibration characteristics. In addition, the fluid effect is addressed, since the flow skirt is submerged in the fluid.

When decommissioning a nuclear power plant, it is difficult to make an appropriate plan to ensure sufficient space for temporary placement and conveyance operations of dismantling targets. This paper describes a system to support temporary placement and conveyance operations using augmented reality (AR). The system employs a laser range scanner to measure the three-dimensional (3D) information of the environment and a dismantling target to produce 3D surface polygon models. Then, the operator simulates temporary placement and conveyance operations using the system by manipulating the obtained 3D model of the dismantling target in the work field. Referring to the obtained 3D model of the environment, a possible collision between the dismantling target and the environment is detectable. Using AR, the collision position is presented intuitively. After field workers evaluated this system, the authors concluded that the system is feasible and acceptable to verify whether spaces for passage and temporary storage are sufficient for temporary placement and conveyance operations. For practical use in the future, some new functions must be added to improve the system. For example, it must be possible for multiple workers to use the system simultaneously by sharing the view of dismantling work.

The objective of this study was to experimentally investigate the effect of heat curing methods on the temperature history and strength development of slab concrete exposed to $-10^{\circ}C$. The goal was to determine proper heat curing methods for the protection of nuclear power plant structures against early-age frost damage under adverse (cold) conditions. Two types of methods were studied: heat insulation alone and in combination with a heating cable. For heat curing with heat insulation alone, either sawdust or a double layer bubble sheet (2-BS) was applied. For curing with a combination of heat insulation and a heating cable, an embedded heating cable was used with either a sawdust cover, a 2-BS cover, or a quadruple layer bubble sheet (4-BS) cover. Seven different slab specimens with dimensions of $1200{\times}600{\times}200$ mm and a design strength of 27 MPa were fabricated and cured at $-10^{\circ}C$ for 7 d. The application of sawdust and 2-BS allowed the concrete temperature to fall below $0^{\circ}C$ within 40 h after exposure to $-10^{\circ}C$, and then, the temperature dropped to $-10^{\circ}C$ and remained there for 7 d owing to insufficient thermal resistance. However, the combination of a heating cable plus sawdust or 2-BS maintained the concrete temperature around $5^{\circ}C$ for 7 d. Moreover, the combination of the heating cable and 4-BS maintained the concrete temperature around $10^{\circ}C$ for 7 d. This was due to the continuous heat supply from the heating cable and the prevention of heat loss by the 4-BS. For maturity development, which is an index of early-age frost damage, the application of heat insulation materials alone did not allow the concrete to meet the minimum maturity required to protect against early-age frost damage after 7 d, owing to poor thermal resistance. However, the combination of the heating cable and the heat insulating materials allowed the concrete to attain the minimum maturity level after just 3 d. In the case of strength development, the heat insulation materials alone were insufficient to achieve the minimum 7-d strength required to prevent early-age frost damage. However, the combination of a heating cable and heat insulating materials met both the minimum 7-d strength and the 28-d design strength owing to the heat supply and thermal resistance. Therefore, it is believed that by combining a heating cable and 4-BS, concrete exposed to $-10^{\circ}C$ can be effectively protected from early-age frost damage and can attain the required 28-d compressive strength.

A sodium-cooled demonstration fast reactor with the KALIMER-600 as a reference plant is under design by KAERI. The safety grade decay heat removal system (DHRS), which is important to mitigate design basis accidents, was changed in the reactor design. A loss of heat sink and a vessel leak in design basis accidents were simulated using the MARS-LMR system transient analysis code on two plant systems. In the analyses, the DHRS of KALIMER-600 had a weakness due to elevation of the overflow path for the DHRS operation, while it was proved that the DHRS of the demonstration reactor had superior heat transfer characteristics due to the simplified heat transfer mechanism.

The decrease in the fracture toughness of ferritic steels in a reactor pressure vessel is an important factor in determining the lifetime of a nuclear power plant. A surveillance program has been in place in Korea since 1979 to assess the structural integrity of RPV steels. In this work, the surveillance data were collected and analyzed statistically in order to derive the empirical relationship between the embrittlement and strengthening of irradiated reactor pressure vessel steels. There was a linear relationship between the yield strength change and the transition temperature shift change at 41 J due to irradiation. The proportional coefficient was about $0.5^{\circ}C$/MPa in the base metals (plate/forgings). The upper shelf energy decrease ratio was non-linearly proportional to the yield strength change, and most of the data lay along the trend curve of the US results. The transition regime temperature interval, ${\Delta}T_T$, was less than the US data. The overall change from irradiation was very similar to the US results. It is expected that the results of this study will be applied to basic research on the multiscale modeling of the irradiation embrittlement of RPV materials in Korea.

The Wolsong-1 (W-1) Phase-B pre-simulations were carried out in preparation for tests to be conducted for the restart of the reactor after a major refurbishment project that included replacement of the pressure tube. These pre-simulations for Wolsong-1 Phase-B differ from those in the past that were performed for the Wolsong-1,2,3,4 tests in that these tests use the WIMS/DRAGON/RFSP-IST code suite for verification of the tests and gadolinium instead of the traditional PPV/MULTICELL/RFSP code system and boron as poison in the moderator system. The use of gadolinium is deemed not to have domestically accumulated experience gained from the previous Phase-B tests. Thus, it is appropriate to conduct a study in order to gain a correct understanding and interpretation of potential differences in test results stemming from using gadolinium rather than boron. Although the calibration of the reactivity device will not be noticeably different using boron and gadolinium at a constant moderator temperature, the temperature dependency of the neutronic behavior due to the presence of gadolinium in the moderator system might be pronounced. The results of the pre-simulations using gadolinium revealed that the moderator temperature reactivity coefficients indeed showed significant differences in comparison with those with boron. In order to secure the validity of the analysis results, the newly acquired WIMS/DRAGON/RFSP-IST code suite was verified against the W-2,3,4 Phase-B test results. The results of the new code suite verifications revealed some overall improvements in accuracy; justification of the use of the code can be claimed for the validation of the W-1 Phase-B test results.