• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.81-94
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• 2003

The British railway safety research group has developed a risk assessment model for the railway infrastructure and major railway accidents. The major hazardous factors of the railway infrastructure were identified and classified in the model. The frequency rates of critical top events were predicted by the fault tree analysis method using failure data of the railway system components and ratings of railway maintenance experts, The consequences of critical top events were predicted by the event tree analysis method. They classified the Joss of accident due to railway system into personal. commercial and environmental damages. They also classified 110 hazardous event due to railway system into three categories. train accident. movement accident and non-movement accident. The risk assessment model of the British railway system has been designed to take full account of both the high frequency low consequence type events (events occurring routinely for which there is significant quantity of recorded data) and the low frequency high consequence events (events occurring rarely for which there is little recorded data). The results for each hazardous event were presented in terms of the frequency of occurrence (number of events/year) and the risk (number of equivalent fatalities per year).

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.88-96
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• 2013

Purpose: This study identifies accident sequences from the past accidents in order to help the risk analysis application to the external radiotherapy. Materials and Methods: This study reviews 59 accidental cases in two retrospective safety analyses that have collected the incidents in the external radiotherapy extensively. Two accident analysis reports that accumulated past incidents are investigated to identify accident sequences including initiating events, failure of safety measures, and consequences. This study classifies the accidents by the treatments stages and sources of errors for initiating events, types of failures in the safety measures, and types of undesirable consequences and the number of affected patients. Then, the accident sequences are grouped into several categories on the basis of similarity of progression. As a result, these cases can be categorized into 14 groups of accident sequence. Results: The result indicates that risk analysis needs to pay attention to not only the planning stage, but also the calibration stage that is committed prior to the main treatment process. It also shows that human error is the largest contributor to initiating events as well as to the failure of safety measures. This study also illustrates an event tree analysis for an accident sequence initiated in the calibration. Conclusion: This study is expected to provide sights into the accident sequences for the prospective risk analysis through the review of experiences.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.74-84
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• 2015

If a transient occurs in a nuclear power plant (NPP), operators will try to protect the NPP by estimating the kind of abnormality and mitigating it based on recommended procedures. Similarly, operators take actions based on severe accident management guidelines when there is the possibility of a severe accident occurrence in an NPP. In any such situation, information about the occurrence time of severe accident-related events can be very important to operators to set up severe accident management strategies. Therefore, support systems that can quickly provide this kind of information will be very useful when operators try to manage severe accidents. In this research, the occurrence times of several events that could happen during a severe accident were predicted using support vector machines with short time variations of plant status variables inputs. For the preliminary step, the break location and size of a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) were identified. Training and testing data sets were obtained using the MAAP5 code. The results show that the proposed algorithm can correctly classify the break location of the LOCA and can estimate the break size of the LOCA very accurately. In addition, the occurrence times of severe accident major events were predicted under various severe accident paths, with reasonable error. With these results, it is expected that it will be possible to apply the proposed algorithm to real NPPs because the algorithm uses only the early phase data after the reactor SCRAM, which can be obtained accurately for accident simulations.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.177-186
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• 2016

When an event is occurred in a nuclear power plant (NPP), the NPP operator reports it referred by the regulation on reporting and public announcement of accidents and incidents. Some of the events do not need to be reported because they are not included in the reporting criteria of the regulation. However, it is necessary that they should be managed effectively because the accident can be occurred by the recurrence of a lot of them as precursors. Among the events not included in the reporting criteria of the regulation, near miss is the event that is not occurred but can generate a significant consequence. This can provide the cause of the event which does not result an accident. So, it is able to offer insightful knowledges to prevent higher level events about the function and process of NPP. The objective of this study is to analyze the issues of near miss events, prepare the defence against the risk, and improve the management process of NPP. To achieve it, this study performed to analyze the management structure and status of near miss events as well as the accident reporting system of the domestic and foreign regulation bodies. In case of Korea, the status was analyzed by quantitative data, licensee event reports and procedures. Based on these, we could find the causes that near miss events were not managed effectively. Then, systematic alternatives that reflected the perspective of man, technology and organization were drawn.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.393-404
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• 2012

After the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, there has been increasing concern regarding severe accidents in nuclear facilities. Severe accident scenarios are difficult for operators to monitor and identify. Therefore, accurate prediction of a severe accident is important in order to manage it appropriately in the unfavorable conditions. In this study, artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, such as support vector classification (SVC), probabilistic neural network (PNN), group method of data handling (GMDH), and fuzzy neural network (FNN), were used to monitor the major transient scenarios of a severe accident caused by three different initiating events, the hot-leg loss of coolant accident (LOCA), the cold-leg LOCA, and the steam generator tube rupture in pressurized water reactors (PWRs). The SVC and PNN models were used for the event classification. The GMDH and FNN models were employed to accurately predict the important timing representing severe accident scenarios. In addition, in order to verify the proposed algorithm, data from a number of numerical simulations were required in order to train the AI techniques due to the shortage of real LOCA data. The data was acquired by performing simulations using the MAAP4 code. The prediction accuracy of the three types of initiating events was sufficiently high to predict severe accident scenarios. Therefore, the AI techniques can be applied successfully in the identification and monitoring of severe accident scenarios in real PWRs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.313-326
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• 2017

The systematic management of plant risk is crucial for enhancing the safety of nuclear power plants and for designing new nuclear power plants. Accident sequence precursor (ASP) analysis may be able to provide risk significance of operational experience by using probabilistic risk assessment to evaluate an operational event quantitatively in terms of its impact on core damage. In this study, an ASP methodology for two operation mode, full power and low power/shutdown operation, has been developed and applied to significant accident precursors that may occur during the operation of nuclear power plants. Two operational events, loss of feedwater and steam generator tube rupture, are identified as ASPs. Therefore, the ASP methodology developed in this study may contribute to identifying plant risk significance as well as to enhancing the safety of nuclear power plants by applying this methodology systematically.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.1524-1530
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• 2008

Generally a road vehicle's wrong entry into level crossing gives rise to hazardous events, the eventual collision with a approaching train depends on the effective operation of safety barriers such a abnormal condition detecting or emergency braking. In this paper, the risk assessment models developed for the level-crossing accidents will be introduced. The definition of hazardous events and the related hazardous factors are identified by the review of the accident history and engineering interpretation of the accident behavior. A probability of the hazardous events will be evaluated by the FTA, which is based on the accident scenario. For the severity estimation, the critical factors which can effect on the consequence will be reviewed during the ETA. Finally, the number of casualty for the public(vehicle drivers) and the train passengers are converted into an equivalent fatality.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.96-101
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• 2009

In this study, a risk-appearance frequency evaluation model for railway level-crossing accidents is developed with the frequency estimation based on the accident history. It follows the worldwide common safety management approach and reflects the operation conditions and accident properties of the domestic railway system. The risk appearance frequency evaluation process contains a development of accident scenarios by defining the system configurations and functions, and a frequency estimation of hazardous events based on the accident history. The developed model is verified with the accident history during 5 years('03-'07) for 3 hazardous events: 'Being trapped in level crossing(Hl)', 'Crossing during warning signal(H2)' and 'Breaking through/detouring the barrier(H3)'. This risk appearance frequency evaluation model will be combined with a consequence evaluation model so as to offer full risk assessment for the railway accident. The accident risk assessment will contribute to improving the safety management of the railway system.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.59 no.3
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• pp.164-172
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• 2022

A HAZID is a brainstorming workshop to identify hazards in an early phase of a project. It should be flexible to capture all probable accidents allowing experienced participants to exploit their expertise and experiences. A bowtie analysis is a graphical representation of major accident hazards elaborating safety measures i.e. barriers. The result of these workshops should be documented in an organized manner to share as good as possible details of the discussion through the lifetime of the project. Currently results are documented using a three-step representation of an accident; causes, top event and consequences, which cannot capture correctly sequence of events leading to various accidents and roles of barrier between two events. Another problem is that barriers would be shown repeatedly leading to a misunderstanding that there are an enough number of safety measures. A new bowtie analysis method is proposed to describe an accident in multiple steps showing relations among causes or consequences. With causes and consequences shown in a format of a tree, the frequencies of having the top event (Fault tree analysis) and various consequences (Event tree analysis) are evaluated automatically based on the frequency of initiating causes and the probabilities of failure of barriers. It will provide a good description of the accident scenario and help the risk to be assessed transparently.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.1499-1504
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• 2008

This study shows risk-based evaluation results of casualty accidents for passengers, railway staffs and MOP(Member of public) on the national railway in South Korea. To evaluate risk of these accidents, the hazardous events and the hazardous factors were identified by the review of the accident history and engineering interpretation of the accident behavior. A probability evaluation model for each hazardous event which was based on the accident appearance scenario was developed by using the Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) technique. The probability for each hazardous event was evaluated from the historical data and structured expert judgment. In addition, the severity assessment model utilized by the Event Tree Analysis (ETA) technique was composed of the accident progress scenarios. And the severity for the hazardous events was estimated using fatalities and weighted injuries. The risk assessment model developed can be effectively utilized in defining the risk reduction measures in connection with the option analysis.