• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.19-29
• /
• 2007

According to industrial disaster statistics by the Ministry of Labor in 2006, out of 11,688,797 people working at 1,292,696 business places that apply Industrial Disaster Indemnity Act, 89,910 workers were involved in an accident that more than 4 days of medical treatment requires. Among this figure 2,453 people lost their precious lives. "89,910 industrial disaster victims per annum" is showing the safety level of our industrial situation. To prevent such industrial disaster, the most typical and distinctive method is Accident-free Campaign. At the beginning, the movement arose with devotion through out the entire industry. But, the heartbreaking fact is that the fever is getting cool gown as times goes by. Therefore, opportunity for revitalization of this movement is required. The movement should be practically supporting principle of respect for human life and dignity. And it should be established with analysis on industrial disaster and systematize Accident-free Campaign totally in connected research.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.61-67
• /
• 2010

Though "Zero Accident Campaign" is a desirable campaign for industrial accident prevention and reducing victims, the number of industrial enterprises has been decreasing abruptly in recent years. One of the reasons for this phenomenon may be attributed to irrationality of 'target accident-free time periods' established by related organizations. This study was carried out to develop a new rational scheme for the campaign. Therefore, for a numerical basis, Poisson process was introduced, and problems induced by current target periods were analyzed mathematically one by one. As a result, it was verified that current target periods were uneven since the probability that manufacturing plants get them would be different form industry to industry. To develop countermeasures, a brand new method were suggested in this research. The first characteristic was that group classification should be based upon average accident rates resulted from past several years, and the second was that adjustment probability which can make the target acquisition probability even. About the suggested method, a questionnaire survey was conducted. To make a conclusion, most manufacturing plants agreed with the suggested method such high affirmative portion that the suggested method would be expected to help promote the campaign again.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.39 no.5
• /
• pp.603-616
• /
• 2007

Roy Huddle, having invented the coated particle in Harwell 1957, stated in the early 1970s that we know now everything about particles and coatings and should be going over to deal with other problems. This was on the occasion of the Dragon fuel performance information meeting London 1973: How wrong a genius be! It took until 1978 that really good particles were made in Germany, then during the Japanese HTTR production in the 1990s and finally the Chinese 2000-2001 campaign for HTR-10. Here, we present a review of history and present status. Today, good fuel is measured by different standards from the seventies: where $9*10^{-4}$ initial free heavy metal fraction was typical for early AVR carbide fuel and $3*10^{-4}$ initial free heavy metal fraction was acceptable for oxide fuel in THTR, we insist on values more than an order of magnitude below this value today. Half a percent of particle failure at the end-of-irradiation, another ancient standard, is not even acceptable today, even for the most severe accidents. While legislation and licensing has not changed, one of the reasons we insist on these improvements is the preference for passive systems rather than active controls of earlier times. After renewed HTGR interest, we are reporting about the start of new or reactivated coated particle work in several parts of the world, considering the aspects of designs/ traditional and new materials, manufacturing technologies/ quality control quality assurance, irradiation and accident performance, modeling and performance predictions, and fuel cycle aspects and spent fuel treatment. In very general terms, the coated particle should be strong, reliable, retentive, and affordable. These properties have to be quantified and will be eventually optimized for a specific application system. Results obtained so far indicate that the same particle can be used for steam cycle applications with $700-750^{\circ}C$ helium coolant gas exit, for gas turbine applications at $850-900^{\circ}C$ and for process heat/hydrogen generation applications with $950^{\circ}C$ outlet temperatures. There is a clear set of standards for modem high quality fuel in terms of low levels of heavy metal contamination, manufacture-induced particle defects during fuel body and fuel element making, irradiation/accident induced particle failures and limits on fission product release from intact particles. While gas-cooled reactor design is still open-ended with blocks for the prismatic and spherical fuel elements for the pebble-bed design, there is near worldwide agreement on high quality fuel: a $500{\mu}m$ diameter $UO_2$ kernel of 10% enrichment is surrounded by a $100{\mu}m$ thick sacrificial buffer layer to be followed by a dense inner pyrocarbon layer, a high quality silicon carbide layer of $35{\mu}m$ thickness and theoretical density and another outer pyrocarbon layer. Good performance has been demonstrated both under operational and under accident conditions, i.e. to 10% FIMA and maximum $1600^{\circ}C$ afterwards. And it is the wide-ranging demonstration experience that makes this particle superior. Recommendations are made for further work: 1. Generation of data for presently manufactured materials, e.g. SiC strength and strength distribution, PyC creep and shrinkage and many more material data sets. 2. Renewed start of irradiation and accident testing of modem coated particle fuel. 3. Analysis of existing and newly created data with a view to demonstrate satisfactory performance at burnups beyond 10% FIMA and complete fission product retention even in accidents that go beyond $1600^{\circ}C$ for a short period of time. This work should proceed at both national and international level.