• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.14-29
• /
• 1992

COMCAF, a computer code for the common-cause failure analysis, is developed to treat the common-cause failures in nuclear power plants. In the treatment of common-cause failures, the minimal cut sets of the system are obtained first without changing the fault-tree structure. The occurrence probabilities of the minimal cut sets are then calculated accounting for the common-cause failures among components in the same minimal cut set or in different minimal cut sets. The basic parameter model is used to model the common-cause failures between similar or identical components. For dissimilar components, the assumption of symmetry used in the basic parameter model is applied to the basic events affecting two or more components. The top event probability is evaluated using the inclusion-exclusion method. In addition to the common-cause failures of components in the same minimal cut sets, failures of components in the different minimal cut sets are also easily accounted for by this method. This study applied this common-cause failure analysis to the PWR auxiliary feedwater system. The results in the top event probability for the system are compared with those of no common-cause failures.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
• /
• v.46 no.2
• /
• pp.327-338
• /
• 2018

Purpose: A risk evaluation procedure is proposed for common failure causes in FMEA(Failure Mode and Effects Analysis). The conventional FMEA does not provide a proper means to compare common failure causes with other failure causes. This research aims to develop a risk evaluation procedure in FMEA where common failure causes and other failure causes exist together. Methods: For each common failure cause, the effect of each combination of its resulting failures is recommended to be reevaluated considering their interactive worsening effect. And the probability that each combination of failures is incurred by the same common cause is also considered. Based on these two factors, the severity of each common cause is determined. Other procedures are similar to the conventional method. Results: The proposed procedure enables to compare and prioritize every failure cause. Thus, the common causes, each of which incurring two or more failures, and other causes, each of which is corresponding to one failure, can be fairly compared. Conclusion: A fair and proper way of comparing the common failure causes and other causes is provided. The procedure is somewhat complicated and requires more works to do. But it is worth to do.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.164-176
• /
• 1991

This paper considers the model of a k-out-of-n :G system with non-identical components which are subject to both forced and planned outages. For the forced outages, it assumes that there are the independent and common-cause outage events causing component failures. Then, the objective is to derive the upper and lower bounds on the mean operating time between system failures in the ample-server model. In addtion, the mean system failure times are also considered.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.53 no.2
• /
• pp.357-367
• /
• 2021

In general, common cause failures (CCFs) have been modeled with the assumption that components within the same group are symmetric. This assumption reduces the number of parameters required for the CCF probability estimation and allows us to use a parametric model, such as the alpha factor model. Although there are various asymmetric conditions in nuclear power plants (NPPs) to be addressed, the traditional CCF models are limited to symmetric conditions. Therefore, this paper proposes the copulabased CCF model to deal with asymmetric as well as symmetric CCFs. Once a joint distribution between the components is constructed using copulas, the proposed model is able to provide the probability of common cause basic events (CCBEs) by formulating a system of equations without symmetry assumptions. In addition, Bayesian inferences for the parameters of the marginal and copula distributions are introduced and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are employed to sample from the posterior distribution. Three example cases using simulated data, including asymmetry conditions in total failure probabilities and/or dependencies, are illustrated. Consequently, the copula-based CCF model provides appropriate estimates of CCFs for asymmetric conditions. This paper also discusses the limitations and notes on the proposed method.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.52 no.10
• /
• pp.2238-2249
• /
• 2020

In a seismic PSA, dependency among seismic failures of components has not been explicitly modeled in the fault tree or event tree. This dependency is separately identified and assigned with numbers that range from zero to unity that reflect the level of the mutual correlation among seismic failures. Because of complexity and difficulty in calculating combination probabilities of correlated seismic failures in complex seismic event tree and fault tree, there has been a great need of development to explicitly model seismic correlation in terms of seismic common cause failures (CCFs). If seismic correlations are converted into seismic CCFs, it is possible to calculate an accurate value of a top event probability or frequency of a complex seismic fault tree by using the same procedure as for internal, fire, and flooding PSA. This study first proposes a methodology to explicitly model seismic dependency by converting correlated seismic failures into seismic CCFs. As a result, this methodology will allow systems analysts to quantify seismic risk as what they have done with the CCF method in internal, fire, and flooding PSA.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.229-235
• /
• 1983

Common Mode Failures (CMFs) have been a serious concern in the nuclear power plant. There is a broad category of the failure mechanisms that can cause common mode failures. This paper is a theoretical investigation of the CMFs on the unavailability of the redundant system. It is assumed that the total CMFs consist of the potential CMFs and the dependent human error CMFs. As the human error dependence is higher, the total CMFs are more effected by the dependent human error. If the human error dependence is lower, the system unavailability strongly depends on the potential CMFs, rather than the mechanical failure or the dependent human error. And it is shown that the total CMFs are dominant factor to the unavailability of the redundant system.

• IE interfaces
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.382-392
• /
• 2012

Reactor protection system to keep nuclear safety and operational economy of plants requires high reliability. Such a high reliability of the system can be achieved through the redundant design of components. However, common cause failures of components reduce the benefits of redundant design. Thus, the common cause failure analysis, to accurately calculate the reliability of the reactor protection system, is carried out using alpha-factor model. Analysis results to 24 operating months are that 1) the system reliability satisfies the reliability goal of EPRI-URD and 2) the common cause failure contributes 90% of the system unreliability. The uncertainty analysis using alpha factor parameters of 0.05 and 0.95 quantile values shows significantly large difference in the system unreliability.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.349-355
• /
• 2017

Failures of railway systems can result in train delays or accidents, and therefore high reliability is required to ensure safety of railway systems. To improve reliability, railway systems are designed with redundant systems so that the standby system will continue to function normally even if the primary system fails. Generally, overall system reliability can be evaluated by the reliabilities of the parts of the whole system and the reliability of the redundant system considering common failures in case of each system is not conform physical, functional and process independent. In this study, the reliability of the hot-standby sparing system is analyzed the independent systems and dependent systems with common failures. The reliability for the standby system can be effectively analysed using Markov models, which can model the redundant configuration and the state transition.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
• /
• v.25 no.9
• /
• pp.62-68
• /
• 2011

Power system needs to sustain high reliability due to its complexity and security. The reliability prediction method is usually based on independent failure. However, in practice, the Common Cause Failures(CCF) and Cascading failure occur to the facilities in power system as well as independent failures in many cases. The CCF and Cascading failure turn out the system collapse seriously in a wide range. Therefore to improve the reliability of the power system practically, it is required that the analysis is conducted by using the CCF and Cascading failure. This paper describes the CCF and Cascading failure modeling combined with independent failure. The incorporated model of independent failure, CCF and cascading failure is proposed and analyzed, and it is applied to the distribution power system in order to examine this method.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.181-193
• /
• 1992

This paper shows the model of a consecutive-k-out-of-n :G system with common-cause outages. The objective is to analytically derive the mean operating time between failures for a non-repairable component system. The average failure time of a system and the system availability are also considered. Then, the model is extended to a system with repairable components and unrestricted repair, in which service times are exponentially distributed.