• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.37-41
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• 2018

Process safety technology has developed from qualitative methods such as HAZOP (hazard and operability study) to semi-quantitative methods such as LOPA (layer of protection analysis), and quantitative methods are actively studied these days. Quantitative risk assessment (QRA) is often based on fault tree analysis (FTA). FTA is efficient, but difficult to apply when failure events are not independent of each other. This problem can be avoided using a Markov process (MP). MP requires definition of all possible states, and thus, generally, is more complicated than FTA. A method is proposed in this work that uses an MP model and a Weibull distribution model in order to construct a reliability model for multiple dependent failures. As a case study, a pressure safety valve (PSV) is considered, for which there are three kinds of failure, i.e. open failure, close failure, and gas tight failure. According to recently reported inspection results, open failure and close failure are dependent on each other. A reliability model for a PSV group is proposed in this work that is to reproduce these results. It is expected that the application of the proposed method can be expanded to QRA of various systems that have partially dependent multiple failure states.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.3236-3246
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• 2021

Lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident directed that multiple failures should be considered more seriously rather than single failure in the licensing bases and safety cases because attempts to take accident management measures could be unsuccessful under the high radiation environment aggravated by multiple failures, such as complete loss of electric power, uncontrollable loss of coolant inventory, failure of essential safety function recovery. In the case of the complete loss of electric power called station blackout (SBO), if there is no mitigation action for recovering safety functions, the reactor core would be overheated, and severe fuel damage could be anticipated due to the failure of the active heat sink. In such a transient condition at CANDU-6 plants, the seal failure of the primary heat transport (PHT) pumps can facilitate a consequent increase in the fuel sheath temperature and eventually lead to degradation of the fuel integrity. Therefore, it is necessary to specify the regulatory guidelines for multiple failures on a licensing basis so that licensees should prepare the accident management measures to prevent or mitigate accident conditions. In order to explore the efficiency of implementing accident management strategies for CANDU-6 plants, this study proposed a realistic accident analysis approach on the SBO transient with multiple-failure sequences such as seal failure of PHT pumps without operator's recovery actions. In this regard, a comparative study for two PHT pump seal failure modes with and without coolant seal leakage was conducted using a best-estimate code to precisely investigate the behaviors of thermal-hydraulic parameters during transient conditions. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis for different PHT pump seal leakage rates was also carried out to examine the effect of leakage rate on the system responses. This study is expected to provide the technical bases to the accident management strategy for unmitigated transient conditions with multiple failures.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.7-13
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• 2011

A study on reliability estimation of sequential-ordered multiple failure modes, which are sequentially ordered between failure modes in a considering system, was performed. Especially, an approach to estimate the probabilities of failure modes has been proposed under an assumption that failure modes are mutually exclusive and sequentially ordered by only a critical variable. A feasibility of the proposed approach were studied by a practical example, which is a reliability estimation of passive safety systems for a probabilistic safety assessment(PSA) of a very high temperature reactor(VHTR) that is under development as a future nuclear system with enhanced safety features. It is difficult to define a robust failure state of this nuclear system because of its enhanced radiation release characteristics, so the new approach is a useful concept to estimate not only its safety but also a PSA. A feasibility study applied two failure modes(e.g., small and large release of radioactive materials) with considering the integrated behavior of this nuclear system. It is expected that the multiple release states for a practical estimation can be easily extended to the aforementioned example. It was found out that the proposed approach was a useful technique to cover the unfavorable features of this nuclear system as to performing a VHTR PSA.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.463-475
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• 2019

In this paper, a procedure to develop fragility curves of structures equipped with semi-active tuned mass dampers (SATMDs) considering multiple failure criteria has been presented while accounting for the uncertainties of the input excitation, structure and control device parameters. In this procedure, Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method has been employed to generate 30 random SATMD-structure systems and nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) has been conducted under 20 earthquakes to determine the structural responses, where failure probabilities in each intensity level have been evaluated using Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) method. For numerical analysis, an eight-story nonlinear shear building frame with bilinear hysteresis material behavior has been used. Fragility curves for the structure equipped with optimal SATMDs have been developed considering single and multiple failure criteria for different performance levels and compared with that of uncontrolled structure as well as structure controlled using passive tuned mass damper (TMD). Numerical analysis has shown the capability of SATMDs in significant enhancement of the seismic fragility of the nonlinear structure. Also, considering multiple failure criteria has led to increasing the fragility of the structure. Moreover, it is observed that the influence of the uncertainty of input excitation with respect to the other uncertainties is considerable.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.37 no.9
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• pp.1169-1174
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• 2013

Most products are indeed governed by multiple failure modes. However, there are few cases in which reliability analysis applies to only one failure mode at a time. Furthermore, reliability data do not include information about failure modes, or the reliability analysis is performed using a representative failure mode. The Weibull shape parameter for failure modes is more important than one for products in the reliability qualification test. This paper presents reliability analysis methods for a mechanical component with multiple failure modes. These methods include the competing failure modes (CFM) method and the mixed Weibull method. Pneumatic cylinder test data with three failure modes are presented to estimate the shape parameter for each separate failure mode. In addition, reliability measures (B10 life, characteristic life) of the pneumatic cylinder considering three failure modes were compared with those assuming a single failure mode.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.594-601
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• 2004

We analyze checkpoint strategy for multiple real-time periodic tasks with hard deadlines. Real-time tasks usually have deadlines associated with them. For multiple real-time tasks, checkpoint strategy considering deadlines of all tasks is very difficult to derive. We analyze the problem of checkpoint placement for such multiple periodic tasks. In our strategy, the interval between checkpoints is determined for each task considering its deadline. An approximated failure probability over a specified interval is derived. Then the number of checkpoints for each task is selected to minimize the approximated failure probability. To show the usefulness of our strategy, error bound between the exact and the approximated failure probability is estimated, which is revealed to be quite small.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.647-655
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• 2006

In this paper, we consider multiple comparisons for the ratio of the failure rates in two components system that the lifetimes of the components have independent exponential distributions. Also we suggest Bayesian multiple comparisons procedure based on fractional Bayes factor when noninformative priors are applied for the parameters. Finally, we give numerical examples to illustrate our procedure.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.275-284
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• 1990

A serious problem after cardiovascular surgery known as Multiple Organ Failure[MOF] whereby several vital organs successively demonstrate dysfunction in spite of intensive postoperative treatment has recently arisen. We have made a retrospective study of the clinical records of 137 patients who underwent cardiovascular surgery during past two years [1987-1988]. Fourteen patients [10%] developed multi-organ failure postoperatively with the results of seven death [50%]. In fatal group, preoperative poor cardiac function [Cardiac Index<2.0L/min/m2] was considered important prognostic factor and infection 5 disseminated intravascular coagulation complicating gastrointestinal bleeding were the leading cause of death. In conclusion, evaluation of multiple factors concerning multi-organ failure demonstrates preoperative poor functional preservation of vital organs is the main factor. So early diagnosis k management for each of the failing organs & prevention of infection are mandatory of the treatment of these critically ill patients.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.553-560
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• 2007

In this paper, we consider two components system which lifetimes have Freund's bivariate exponential model with equal failure rates. We propose Bayesian multiple comparisons procedure for the failure rates of I Freund's bivariate exponential populations based on Dirichlet process priors(DPP). The family of DPP is applied in the form of baseline prior and likelihood combination to provide the comparisons. Computation of the posterior probabilities of all possible hypotheses are carried out through Markov Chain Monte Carlo(MCMC) method, namely, Gibbs sampling, due to the intractability of analytic evaluation. The whole process of multiple comparisons problem for the failure rates of bivariate exponential populations is illustrated through a numerical example.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.651-674
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• 2011

This paper presents a novel method for predicting the failure probability of structural or mechanical systems subjected to random loads and material properties involving multiple design points. The method involves Multicut High Dimensional Model Representation (Multicut-HDMR) technique in conjunction with moving least squares to approximate the original implicit limit state/performance function with an explicit function. Depending on the order chosen sometimes truncated Cut-HDMR expansion is unable to approximate the original implicit limit state/performance function when multiple design points exist on the limit state/performance function or when the problem domain is large. Multicut-HDMR addresses this problem by using multiple reference points to improve accuracy of the approximate limit state/performance function. Numerical examples show the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed approach in estimating the failure probability.