• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권7호
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• pp.2195-2206
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• 2021

In order to mitigate the damage caused by accidents in nuclear power plants (NPPs), evacuation strategies are usually managed on the basis of off-site effects such as the diffusion of radioactive materials and evacuee traffic simulations. However, the interactive behavior between evacuees and the accident environment has a significant effect on the consequential gap. Agent-based modeling (ABM) is a method that can control and observe such interactions by establishing agents (i.e., the evacuees) and patches (i.e., the accident environments). In this paper, a radiological emergency evacuation model is constructed to realistically check the effectiveness of an evacuation strategy using NetLogo, an ABM toolbox. Geographic layers such as radiation sources, roads, buildings, and shelters were downloaded from an official geographic information system (GIS) of Korea, and were modified into respective patches. The dispersion model adopted from the puff equation was also modified to fit the patches on the geographic layer. The evacuees were defined as vehicle agents and a traffic model was implemented by combining the shortest path search (determined by an A ^* algorithm) and a traffic flow model incorporated in the Nagel-Schreckenberg cellular automata model. To evaluate the radiological harm to the evacuees due to the spread of radioactive materials, a simple exposure model was established to calculate the overlap fraction between the agents and the dispersion patches. This paper aims to demonstrate that the potential of ABM can handle disaster evacuation strategies more realistically than previous approaches.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권2호
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• pp.607-617
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• 2019

Global warming and climate change are increasing the intensity of typhoons and hurricanes and thus increasing the risk effects of typhoon and hurricane hazards on nuclear power plants (NPPs). To reflect these changes, a new NPP should be designed to endure design-basis hurricane wind speeds corresponding to an exceedance frequency of $10^{-7}/yr$. However, the short typhoon and hurricane observation records and uncertainties included in the inputs for an estimation cause significant uncertainty in the estimated wind speeds for return periods of longer than 100,000 years. A logic-tree framework is introduced to handle the epistemic uncertainty when estimating wind speeds. Three key parameters of a typhoon wind field model, i.e., the central pressure difference, pressure profile parameter, and radius to maximum wind, are used for constructing logic tree branches. The wind speeds of the simulated typhoons and the probable maximum wind speeds are estimated using Monte Carlo simulations, and wind hazard curves are derived as a function of the annual exceedance probability or return period. A logic tree decreases the epistemic uncertainty included in the wind intensity models and provides reasonably acceptable wind speeds.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권4호
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• pp.1146-1156
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• 2021

Single-unit probabilistic safety assessment (SUPSA) has complex Boolean logic equations for accident sequences. Multi-unit probabilistic safety assessment (MUPSA) model is developed by revising and combining SUPSA models in order to reflect plant state combinations (PSCs). These PSCs represent combinations of core damage and non-core damage states of nuclear power plants (NPPs). Since all these Boolean logic equations have complemented gates (not gates), it is not easy to generate exact Boolean solutions. Delete-term approximation method (DTAM) has been widely applied for generating approximate minimal cut sets (MCSs) from the complex Boolean logic equations with complemented gates. By applying DTAM, approximate conditional core damage probability (CCDP) has been calculated in SUPSA and MUPSA. It was found that CCDP calculated by DTAM was overestimated when complemented gates have non-rare events. Especially, the CCDP overestimation drastically increases if seismic SUPSA or MUPSA has complemented gates with many non-rare events. The objective of this study is to suggest a new quantification method named probability subtraction method (PSM) that replaces DTAM. The PSM calculates accurate CCDP even when SUPSA or MUPSA has complemented gates with many non-rare events. In this paper, the PSM is explained, and the accuracy of the PSM is validated by its applications to a few MUPSAs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권2호
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• pp.386-392
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• 2021

MACCS (MELCOR Accident Consequence Code System), WinMACCS, and MelMACCS now facilitate a multi-unit consequence analysis. MACCS evaluates the consequences of an atmospheric release of radioactive gases and aerosols into the atmosphere and is most commonly used to perform probabilistic safety assessments (PSAs) and related consequence analyses for nuclear power plants (NPPs). WinMACCS is a user-friendly preprocessor for MACCS. MelMACCS extracts source-term information from a MELCOR plot file. The current development can combine an arbitrary number of source terms, representing simultaneous releases from a multi-unit facility, into a single consequence analysis. The development supports different release signatures, fission product inventories, and accident initiation times for each unit. The treatment is completely general except that the model is currently limited to collocated units. A major practical consideration for performing a multi-unit PSA is that a comprehensive treatment for more than two units may involve an intractable number of combinations of source terms. This paper proposes and evaluates an approach for reducing the number of calculations to be tractable, even for sites with eight or ten units. The approximation error introduced by the approach is acceptable and is considerably less than other errors and uncertainties inherent in a Level 3 PSA.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권8호
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• pp.2844-2853
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• 2023

A sophisticated Bayesian multilevel model for estimating group bias was developed to improve the utility of the ASTM E900-15 embrittlement trend curve (ETC) to assess the conditions of nuclear power plants (NPPs). For multilevel model development, the Baseline 22 surveillance dataset was basically classified into groups based on the NPP name, product form, and notch orientation. By including the notch direction in the grouping criteria, the developed model could account for TTS differences among NPP groups with different notch orientations, which have not been considered in previous ETCs. The parameters of the multilevel model and biases of the NPP groups were calculated using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. As the number of data points within a group increased, the group bias approached the mean residual, resulting in reduced credible intervals of the mean, and vice versa. Even when the number of surveillance test data points was less than three, the multilevel model could estimate appropriate biases without overfitting. The model also allowed for a quantitative estimate of the changes in the bias and prediction interval that occurred as a result of adding more surveillance test data. The biases estimated through the multilevel model significantly improved the performance of E900-15.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권8호
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• pp.2952-2965
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• 2023

Advanced reactors, such as Small Modular Reactors or existing Nuclear Power Plants, often use Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based controllers in new Instrumentation and Control (I&C) system architectures or as an alternative to existing analog-based I&C systems. Compared to CPU-based Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), FPGAs offer better overall performance. However, programming functions on FPGAs can be challenging due to the requirement for a hardware description language that does not explicitly support the operation of real numbers. This study aims to implement the Reactor Trip (RT) functions of the existing analog-based Reactor Protection System (RPS) using FPGAs. The RT equations for Overtemperature delta Temperature and Overpower delta Temperature involve dynamic compensators expressed with the Laplace transform variable, 's', which is not directly supported by FPGAs. To address this issue, the trip equations with the Laplace variable in the continuous-time domain are transformed to the discrete-time domain using the Z-transform. Additionally, a new operation based on a relative value for the equation range is introduced for the handling of real numbers in the RT functions. The proposed approach can be utilized for upgrading the existing analog-based RPS as well as digitalizing control systems in advanced reactor systems.

• 한국전산구조공학회논문집
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• 제36권4호
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• pp.273-282
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• 2023

원자력발전소 지진 확률론적 안전성 평가인 PSA(Probabilistic Safety Assessment)는 오랜 기간에 걸쳐 확고히 구축되어 왔다. 반면에 다양한 공정 기반의 산업시설물의 경우 화재, 폭발, 확산(유출) 재난에 대해 주로 연구되어 왔으며, 지진에 대해서는 상대적으로 연구가 미미하였다. 하지만, 플랜트 설계 당시와 달리 해당 부지가 지진 영향권에 들어갈 경우 지진 PSA 수행은 필수적이다. 지진 PSA를 수행하기 위해서는 확률론적 지진 재해도 해석(Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis), 사건수목 해석(Event Tree Analysis), 고장수목 해석(Fault Tree Analysis), 취약도 곡선 등을 필요로 한다. 원자력 발전소의 경우 노심 손상 방지라는 최우선 목표에 따라 많은 사고 시나리오 분석을 통해 사건수목이 구축되었지만, 산업시설물의 경우 공정의 다양성과 최우선 손상 방지 핵심설비의 부재로 인해 일반적인 사건수목 구축이 어렵다. 따라서, 본 연구에서는 산업시설물 지진 PSA를 수행하기 위해 고장수목을 바탕으로 확률론적 시각도구인 베이지안 네트워크(Bayesian Network, BN)로 변환하여 리스크를 평가하는 방법을 제안한다. 제안된 방법을 이용하여 임의로 생성된 가스플랜트 Plot Plan에 대해 최종 BN을 구축하고, 다양한 사건 경우에 대한 효용성있는 의사결정과정을 보임으로써 그 우수성을 확인하였다.

• International Journal of Safety
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• 제2권1호
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• pp.50-56
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• 2003

There are a lot of uncertainties in the severe accident phenomena and scenarios in nuclear power plants (NPPs) and one of the major issues for severe accident management is the reduction of these uncertainties. The severe accident management aid system using Probabilistic Safety Assessments (PSA) technology is developed for the management staff in order to reduce the uncertainties. The developed system includes the graphical display for plant and equipment status, previous research results by a knowledge-base technique, and the expected plant behavior using PSA. The plant model used in this paper is oriented to identify plant response and vulnerabilities via analyzing the quantified results, and to set up a framework for an accident management program based on these analysis results. Therefore the developed system may playa central role of information source for decision-making for severe accident management, and will be used as a training tool for severe accident management.

• 한국압력기기공학회 논문집
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.9-13
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• 2009

The containment local leakage rate testing in nuclear power plants is performed in accordance with ANSI/ANS-56.8(1994) in Korea. Two methods, the make-up flow rate and the pressure decay, are used for LLRT. Though ANSI/ANS-56.8 does not define clearly the minimum test duration for the make-up flow rate method, it requires obtaining the data after reaching the stable condition. Thus the prerequisite stable condition for data acquisition and the test period for type "C" LLRT is differently applied to each NPPs. Therefore, this study presents a unified test criteria for data stabilization and test duration through experiments to improve the test reliability for type "C".

• 한국압력기기공학회 논문집
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• 제8권2호
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• pp.42-47
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• 2012

The containment local leakage rate testing in nuclear power plants is performed in accordance with ANSI/ANS 56.8-1994 in Korea. Two methods, the make-up flow rate and the pressure decay, are used for local leakage rate testing. Though ANSI/ANS 56.8-1994 does not define clearly the minimum test duration for the make-up flow rate method, it requires obtaining the data after reaching the stable condition. Thus the prerequisite stable condition for data acquisition and the testing time is differently applied to each NPPs. Therefore, this study presents a standardized test procedure for data stabilization and testing time through experiments to improve the test reliability.