Thermal-hydraulic analysis on the effect of operator action in the loss of shutdown cooling system accident in a PWR

It is necessary to develop PSA methodology and integrated accident management technology during low power/shutdown operations. To develop this technology, thermal-hydraulic analysis is necessarily required to access the trend of plant process parameters and operator's grace time after initiation of the accident. In this study, the thermal-hydraulic behavior in the loss of shutdown cooling system accident during low power/shutdown operations at the Korean standard nuclear power plant was analyzed using the best-estimate thermal-hydraulic analysis code, MARS2.1. The effects of operator's action and initiation of accident mitigation system, such as safety injection and gravity feed on mitigation of the accident during shutdown operations are also analyzed.When steam generators are unavailable or vent paths with large cross-sectional area are open in the accident, the core damage occurs earlier than the cases of steam generators available or vent paths with small cross-sectional area. If an operator takes an action to mitigate the accident, the accident can be mitigated considerably. To mitigate the accident, high-pressure safety injection is more effective in POS4B and gravity feed is more effective in POS5. The results of this study can contribute to the plant safety improvement because those can provide the time for an operator to take an action to mitigate the accident by providing quantitative time of core damage. The results of this study can also provide information in developing operating procedure and accident management technology.     

An estimation of an operator's action time by using the MARS code in a small break LOCA without a HPSI for a PWR

To estimate the success criteria of an operator's action time for a probabilistic safety/risk assessment (PSA/PRA) of a nuclear power plant, the information from a safety analysis report (SAR) and/or that by using a simplified simulation code such as the MAAP code has been used in a conventional PSA. However, the information from these is often too conservative to perform a realistic PSA for a risk-informed application. To reduce the undue conservatism, the use of a best-estimate thermal hydraulic code has become an essential issue in the latest PSA and it is now recognized as a suitable tool. In the same context, the ‘ASME PRA standard’ also recommends the use of a best-estimate code to improve the quality of a PSA. In Korea, a platform to use a best-estimate thermal hydraulic code called the MARS code has been developed for the PSA of the Korea standard nuclear power plant (KSNP). This study has proposed an estimation method for an operator's action time by using the MARS platform. The typical example case is a small break loss of coolant accident without the high pressure safety injection system, which is one of the most important accident sequences in the PSA of the KSNP. Under the given accident sequence, the operator has to perform a recovery action known as a fast cooldown operation. This study focuses on two aspects regarding an operator's action; one is how they can operate it under some restrictions; the other is how much time is available to mitigate this accident sequence. To assess these aspects, this study considered: (1) the operator's action model and (2) the starting time of the operation. To show an effect due to an operator's action, three kinds of control models (the best-fitting, the conservative, and the proportional-integral) have been assessed. This study shows that the developed method and the platform are useful tools for this type of problem and they can provide a valuable insight related to an operator's actions.     

Accident management following loss-of-coolant accidents during cooldown in a Westinghouse two-loop PWR

Operation of pressurised water reactors involves shutdown periods for refuelling and maintenance. In preparation for this, the reactor system is cooled down, depressurised and partially drained. Although reactor coolant pressure is lower than during full-power operation, there remains the possibility of a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA), with a certain but low probability. While the decay heat to be removed is lower than that from a LOCA at full power, the reduced availability of safety systems implies a risk of failing to maintain core cooling, and hence of core damage. This is recognised though probabilistic safety analyses (PSA), which identify low but non-negligible contributions to core damage frequency from accidents during cooldown and shutdown. Analyses are made for a typical two-loop Westinghouse PWR of the consequences of a range of LOCAs during hot and intermediate shutdown, 4 and 5 h after reactor shutdown respectively. The accumulators are isolated, while power to some of the pumped safety injection systems (SIs) is racked out. The study assesses the effectiveness of the nominally assumed SIs in restoring coolant inventory and preventing core damage, and the margin against core damage where their actuation is delayed. The calculations use the engineering-level MELCOR1.8.5 code, supplemented by the SCDAPSIM and SCDAP/RELAP5 codes, which provide a more detailed treatment of coolant system thermal hydraulics and core behaviour. Both treatments show that the core is readily quenched, without damage, by the nominal SI which assumes operation of only one pump. Margins against additional scenario and model uncertainties are assessed by assuming a delay of 900 s (the time needed to actuate the remaining pumps) and a variety of assumptions regarding models and the number of pumps available in conjunction with both MELCOR and versions of SCDAP. Overall, the study provides confidence in the inherent robustness of the plant design with respect to LOCA during cooldown to cold shutdown, and in the validity of a two-tier calculational method. The results have been directly used in updating the plant shutdown PSA, by changing the success criteria for core cooling during cooldown of the plant and showing a reduction in overall risk.     

Design evaluation of emergency core cooling systems using Axiomatic Design

In designing nuclear power plants (NPPs), the evaluation of safety is one of the important issues. As a measure for evaluating safety, this paper proposes a methodology to examine the design process of emergency core cooling systems (ECCSs) in NPPs using Axiomatic Design (AD). This is particularly important for identifying vulnerabilities and creating solutions. Korean Advanced Power Reactor 1400 MWe (APR1400) adopted the ECCS, which was improved to meet the stronger safety regulations than that of the current Optimized Power Reactor 1000 MWe (OPR1000). To improve the performance and safety of the ECCS, the various design strategies such as independency or redundancy were implemented, and their effectiveness was confirmed by calculating core damage frequency. We suggest an alternative viewpoint of evaluating the deployment of design strategies in terms of AD methodology. AD suggests two design principles and the visualization tools for organizing design process. The important benefit of AD is that it is capable of providing suitable priorities for deploying design strategies. The reverse engineering driven by AD has been able to show that the design process of the ECCS of APR1400 was improved in comparison to that of OPR1000 from the viewpoint of the coordination of design strategies.     

Developing architecture for upgrading I&C systems of an operating nuclear power plant using a quality attribute-driven design method

This paper presents the architecture for upgrading the instrumentation and control (I&C) systems of a Korean standard nuclear power plant (KSNP) as an operating nuclear power plant. This paper uses the analysis results of KSNP's I&C systems performed in a previous study. This paper proposes a Preparation–Decision–Design–Assessment (PDDA) process that focuses on quality oriented development, as a cyclical process to develop the architecture. The PDDA was motivated from the practice of architecture-based development used in software engineering fields. In the preparation step of the PDDA, the architecture of digital-based I&C systems was setup for an architectural goal. Single failure criterion and determinism were setup for architectural drivers. In the decision step, defense-in-depth, diversity, redundancy, and independence were determined as architectural tactics to satisfy the single failure criterion, and sequential execution was determined as a tactic to satisfy the determinism. After determining the tactics, the primitive digital-based I&C architecture was determined. In the design step, 17 systems were selected from the KSNP's I&C systems for the upgrade and functionally grouped based on the primitive architecture. The overall architecture was developed to show the deployment of the systems. The detailed architecture of the safety systems was developed by applying a 2-out-of-3 voting logic, and the detailed architecture of the non-safety systems was developed by hot-standby redundancy. While developing the detailed architecture, three ways of signal transmission were determined with proper rationales: hardwire, datalink, and network. In the assessment step, the required network performance, considering the worst-case of data transmission was calculated: the datalink was required by 120 kbps, the safety network by 5 Mbps, and the non-safety network by 60 Mbps. The architecture covered 17 systems out of 22 KSNP's I&C systems. The architecture is implementable with the equipment developed in South Korea. The architecture can be used as a model to upgrade the existing I&C systems in a planned, large-scale, and one-shot manner. A more detailed architecture down to software level will be developed in the future.     

An overview of instrumentation and control systems of a Korea standard nuclear power plant: A signal interface standpoint

This paper presents an overview of instrumentation and control (I&C) systems of a pressurized water reactor (PWR) type nuclear power plant (NPP) in Korea. Yonggwang unit 3, which was constructed as a basis model for a Korea standard nuclear power plant (KSNP), is selected as an example for the presentation. This overview is derived from analyzing the I&C systems based on a top-down approach. The I&C systems consist of 30 systems. The 183 I&C cabinets are also analyzed and mapped to the systems. The overview is focused on an interface between the systems and the cabinets. This information will be used to understand the implementation of the I&C systems and to group the systems for an upgrade.