Sensitivity analysis of failure correlation between structures, systems, and components on system risk

Seunghyun Eem, Shinyoung Kwag, In Kil Choi, Daegi Hahm

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

A seismic event caused an accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, which further resulted in simultaneous accidents at several units. Consequently, this incident has aroused great interest in the safety of nuclear power plants worldwide. A reasonable safety evaluation of such an external event should appropriately consider the correlation between SSCs (structures, systems, and components) and the probability of failure. However, a probabilistic safety assessment in current nuclear industries is performed conservatively, assuming that the failure correlation between SSCs is independent or completely dependent. This is an extreme assumption; a reasonable risk can be calculated, or risk-based decision-making can be conducted only when the appropriate failure correlation between SSCs is considered. Thus, this study analyzed the effect of the failure correlation of SSCs on the safety of the system to realize rational safety assessment and decision-making. Consequently, the impact on the system differs according to the size of the failure probability of the SSCs and the AND and OR conditions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)981-988
Number of pages8
JournalNuclear Engineering and Technology
Volume55
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2023

Keywords

  • Event tree
  • Failure correlation
  • Fault tree
  • Multi-unit risk
  • Nuclear power plant
  • Probabilistic safety assessment
  • SSCs

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