Initialising ...
Initialising ...
Initialising ...
Initialising ...
Initialising ...
Initialising ...
Initialising ...
Nishino, Hiroyuki; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Futagami, Satoshi; Watakabe, Tomoyoshi; Yamano, Hidemasa
Proceedings of Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management & Asian Symposium on Risk Assessment and Management (PSAM17 & ASRAM2024) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2024/10
The reactor vessel (RV) buckling was a dominant contributor to core damage. However, even if the RV is buckled due to seismic shaking, it is expected that the RV maintains stable state without unstable failure such as rupture, collapse. Realistic consideration of the post-buckling behavior is regarded as a measure for improving the resilience in this study. The purpose of this study is to understand the post-buckling deformation behavior of the RV and to evaluate the RV fragility based on fatigue failure. This study performed structural analysis using a finite element method to quantify time histories of displacement, strain, etc. As the result of the analysis, wrinkles of the buckling appeared at the elevation higher than the liquid level in the RV. The largest strain value was also indicated around this elevation. The cumulative fatigue damage fraction was evaluated in this analysis to evaluate the fragility of fatigue failure in addition to the buckling fragility. The result showed that the seismic intensity for the median fragility of the fatigue failure was about six times larger than the design-basis ground motion. This is 1.2 times larger than the buckling-based result, which suggests that realistic evaluation of the post-buckling behavior could contribute to improving the resilience of the nuclear structure.
Onoda, Yuichi; Nishino, Hiroyuki; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Yamano, Hidemasa
Proceedings of Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management & Asian Symposium on Risk Assessment and Management (PSAM17 & ASRAM2024) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2024/10
We developed the measures for improving resilience of the sodium-cooled fast reactor structure using the failure mitigation technology and evaluated the effectiveness of the measures. To prevent core damage in the event of an accident progressing to an ultra-high temperature state, both measures to prevent overpressure in the reactor vessel and measures to cool the reactor core are required. As a core cooling measure, we developed a core cooling concept that promotes radiant heat transfer from the reactor vessel and cools the containment vessel outer surface by natural convection named Containment Vessel Auxiliary Cooling System (CVACS). We developed a method to use the reduction rate of core damage frequency as an indicator for effectiveness of the measures for improving resilience. The core damage frequency was evaluated by calculating the core cooling performance using CVACS, reflecting the results of structural analysis and human reliability analysis. By implementing measures for improving resilience in addition to existing measures, the core damage frequency of Japan loop-type sodium-cooled fast reactor caused by LOHRS has been reduced to about one-hundredth of the previous level.
Futagami, Satoshi; Kondo, Yuki; Yamano, Hidemasa; Kurisaka, Kenichi
Proceedings of Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management & Asian Symposium on Risk Assessment and Management (PSAM17 & ASRAM2024) (Internet), 9 Pages, 2024/10
Kurisaka, Kenichi; Nishino, Hiroyuki; Yamano, Hidemasa
Proceedings of Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management & Asian Symposium on Risk Assessment and Management (PSAM17 & ASRAM2024) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2024/10
The objective of this study is to implement an effectiveness evaluation of the measures for improving resilience of nuclear structures against excessive earthquake. In this study, those measures for improving resilience have an effect to enlarge their seismic safety margin. To evaluate effectiveness of those measures, seismic core damage frequency (CDF) is selected as an index. Reduction of CDF as an effectiveness index is quantified by applying seismic PRA technology. Target system is a loop-type next-generation sodium-cooled fast reactor, which adopts the building isolated from horizontal seismic ground motion. Even if the reactor vessel (RV) is buckled due to seismic shaking, it is expected that the RV maintains stable state without unstable failure such as rupture, collapse. Realistic consideration of the post-buckling behavior is regarded as a measure for improving resilience in this study. We set two cases for improving the resilience in the accident sequences analysis. The first case assumes low-cycle fatigue failure after buckling as the realistic failure mode of the RV, and we applied the fragility evaluated in our study. After the RV fatigue failure, the behavior of failure propagation is very uncertain. As the second case, the median seismic capacity to loss of reactor level is assumed to be slightly larger than that of fatigue failure of the RV. Analyses for both cases were performed, and the results were compared to the base case indicating significant reduction of CDF. Within the assumption, the measures for improving the resilience were significantly effective for decreasing CDF in excessive earthquake up to several times of a design basis ground motion. The seismic PRA technology could serve to the effectiveness evaluation of the measures for improving resilience of nuclear structures against excessive earthquake.
Yamano, Hidemasa; Takano, Kazuya; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Kikuchi, Shin; Kondo, Toshiki; Umeda, Ryota; Sato, Rika; Shirakura, Shota*
Dai-28-Kai Doryoku, Enerugi Gijutsu Shimpojiumu Koen Rombunshu (Internet), 5 Pages, 2024/06
This project studies investigation on safety design guideline and risk assessment technology for sodium-cooled fast reactor with the molten-salt heat storage system, development of evaluation method for heat transferring performance between sodium and molten-salt and improvement of the performance, and evaluation of chemical reaction characteristic between sodium and molten-salt and improvement of its safety. This paper describes the effect of sodium-molten salt heat transfer tube failure in addition to the project overview and progress.
Kurisaka, Kenichi
Mechanical Engineering Journal (Internet), 11(2), p.23-00377_1 - 23-00377_14, 2024/04
This study aims to understand the time-dependent change in the occurrence rate of leak from steam generator (SG) tubes in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). The target SFRs in the present paper are Phenix in France and BN-600 in Russia. By reviewing publicly available literature that show data from the SFRs, we have investigated the numbers of tube-to-tubeplate welds and tube-to-tube welds, heat transfer areas of tube base metal, operating hours of SGs, dates when SG tube leak occurred, locations of leak, and corrective actions taken after tube leak events, such as replacement of the module, in which a leak occurred. Based on these, we have estimated the time to leak and quantitatively analyzed the time-dependent change of the occurrence rates of SG tube leak for each of the above-mentioned parts by hazard plotting method. The results show that the rates of both Phenix and BN-600 decreased over time. For Phenix, this is probably thanks to improved welding and SG operating conditions. For BN-600, it seems that in many cases, the probable cause of the leak was initial defects that developed to failure during the early stage of reactor operation, and that no special countermeasure was taken in the later stages. Therefore, it would be natural to assume that the rate simply decreased over time. The rate of leak at tube-to-tube welds in Phenix shows significant increase in a short term after a certain period of time. This can be caused by thermal stress repeatedly exerted on the materials.
Nishino, Hiroyuki; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Naruto, Kenichi*; Gondai, Yoji; Yamamoto, Masaya
Mechanical Engineering Journal (Internet), 11(2), p.23-00409_1 - 23-00409_15, 2024/04
The effectiveness evaluation of safety measures against severe accident is necessary for restart of experimental sodium-cooled fast reactor Joyo in Japan. These safety measures correspond to those in defense-in-depth (DiD) level 4. In the previous study, a level-1 probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) at power was performed to calculate frequencies of the accident sequences of failure of safety measures in DiD level 1 to 3, to identify dominant accident sequence groups, and to identify dominant accident sequence for selecting important accident sequences in each accident sequence group which are needed for implementing the effectiveness evaluation of safety measures in DiD level 4. Based on this, the present study implemented level-1 PRA at power to show quantitatively reduction of those occurrence frequency by the safety measure in the DiD level 4. As the result, the frequency of each accident sequence group decreased significantly, and total frequency of the accident sequence groups decreased to about 1E-6 /reactor-year which is about 1/1000 times the one estimated in the previous study. The protected loss of heat sink was the largest contributor in all the accident groups and a dominant accident sequence in each accident group was also identified in this study.
Yamano, Hidemasa; Futagami, Satoshi; Ando, Masanori; Kurisaka, Kenichi
Transactions of the 27th International Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology (SMiRT 27) (Internet), 11 Pages, 2024/03
In this study, the dynamic structural analysis of the reactor vessel for excessive earthquake using the FINAS/STAR code has shown the elephant foot buckling deformation and calculated the cumulative fatigue failure fraction. Using the calculation results, this paper describes the fragility curve using the safety factor method, indicating the significantly improved curve compared the previous one.
Futagami, Satoshi; Yamano, Hidemasa; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Ujita, Hiroshi*
Proceedings of PSAM 2023 Topical Conference AI & Risk Analysis for Probabilistic Safety/Security Assessment & Management, 8 Pages, 2023/10
To create an innovation for efficient and effective social implementation of nuclear power plant PRA, automatic construction tool for fault tree architecture and automatic failure judgment tool to construct reliability database are developed by using AI and digitization technology. This paper describes overall development plan of PRA methodology using the AI technology and the progress of automatic FT creation tools development.
Ujita, Hiroshi*; Morimoto, Tatsuya*; Futagami, Satoshi; Yamano, Hidemasa; Kurisaka, Kenichi
Proceedings of PSAM 2023 Topical Conference AI & Risk Analysis for Probabilistic Safety/Security Assessment & Management, 8 Pages, 2023/10
This study is intended to develop PRA methodology using the AI technology. For this purpose, as a first step, the authors have been conducting a three-year program including the development of AI tools for automatic fault tree (FT) creation and automatic fault detection methodology for building reliability database. These AI tools are intended to enable any users to easily perform PRA with the same quality without user effect. For the automatic fault detection method, The AI tool is developed for extracting failure occurrence locations (system/equipment), failure modes, and causes from Japanese reliability databases of NUCIA(for light water reactors) and CORDS(for sodium-cooled fast reactors), and transforming them into a database using AI technologies.
Yamano, Hidemasa; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Takano, Kazuya; Kikuchi, Shin; Kondo, Toshiki; Umeda, Ryota; Shirakura, Shota*
Dai-27-Kai Doryoku, Enerugi Gijutsu Shimpojiumu Koen Rombunshu (Internet), 5 Pages, 2023/09
This project studies investigation on safety design guideline and risk assessment technology for sodium-cooled fast reactor with the molten-salt heat storage system, development of evaluation method for heat transferring performance between sodium and molten-salt and improvement of the performance, and evaluation of chemical reaction characteristic between sodium and molten-salt and improvement of its safety. The project overview is presented in this report.
Nishino, Hiroyuki; Yamano, Hidemasa; Kurisaka, Kenichi
Mechanical Engineering Journal (Internet), 10(4), p.22-00387_1 - 22-00387_20, 2023/08
For nuclear power plants, probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) should be performed not only against earthquake and tsunami, which are critical events especially in Japan, but also other external hazards such as strong wind. The aim of the present study is to develop a practical PRA methodology for sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) against strong wind, paying attention to the final heat sink, ambient air, that removes decay heat under accident conditions. First, this study used Gumbel distributions to estimate hazard curves of the strong wind based on weather data recorded in Japan. Second, it identified important structures, systems and components (SSCs) for decay heat removal, and developed an event tree that results in core damage, focusing on the impacts of missiles (e.g., steel pipes) caused by strong wind. It also identified missiles that can reach SSCs at elevated places, and calculated the fragility of the SSCs against the missiles as a product of two probabilities. One is a probability of the missiles that would enter an inlet or outlet of the decay heat removal system, and another is a probability of failure caused by missile impacts. Finally, it quantified conditional decay heat removal failure probabilities by introducing the fragilities into the event tree. The core damage frequency (CDF) was estimated at about 5x10-10/y. The dominant sequence is that strong wind causes offsite power loss and missiles, the missiles penetrate the diesel fuel tank, cause a fire, and the fire increases air temperature around the reactor building where air cooler inlets of decay heat removal systems are installed, leads to loss of power for the diesel generator for forced circulation cooling, resulting in loss of decay heat removal. Through the above, this study has developed the practical PRA methodology for SFRs against strong wind.
Kurisaka, Kenichi; Nishino, Hiroyuki; Yamano, Hidemasa
Proceedings of 30th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE30) (Internet), 8 Pages, 2023/05
The objective of this study is to develop an effectiveness evaluation methodology of the measures for improving resilience of nuclear structures against excessive earthquake by applying the failure mitigation technology. This study regarded those measures for improving resilience of important structures, systems, and components for safety to enlarge their seismic safety margin. To evaluate effectiveness of those measures, seismic core damage frequency (CDF) is selected as an index. Reduction of CDF as an effectiveness index is quantified by applying seismic PRA technology. Accident sequences leading to loss of decay heat removal are significant contributor to seismic CDF of sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs), and those sequences result in core damage via ultra-high temperature condition. This study improved the methodology to evaluate not only the measures against shaking due to excessive earthquake but also the measures at the ultra-high temperature condition. To examine applicability of the improved methodology, a trial calculation was implemented with some assumptions for a loop-type SFR. Within the assumption, the measures for improving resilience were significantly effective for decreasing CDF in excessive earthquake up to several times of a design basis ground motion. Through the applicability examination, the methodology for the effectiveness evaluation was developed successfully.
Nishino, Hiroyuki; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Naruto, Kenichi*; Gondai, Yoji; Yamamoto, Masaya
Proceedings of 30th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE30) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2023/05
The effectiveness evaluation of safety measures against severe accident is necessary for restart of experimental sodium-cooled fast reactor "Joyo" in Japan. These safety measures correspond to those in defense-in-depth (DiD) level 4. In the previous study, a level-1 probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) at power was performed to calculate frequencies of the accident sequences of failure of safety measures in DiD level 1 to 3, to identify dominant accident sequence groups, and to identify dominant accident sequence for selecting important accident sequences in each accident sequence group which are needed for implementing the effectiveness evaluation of safety measures in DiD level 4. Based on this, the present study implemented level-1 PRA at power to show quantitatively reduction of those occurrence frequency by the safety measure in the DiD level 4. As the result, the frequency of each accident sequence group decreased significantly, and total frequency of the accident sequence groups decreased to about 1
10
/reactor-year which is about 1/1000 times the one estimated in the previous study. The protected loss of heat sink was the largest contributor in all the accident groups and a dominant accident sequence in each accident group was also identified in this study.
Kurisaka, Kenichi
Proceedings of 30th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE30) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2023/05
This study aims to understand a time trend of the occurrence rate of steam generator (SG) tube leak in the existing sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) based on the observed data. The target on SFRs in the present paper is Phenix in France and BN600 in Russia. From the open literature review, we investigated the number of tube-to-tube plate weld, the number of tube-to-tube weld, heat transfer area of tube base metal, operating time of SGs, dates when SG tube leak occurred, leaked location, corrective action after tube leak such as replacement of leaked module. Based on these observed data, time to leak is estimated and then time trend of the occurrence rate of SG tube leak for each of the above-mentioned parts was quantitatively analyzed by the hazard plotting method. As a result, the rate of leak at tube-to-tube weld in Phenix shows increase with time due to probable cause of cyclic thermal stress in a short term. As for a long-term trend, the rate of tube leak in both Phenix and BN600 SGs indicated decrease with time probably thanks to improvement in welding and in SG operating condition and to removal of initial failure.
Onoda, Yuichi; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Yamano, Hidemasa
Proceedings of 30th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE30) (Internet), 7 Pages, 2023/05
The objective of this study is to develop an effectiveness evaluation methodology of the measures for improving resilience of nuclear structures at ultra-high temperature by using the failure mitigation technology. At the beginning, to identify the accident sequences having the potential to improve resilience, the characteristics of a next-generation loop-type sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) in Japan has been investigated by analyzing the event tree of level-1 and level-2 probabilistic risk assessment. As a result, event sequences of loss of heat removal systems (LOHRS) are identified. The effectiveness of the measures for improving resilience is evaluated by quantifying the reduction rate of core damage frequency before and after the introduction of the measures for improving resilience for all the accident sequences leading to LOHRS. To examine applicability of the developed methodology, a trial evaluation has conducted for a next-generation loop-type SFR in Japan. Through the applicability examined, the method for the effectiveness evaluation was developed successfully. The refinement of the conditional success probability of the measures for improving resilience is the future work.
Yamano, Hidemasa; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Takano, Kazuya; Kikuchi, Shin; Kondo, Toshiki; Umeda, Ryota; Shirakura, Shota*; Hayashi, Masaaki*
Proceedings of 8th International Conference on New Energy and Future Energy Systems (NEFES 2023) (Internet), p.27 - 34, 2023/00
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0.00(Green & Sustainable Science & Technology)This project studies investigation on safety design guideline and risk assessment technology for sodium-cooled fast reactor with the molten-salt heat storage system, development of evaluation method for heat transferring performance between sodium and molten-salt and improvement of the performance, and evaluation of chemical reaction characteristic between sodium and molten-salt and improvement of its safety. The project overview is presented in this report.
Kinoshita, Takahiro*; Okamura, Shigeki*; Nishino, Hiroyuki; Yamano, Hidemasa; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Futagami, Satoshi; Fukasawa, Tsuyoshi*
Transactions of the 26th International Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology (SMiRT-26) (Internet), 7 Pages, 2022/07
The seismic evaluation of key components such as reactor vessel is important for the Seismic Probabilistic Risk Assessment (S-PRA) in a Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR). Many components were damaged by cumulative damage like fatigue damage during seismic ground motion. However, general evaluation method for key components under seismic ground motion has been based on static loads and elastic region of materials. More accurate evaluation method for S-PRA, which can evaluate the failure of key components such as reactor vessels, has been actually required. In this study, failure probability evaluation method with integrated energy was developed by comparing the energy with vibration tests and fatigue tests. Vibration tests were performed to evaluate integrated vibration energy at failure by energy balance equation and fatigue tests were performed to evaluate integrated vibration energy at failure based on experimental results of fatigue tests.
Onoda, Yuichi; Nishino, Hiroyuki; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Yamano, Hidemasa
Proceedings of Asian Symposium on Risk Assessment and Management 2021 (ASRAM 2021) (Internet), 11 Pages, 2021/10
The effectiveness evaluations technology of the measures for improving resilience by applying a fracture control concept under ultra-high temperature conditions has developed for prototype sodium-cooled fast reactor Monju as a model plant, and the trial evaluation has conducted using this technology in this paper. The important accident sequences to which the fracture control concept is expected to be applied under ultra-high temperature condition are identified by investigating the results of the existing researches of level-2 probabilistic risk assessment for Monju. Accident sequences categorized in protected loss of heat sink and loss of reactor level are both identified as such important accident sequences which has the potential to prevent core damage. This study has developed the technology to evaluate the effectiveness of improving resilience, where the headings which stand for success or failure of the measures to improve resilience are introduced into the event tree, the branch probability of them is set, and the effectiveness of improving resilience is expressed as the reduction of core damage frequency. As a result of the trial evaluation of the effectiveness for the measures to improve resilience, it is confirmed that core damage frequency can be reduced by applying fracture control concept. The branch probability of the measures to improve resilience proposed in this study is tentatively assigned based on the assumption. This value is expected to be quantified by the forthcoming analyses of the integrity for the reactor vessel structure at ultra-high temperature. The technology developed in this study will be applied for the evaluation of improving resilience of the next generation sodium-cooled fast reactor.
Nishino, Hiroyuki; Onoda, Yuichi; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Yamano, Hidemasa
Proceedings of Asian Symposium on Risk Assessment and Management 2021 (ASRAM 2021) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2021/10
The objective of this study is to develop an effectiveness evaluations technology of the measures for improving resilience of nuclear structures against excessive earthquake by introducing the fracture control concept. After analyzing event tree in previous studies of PRA against earthquake, this study identified sequences of protected loss of heat sink and loss of reactor level induced from excessive earthquake as accident sequences in which improving resilience of nuclear structures become effective. This study focused on important components for safety (e.g., reactor vessel, air coolers, pipes of primary loops in decay heat removal systems, etc.) to be used as countermeasures for improving the resilience. Core damage frequency is selected as an index in evaluating effectiveness of the measures for improving the resilience. Seismic safety margin of the components is assumed to be enlarged when the measures for improving the resilience with the fracture control concept are implemented. Through the trial calculation, reduction effect of the core damage frequency was quantified. The result showed that the measures for improving the resilience are significantly effective for decreasing the core damage frequency in excessive earthquake twice higher than a design basis ground motion. The general concept for the effectiveness evaluations technology was formulated.
