International Journal of Performability Engineering 

Volume 3, Number 1, January 2007

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Paper 14 - pp. 159-173 Return to Index ABWR Initiating Event Analysis for Risk-Informed Applications  CHUN-CHANG CHAO1*, CHING-TIEN HUANG1,  MENG-CHI CHEN2 and WANG CHYUAN CHEN3    1Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, Tao Yuan, Taiwan  2Nuclear Information Center, Taipei, Taiwan  3Taiwan Power Company, Taipei, Taiwan   (Received from the Guest Editor on August 9, 2006)   Abstract:  With the improvements inspired from past BWR operating experiences, several ABWR type of nuclear power plants are now operating or under construction in Japan and Taiwan. The process to develop PRA model for ABWR is similar with those of past BWRs. The key point is the PRA model should reflect the particular designs and operating procedures of ABWR. Initiating event analysis is the first work item of PRA model development. This paper describes the process and results of initiating event analysis for ABWR which is under construction in Taiwan. Numerous references were reviewed to ensure the completeness of analysis for the need of future risk-informed applications. During the analysis, most staffs of operating and technical analysis divisions were involved in the discussions to identify and group the initiating events. The opinions from the plant staffs are very helpful for the completeness of the analysis. More than 20 initiating events were identified which can be classified into four categories. Some initiating event frequencies are determined by solving system fault tree to reflect the system design and plant configuration. Each initiating events has its own event tree by considering the actual plant configuration, plant response and actions of operating crew after the occurrence of the initiating event. This number of initiating events is significant larger than a typical PRA model had since some events were separated for the need of risk-informed applications.   Key Words: Initiating Event Analysis, Probabilistic Risk Assessment, Risk-Informed Application        Click "Add to Cart" to purchase the full article