Plant risk effect analysis focusing on digital I&C equipment failures

Abstract

Safety-critical digital systems have been installed in nuclear power plants and thus their safety effect evaluation has become an emerging issue. The multi-tasking feature of digital instrumentation and control (I&C) equipment could increase the risk factor because the I&C equipment affects the actuation of the safety functions in several mechanisms. In this study, we quantify the safety of the digital plant protection system in Korean nuclear power plants based on probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) technology. Fifteen fault-tree models for the digital reactor-trip system and seven for the safety-feature actuation system are constructed and integrated into the plant safety assessment model. The result of the sensitivity study shows the boundaries of a plant risk and the effect of the digital equipment failures on the total plant risk.