Development of Probabilistic Risk Assessment Methodology of Decay Heat Removal Function Against Combination Hazards of Strong Wind and Rainfall for Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactors

This paper describes probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) methodology development against combination hazard of strong wind and rainfall. In this combination hazard PRA, a hazard curve has been evaluated in terms of maximum instantaneous wind speed, hourly rainfall, and rainfall duration. A scenario analysis provided event sequences resulted from the combination hazard of strong wind and rainfall. The event sequence was characterized by the function loss of auxiliary cooling system, of which heat transfer tubes could crack due to cycle fatigue by cyclic contact of rain droplets. This situation could occur if rain droplets ingress into air cooler occurs after the air cooler roof failure due to strong-wind-generated missile impact. This event sequence was incorporated into an event tree which addressed component failure by the combination hazard. Finally, a core damage frequency has been estimated the order of 10⁻⁷/year in total by multiplying discrete hazard frequencies by conditional decay heat removal failure probabilities. A dominant sequence is the failure of the auxiliary cooling system by the missile impact after the failure of external fuel tank by the missile impact. A dominant hazard is the maximum instantaneous wind speed of 40–60 m/s, the hourly rainfall of 20–40 mm/h, and the rainfall duration of 0–10 h.