UK Partner
Ashraf Labib, Professor Faculty OSP/BAL
Ukraine Partner
Volodymyr Skalozubov, Professor Department of Nuclear Power Plants
Co-Investigators
Kochnieva Valeriia, Researcher Scientific Center for Energy and Ecology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Sara Hadleigh-Dunn, Doctor, Reader in Risk Management / BAL
Project objectives
The current issue of the nuclear energy safety state (level) in Ukraine under extreme conditions refers to the situation at the largest in Europe Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), the Zaporizhzhia one, due to the plant location in the war zone and the difficulties in the plant operation and management as well as its safety regulation in the occupied territory. The nuclear power plant is located immediately in the combat zone. Only in the last three months there occurred 4 emergency shutdowns with the complete de-energization of power units (similar to the initial emergency event at the Fukushima-1 NPP). Тhe ZNPP location in the temporarily occupied territory determines the objective difficulties with its operation, management and safety regulation. Therefore, a reasonable assessment of ZNPP safety condition regarding the possibility of nuclear and radiation accidents is an urgent problem. The proposed study is dedicated to solving these issues. In the proposed project, the possibility of Zaporizhzhia NPP industrial site flooding is analyzed departing from the elaborated hydrodynamic model and justifying calculation; the conditions of ZNPP industrial site possible flooding are determined depending on the warhead power producing a corresponding destructive effect. The economic development and welfare of Ukraine will be significantly impacted by the outcome of this project.
Project goals
The proposed methodology will focus on the development of improved strategies and tools for analysis in order to prevent and mitigate against accidents with the NPP with respect to the potential hazard of complete blackout, considering the Fukushima accident lessons. The project will also apply analytical tools used by the British team to analyze Fukushima accident, where they will be applied to a hypothetical scenario generated in consultations with experts in NPP from the Ukraine. The deterministic analysis of the impact of military impacts on the protective safety barriers at the Zaporszhzhia NPP is based on the results of modelling extreme natural phenomena. The deterministic model of flooding of the Zaporizhzhia NPP site due to the destruction of the dam of the Kakhovka reservoir was verified on the results of the tsunami flooding of the Fukushima NPP. The modernization of strategies and systems for managing blackout accidents at NPPs with WWER is based on deterministic modelling of thermodynamic processes in the accident managing with pumps driven by steam generators.
Role of each Partner
- The Ukrainian partners will provide an analysis of the current safety level of Ukraine's nuclear power industry (especially in relation to the occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP) under extreme operating conditions, a deterministic analysis of external military impacts on the conditions for the nuclear and radiation accidents at the Zaporizhzhia NPP, a deterministic analysis of the modernization of strategies and systems for managing blackout accident at nuclear power plants with WWER reactors, taking into account the lessons of the Fukushima accident.
- The British Partner will provide expertise in using analytical methods such as failure mode effect and criticality analysis (FMECA), fault tree analysis (FTA), reliability block diagrams (RBD), and Bow tie Modelling (BTM), and minimum cut set analysis (CSA), in order to model the various hazards, vulnerabilities, and resilience modelling in order to propose possible safety barriers for prevention and mitigation. Such analysis will be compared to similar ones done for the Fukushima NPP disaster.
Timing
Project Start Date: 1st February, 2023
Project End Date: 31st August, 2023
Expected results
1. Joint publication in journal of Safety Science (https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/safety-science) or Risk Analysis (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15396924).
