Vital Area Identification Analysis of A Hypothetical Nuclear Facility Using VIPEX

Abstract

Abstract : The urgent VAI(Vital Area Identification) method development is required since ‘The Act of Physical Pro-tection and Radiological Emergency’ that is established in 2003 requires an evaluation of physical threats in nuclear facilities and an establishment of physical protection in Korea. The KAERI(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) has developed the VAI methodology and VAI software called as VIPEX(Vital area Identification Package EXpert) for identifying the vital areas. This study is to demonstrate the applicability of KAERI’s VAI methodology to a hypo-thetical facility, and to identify the importance of information of cable and piping runs when identifying the vital areas. It is necessarily needed to consider cable and piping runs to determine the accurate and realistic TEPS(Top Event Prevention Set). If the information of cable and piping runs of a nuclear power plant is not considered when determining the TEPSs, it is absolutely impossible to acquire the complete TEPSs, and the results could be distorted by missing it. The VIPEX and FTREX(Fault Tree Reliability Evaluation eXpert) properly calculate MCSs and TEPSs using the fault tree model, and provide the most cost-effective method to save the VAI and physical protection costs.