A Petri Net Methodology for Modeling the Resilience of Nuclear Power Plants

Yan, Rundong; Dunnett, Sarah; Tolo, Silvia; Andrews, John

Abstract

In the paper, a novel Petri Net (PN) method for assessing the resilience of nuclear reactors is presented. The PN model constructed aims to simulate the failure of the subsystems in a reactor caused by either natural degradation or external disruptive events such as tsunamis and earthquakes, the resultant accidents due to the failure of different reactor subsystems, the responses of the reactor to different accidents, and the recovery and maintenance of the reactor after the accident. The simulation results are analyzed to identify the key characteristics of the resilience of the nuclear reactor. To demonstrate the feasibility and the capability of the proposed approach, the failure of four heat transport pumps in the primary cooling system of an experimental reactor is chosen as a case study. The research shows that PN modeling is an effective tool for evaluating the resilience of nuclear power plants.

Citation

Yan, R., Dunnett, S., Tolo, S., & Andrews, J. (2021, September). A Petri Net Methodology for Modeling the Resilience of Nuclear Power Plants. Presented at 31st European Safety and Reliability Conference, Angers, France

• Presentation Conference Type: Edited Proceedings
• Conference Name: 31st European Safety and Reliability Conference
• Start Date: Sep 19, 2021
• End Date: Sep 23, 2021
• Acceptance Date: Jul 16, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Sep 19, 2021
• Publication Date: Sep 19, 2021
• Deposit Date: Jul 16, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 19, 2021
• Pages: 2426-2432
• Book Title: Proceedings of the 31st European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL 2021)
• ISBN: 9789811820168
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/978-981-18-2016-8_109-cd
• Keywords: Resilience; Nuclear power plant; Petri nets; Maintenance; Mathematical modeling; Simulation
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5787971
• Publisher URL: https://cmswebonline.com/esrel2021-epro/html/109.xml
• Related Public URLs: http://esrel2021.org/en/index.html; ; https://cmswebonline.com/esrel2021-epro/index.html