Title Page of Paper No.

01

Modeling Of Common Cause Failures (CCFs) by

using Beta Factor Parametric Model
Qazi Muhammad Nouman Amjad, Muhammad Zubair Gyunyoung Heo
Department Of Basic Sciences Department of Nuclear Engineering, Kyung Hee
University Of Engineering & Technology, Taxila. University, South Korea.
qazinoumanamjad@[Link]
Abstract (PSA), especially within PSA fault tree (FT) modeling of
safety systems in nuclear power plants. The issue of CCF
Nuclear accidents and incidents such as Three Mile Island (TMI- has attracted a substantial academic attention, through years
2) accident (1979), Chernobyl disaster (1986) and the recent as well as lately.
Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011) have caused people to be
suspicious of the safety of nuclear energy, and have reduced the
This paper presents a convenient method for explicit
level of trust among public. Common cause failure (CCF) has been modeling of single component failure event simultaneously
a major element of such accidents in terrestrial nuclear power within several different common cause failure groups
reactors because of high redundancy built into the systems and (CCFGs). Each CCFG is dened on the basis of specic
susceptibility of these redundant systems to CCF mechanisms. For coupling mechanism. The presented methodology that
this purpose, ad hoc approaches used to be taken to address accommodates single component failure event to be
vulnerabilities to CCF by operating staff of the plants. A CCF simultaneously assigned to different CCFGs given different
event is a result of simultaneous failure of two or more individual
components. Such an event can signicantly affect the availability
coupling mechanisms is based on a modication of the
of safety systems and has long been recognized as an important issue frequently used and to the scientic community well-known
in the probabilistic safety assessment (PSA). So a complicated Beta Factor parametric model. It is the most commonly used
and unresolved problem in the subject of safety and reliability is to CCF-model, and was originally proposed by Fleming [1].
model CCF in PSA. To overcome this problem the This model assumes that a certain percentage of all failures
present research highlights a mathematical model to estimate are CCFs. When using the beta-factor model, we have to
system unavailability in nuclear power plants (NPPs) as well as in assume that each element of a system can fail in two different
other industries. This mathematical model is based on Beta Factor
parametric model. The motivation for development of this model ways: as an independent failure that only affects the element
lays in the fact that one of the most widespread software such as considered, or as a dependent failure (CCF) where all the
for fault tree (FT) and event tree (ET) modeling as part of the PSA elements in the subsystem fail at the same time (or within a
does not comprise the option for simultaneous assignment of single short time interval).The motivation for this study is the
failure event to multiple CCF groups. incapability of one of the most widespread PSA software for
FT and event tree (ET) modeling [2], for simultaneous
A signicant nding from such modeling is that, in contrast to
assignment of one single component failure event in more
common expectations, a too early nuclear phase-out will not serve
the deployment of renewable energy sources and rational use of than one CCFG within the fault tree analysis (FTA)
energy. The proposed method can be seen as an advantage of the technique.
explicit modeling of CCF.
2. Modeling of common cause failures in the
probabilistic safety assessment
1. Introduction 2.1. Overview of PSA
The common cause failures (CCFs) refer to a specic class PSA is being acknowledged as the most effective tool for
safety and risk management in NPPs. The two most
of dependent failure events that are considered to have a
commonly used techniques for system modeling within PSA
potential of simultaneous occurrence due to a shared cause.
for NPPs are the fault tree analysis (FTA) and the event tree
This shared cause is an implication of a simultaneous
analysis (ETA). The purpose of system modeling in PSA is to
existence of a root cause and a coupling mechanism. The root
provide an abstract representation of the ways in which
cause is identied as the most basic cause of
systems can fail to perform their intended functions FTA
component failure which, if corrected, would prevent
and the ways in which system successes and failures interact
reoccurrence of the cause. The coupling mechanism
with one another in the course of accident sequence
implicates the condition for multiple components to be
progressions ETA [3].
affected by the same cause. In general, the susceptibility of
FTA is a tool to identify and assess all combinations of
a system containing redundant components to dependent
undesired events in the context of system operation and its
failures, as opposed to independent failures, is determined
environment that can lead to the undesired state of a system.
by the presence of the coupling mechanisms.
Undesired state of the system is represented by a top event.
CCFs are being acknowledged as one of the most challenging
issues in the probabilistic safety assessment Logical gates connect the basic events (BEs) to the top
event. BEs are the ultimate parts of the FTA, representing
University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, Pakistan.
Kyung Hee University, South Korea.
 Title Page of Paper No. 02
Annals of Nuclear Energy 90 (2016) 106114

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Annals of Nuclear Energy

journal homepage: [Link]/locate/ an ucen e

Calculation and updating of Common Cause Failure unavailability

by using alpha factor model
Muhammad Zubair a,, Qazi Muhammad Nouman Amjad b

a
Nuclear Engineering Department, University of Sharjah, 27272, United Arab Emirates
b
Department of Basic Sciences, University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, Pakistan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The most lethal role of Common Cause Failures (CCFs), which motivate the experts to investigate it, is the
Received 23 May 2015 dependent behavior therein contained, which leads to simultaneous failure of the systems. Highly redun-
Received in revised form 3 December 2015 dant systems are more susceptible to be affected by CCFs and also CCFs have been recognized as the prin-
Accepted 8 December 2015
cipal contributor in the terrestrial reactor accidents. In the past, plenty of work has been done regarding
the calculation of unavailability of different types of systems due to CCFs by using different techniques
such as fault tree analysis (FTA). But the qualitative aspects such as human errors, maintenance faults
Keywords:
and poor components quality cannot be updated by using FTA as the changes occur. So in order to over-
Reliability
come this problem, multinomial distribution function and its conjugate Dirichlet distribution function
Failure probability Common
Cause Failures Auxiliary Feed has been used as likelihood and prior, respectively, in Bayes theorem to obtain an updated posterior func-
Water System tion of the same form as Dirichlet distribution function thus improving the working and monitoring capa-
bility of Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA). Furthermore, the presented research highlights a
mathematical model to estimate system unavailability due to CCF by using alpha factor model. By using
this model, we can calculate failure probability (unavailability) of the systems quite accurately through
the two parameters ak and Qt. The ease of using the proposed model can be assessed through the brief
analysis of a case study of Auxiliary Feed Water System (AFWS). AFWS is used in all designs of
Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). It plays a vital role in maintaining a heat sink by providing feedwater
to the steam generators.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Components fail within a selected period of time such that

success of the PRA mission would be uncertain.
A CCF event occurs (NUREG/CR 5485, 1998) when; Component failures result from a single shared cause and
coupling mechanism.
Two or more individual components fail or are degraded, A component failure occurs within the established component
involving failures during demand, in-service testing, or deficien- boundary.
cies that would have resulted in a failure if a demand signal had
been received. The Common Cause Failures (CCFs) has been under considera-
tion since the time of the reactor safety study wash 1400
(NUREG/75-014, 1975). CCFs belong to a particular class of depen-
Abbreviations: PSA, Probabilistic Safety Assessment; CCF, Common Cause dent failure events that are considered to have a potential of simul-
Failure; CCCG, common cause component group; BE, basic event; PWR, Pressur- taneous occurrence due to a shared cause. This shared cause is an
ized Water Reactor; AFWS, Auxiliary Feed Water System; MDPs, motor driven implication of a simultaneous existence of a root cause (most basic
pumps; TDPs, Turbine Driven Pumps; CST, Condensate Storage Tank; MOVs, Motor cause of component failure which, if corrected would prevent reoc-
Operated Valve; AOVs, air operated valves; MOOS-M, maintenance out of service
for motors; MOOS-T, maintenance out of service for turbines; FTS-M, failure to start
currence of the cause, it tells Why did the item fail?) and a coupling
for motors; FTS-T, failure to start for turbines; FTS-D, failure to start for drivers; mechanism (implicates condition for multiple components to be
FTR-M, failure to run for motors; FTR-T, failure to run for turbines; FTO, failure to affected by the same cause, it tells Why were several items
open; FTC, failure to close; FRC, failure to remain closed. affected?). Coupling mechanism is the property that makes multi-
Corresponding author. Tel.: +971 567146701.
ple items susceptible to the same root cause. Fig. 1 elaborates the
E-mail address: zubairheu@[Link] (M. Zubair).

[Link]
0306-4549/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
 Title Page of Paper No. 03
Uncertainty reduction using multivariate reliability models

Muhammad Zubair Qazi Muhammad Nouman Amjad

Department of Nuclear Engineering, Department of Basic Sciences,
University of Sharjah, 27272 University of Engineering & Technology,
Sharjah, UAE. Taxila, Pakistan.
Email: zubairheu@[Link] Email: qazinoumanamjad@[Link]

Abstract-There are various modeling techniques which are used in almost factors in a more reliable and belter manner in risk assessment

every field of science and engineering to estimate different entities on a strategies.

set of parameters. These estimations contain uncertainty and
Keywords- Uncertainty, sensitivity, multivariate models, reliability
imprecision due to non-ideal behavior of input data used in the modeling
techniques. In risk assessment, reliability models are used in I. INTRODUCTION
Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA). These models are usually based The world has been witnessing the rapid progress in the field of
on some assumptions. They have uncertainties due to inadequate
safety, reliability and Digital Instrumentation and Control
assumptions which must be evaluated accurately to identi/Y the
Systems (DI&C) since the time of Chernobyl disaster.
unambiguous reliability of the safety systems. The uncertainty whether it
Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) helps to control risk and
is of model's assumption or model's parameter is propagated in the
safety factors quite effectively in nuclear industry [1]. There are
whole risk model. So, the estimation of uncertainty is an essential part of
measurement in the calculations of every real world problem particularly
various reliability models which are used in PSA to analyze the

in risk assessment. safety of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). These models are either

The two most commonly used techniques which are widely adopted in probabilistic or deterministic depending upon the nature of the
different fields for uncertainty evaluation are Monte Carlo Simulation analysis. Probabilistic approach (rather than the other approach
techniques and analytical linear approximation techniques. The former es ) is discussed in this research work. The motivation to adopt
technique lacks an analytical expression to relate input uncertainties to this approach lies in the following facts: useful for uncertainty
output uncertainties whereas the latter technique is limited to linear
evaluation, common and usual in PSA levels and also useful in
systems or more precisely the lalter technique is limited to weakly non
Bayes theorem decision making. The decision theoretic
linear systems. In order to overcome this problem, the present research
foundations of other approaches are not yet developed as
proposes that uncertainty can be analyzed by using multi-variate
consistently as the Bayesian decision theory. Each model is
reliability models more compactly and easily which will also provide the
degree of covariance between estimated parameters. The Uncertainty characterized by some of its parameters. The parameters are

Analysis Methodology is equally integral i.e. this analysis directly links the input data in risk evaluation and can be estimated from
with the stages needed for parameter estimation. It is used in the historical failure statistics [2]. Model ca1culations play a vital role
presented work as a sharp tool to reduce uncertainty in model's in the present analysis because all the decisions related to
assumption as weil as in model's parameter. In this methodology, nuclear safety are made on the basis of these ca1culations.
Probabilistic approach is used to reduce model's parameter uncertainty
Usually, these ca1culations have some uncertainty due to
and sensitivity assessment is used to reduce model's assumption
imperfect model's assumptions. One has to trust these
uncertainty. The proposed research highlights the very important aspect
calculations because there is no experimental data available for
of uncertainty reduction which will help to improve the effectiveness of
some types of failures such as the rare events data is scarcely
PSA by controlling and monitoring of the safety
available.
 978-1-4673-9073-6/17/$31.00 2017 IEEE

Proceedings of 2017 14th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST) 361
Islamabad, Pakistan, 10th -14th January, 2017

Title Page of Paper No. 04

Analytical analysis of latent heat thermal energy storage

model for solar thermal power plants
Muhammad Zeeshan Khalid*, Muhammad Zubair**, Majid Ali***, Qazi Nouman Amjad*
*Department ofBasic Sciences, University of Engineering and technology, 47050 Taxila, Pakistan
**Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of Sharjah, 27272, UAE
***US Pakistan Centre for Advanced Studies in Energy (USPCAS -E), H-12 NUST, Pakistan
operating capability of solar plants. But these plants have one
Abstract- In this paper latent heat thermal energy storage system was studied using analytical
major drawback which is their reduced or no power generation
method for solar thermal power plant applications. The working fluid circulating in circular tube
during cloudy or night hour conditions. To overcome this
by forced convection charges and discharge phase change material based on energy storage

[Link] distribution and parametric study was performed in order to study the effects limitation Thermal Energy Storage (TES) unit has also been
of convection on the melting/solidification of KN03 and [Link] order to provide the
introduced in many plants [1]. After the energy crisis at 1973-
guidelines for system analysis and design optimization, temerature distribtuion along the axial

and radial direction has been obtained and represented in 3d graphs.

[Link] change material based Thermal energy storage
(TES) units have become a key area of research. Consumption
and depletion of natural resources such as fossil fuels energy
demand increment has increased the gap between energy
supply and demand. This energy gap can be filled by storing
Keywords- Energy Storage, Circular tube, Latent heat, Phase change material, Congugate

laminar forced convection excess energy in a suitable form. There are two types of energy
storage, namely long term and short term. If energy is stored for
I. INTRODUCTION
few hours, it is termed as short term energy storage and is used
The current economic and technological advancement has for different domestic and industrial applications. Energy
increased the load of energy sourees, many conventional storage helps in the reservation of natural resources and
energy sources are quite limited and have much hazardous depletion of capital cost which leads to the cost effective system
effect on the health of living beings and environment of our [2]. TES devises are generally categorised as sensible heat
earth, besides this emission of Green House Gas is considered storage and latent heat storage (LHS) devices. Although
the main cause of environmental changes. sensible heat storage is widely used for energy storage in
In view of these problems a need of an efficient and clean energy indutrial application, but latent heat thermal energy storage
source through the use of advanced technologies and systems (LHTES) devices have attracted wide range of attraction at
are fostering day by day. For this purpose different types of solar industrial and domestic applications. LHTES provides large
power plant are now being used to convert solar energy into energy storage capacity with smaller temperature tluctuations
electricity production unit. These plants are constructed in areas as compare to sensible heat storage [3,4].Previous study has
which has high solar heat flux and long days to increase the showed PCM has 3-4 times more heat storage capacity volume
than sensible heat storage devices in the temperature increment storage for industrial applications. PCMs is one of the effective
of 20C [5]. However, due to the low thermal conductivity, techniques to store solar energy daytime, during which energy
supercooling and stability of thermal properties of PCM causes is being absorbed and stored by PCM and retrieved during cold
the difficulties for LHTES devices [6]. hours or night.

Direct solar radiation is thought to be as one of the propective

and effective energy sources and it can be utilized for energy

978-14673-9073-6/17/$31.00 2017 IEEE

581
Proceedings of 2017 14th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST)
Islamabad, Pakistan, 10th -14th January, 2017