Probabilistic risk assessment on maritime spent nuclear fuel transportation (Part II: Ship collision probability)

Robby Christian, Hyun Gook Kang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

39 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper proposes a methodology to assess and reduce risks of maritime spent nuclear fuel transportation with a probabilistic approach. Event trees detailing the progression of collisions leading to transport casks’ damage were constructed. Parallel and crossing collision probabilities were formulated based on the Poisson distribution. Automatic Identification System (AIS) data were processed with the Hough Transform algorithm to estimate possible intersections between the shipment route and the marine traffic. Monte Carlo simulations were done to compute collision probabilities and impact energies at each intersection. Possible safety improvement measures through a proper selection of operational transport parameters were investigated. These parameters include shipment routes, ship's cruise velocity, number of transport casks carried in a shipment, the casks’ stowage configuration and loading order on board the ship. A shipment case study is presented. Waters with high collision probabilities were identified. Effective range of cruising velocity to reduce collision risks were discovered. The number of casks in a shipment and their stowage method which gave low cask damage frequencies were obtained. The proposed methodology was successful in quantifying ship collision and cask damage frequency. It was effective in assisting decision making processes to minimize risks in maritime spent nuclear fuel transportation.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)136-149
Number of pages14
JournalReliability Engineering and System Safety
Volume164
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 1 2017
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Maritime transportation
  • Ship collision probability
  • Spent nuclear fuel

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