Activities for Hydrogen control during severe accidents in Korea

Since the TMI and Chernobyl accidents, the issue of safety to prevent severe accidents has become a major regulatory issue in Korea as in other countries during the early 1990s. Thus, the provision for adequate measures to control hydrogen during severe accidents became a conditional requirement of the construction permit for the first Korean standard plants, UCN 3 and 4, in 1993. This paper is to introduce the status of measures and the accident management program to control hydrogen during severe accidents in Korean plants, especially UCN 3 and 4, and the position of the regulatory authority, KINS, for current and future plants. Also, experimental and analytical research activities related to this area in Korea are discussed technically. These particularly include the local measurement of hydrogen mixing, to be able to provide data to confirm the 3D code and studies for ignition characteristics of hydrogen/air/steam mixtures and to examine the performance of igniters. (author)