Title Page of Paper No.
01
Modeling Of Common Cause Failures (CCFs) by
using Beta Factor Parametric Model
Qazi Muhammad Nouman Amjad, Muhammad Zubair
Department Of Basic Sciences
University Of Engineering & Technology, Taxila.
qazinoumanamjad@gmail.com
Abstract
Nuclear accidents and incidents such as Three Mile Island (TMI-
2) accident (1979), Chernobyl disaster (1986) and the recent
Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011) have caused people to be
suspicious of the safety of nuclear energy, and have reduced the
level of trust among public. Common cause failure (CCF) has been
a major element of such accidents in terrestrial nuclear power
reactors because of high redundancy built into the systems and
susceptibility of these redundant systems to CCF mechanisms. For
this purpose, ad hoc approaches used to be taken to address
vulnerabilities to CCF by operating staff of the plants. A CCF
event is a result of simultaneous failure of two or more individual
components. Such an event can signicantly affect the availability
of safety systems and has long been recognized as an important issue
in the probabilistic safety assessment (PSA). So a complicated
and unresolved problem in the subject of safety and reliability is to
model CCF in PSA. To overcome this problem the
present research highlights a mathematical model to estimate
system unavailability in nuclear power plants (NPPs) as well as in
other industries. This mathematical model is based on Beta Factor
parametric model. The motivation for development of this model
lays in the fact that one of the most widespread software such as
for fault tree (FT) and event tree (ET) modeling as part of the PSA
does not comprise the option for simultaneous assignment of single
failure event to multiple CCF groups.
A signicant nding from such modeling is that, in contrast to
common expectations, a too early nuclear phase-out will not serve
the deployment of renewable energy sources and rational use of
energy. The proposed method can be seen as an advantage of the
explicit modeling of CCF.
1. Introduction
The common cause failures (CCFs) refer to a specic class
of dependent failure events that are considered to have a
potential of simultaneous occurrence due to a shared cause.
This shared cause is an implication of a simultaneous
existence of a root cause and a coupling mechanism. The root
cause is identied as the most basic cause of
component failure which, if corrected, would prevent
reoccurrence of the cause. The coupling mechanism
implicates the condition for multiple components to be
affected by the same cause. In general, the susceptibility of
a system containing redundant components to dependent
failures, as opposed to independent failures, is determined
by the presence of the coupling mechanisms.
CCFs are being acknowledged as one of the most challenging
issues in the probabilistic safety assessment
University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, Pakistan.
Kyung Hee University, South Korea.
Gyunyoung Heo
Department of Nuclear Engineering, Kyung Hee
University, South Korea.
(PSA), especially within PSA fault tree (FT) modeling of
safety systems in nuclear power plants. The issue of CCF
has attracted a substantial academic attention, through years
as well as lately.
This paper presents a convenient method for explicit
modeling of single component failure event simultaneously
within several different common cause failure groups
(CCFGs). Each CCFG is dened on the basis of specic
coupling mechanism. The presented methodology that
accommodates single component failure event to be
simultaneously assigned to different CCFGs given different
coupling mechanisms is based on a modication of the
frequently used and to the scientic community well-known
Beta Factor parametric model. It is the most commonly used
CCF-model, and was originally proposed by Fleming [1].
This model assumes that a certain percentage of all failures
are CCFs. When using the beta-factor model, we have to
assume that each element of a system can fail in two different
ways: as an independent failure that only affects the element
considered, or as a dependent failure (CCF) where all the
elements in the subsystem fail at the same time (or within a
short time interval).The motivation for this study is the
incapability of one of the most widespread PSA software for
FT and event tree (ET) modeling [2], for simultaneous
assignment of one single component failure event in more
than one CCFG within the fault tree analysis (FTA)
technique.
2. Modeling of common cause failures in the
probabilistic safety assessment
2.1. Overview of PSA
PSA is being acknowledged as the most effective tool for
safety and risk management in NPPs. The two most
commonly used techniques for system modeling within PSA
for NPPs are the fault tree analysis (FTA) and the event tree
analysis (ETA). The purpose of system modeling in PSA is to
provide an abstract representation of the ways in which
systems can fail to perform their intended functions FTA
and the ways in which system successes and failures interact
with one another in the course of accident sequence
progressions ETA [3].
FTA is a tool to identify and assess all combinations of
undesired events in the context of system operation and its
environment that can lead to the undesired state of a system.
Undesired state of the system is represented by a top event.
Logical gates connect the basic events (BEs) to the top
event. BEs are the ultimate parts of the FTA, representing
 Title Page of Paper No. 02
Annals of Nuclear Energy 90 (2016) 106114

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Annals of Nuclear Energy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/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

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

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2015.12.004
0306-4549/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
 Title Page of Paper No. 03
Uncertainty reduction using multivariate reliability models
Muhammad Zubair
Department of Nuclear Engineering,
University of Sharjah, 27272
Sharjah, UAE.
Email: zubairheu@gmail.com
Abstract-There are various modeling techniques which are used in almost
every field of science and engineering to estimate different entities on a
set of parameters. These estimations contain uncertainty and
imprecision due to non-ideal behavior of input data used in the modeling
techniques. In risk assessment, reliability models are used in
Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA). These models are usually based
on some assumptions. They have uncertainties due to inadequate
assumptions which must be evaluated accurately to identi/Y the
unambiguous reliability of the safety systems. The uncertainty whether it
is of model's assumption or model's parameter is propagated in the
whole risk model. So, the estimation of uncertainty is an essential part of
measurement in the calculations of every real world problem particularly
in risk assessment.
The two most commonly used techniques which are widely adopted in
different fields for uncertainty evaluation are Monte Carlo Simulation
techniques and analytical linear approximation techniques. The former
technique lacks an analytical expression to relate input uncertainties to
output uncertainties whereas the latter technique is limited to linear
systems or more precisely the lalter technique is limited to weakly non
linear systems. In order to overcome this problem, the present research
proposes that uncertainty can be analyzed by using multi-variate
reliability models more compactly and easily which will also provide the
degree of covariance between estimated parameters. The Uncertainty
Analysis Methodology is equally integral i.e. this analysis directly links
with the stages needed for parameter estimation. It is used in the
presented work as a sharp tool to reduce uncertainty in model's
assumption as weil as in model's parameter. In this methodology,
Probabilistic approach is used to reduce model's parameter uncertainty
and sensitivity assessment is used to reduce model's assumption
uncertainty. The proposed research highlights the very important aspect
of uncertainty reduction which will help to improve the effectiveness of
PSA by controlling and monitoring of the safety
Qazi Muhammad Nouman Amjad
Department of Basic Sciences,
University of Engineering & Technology,
Taxila, Pakistan.
Email: qazinoumanamjad@gmail.com
factors in a more reliable and belter manner in risk assessment
strategies.
Keywords- Uncertainty, sensitivity, multivariate models, reliability
I. INTRODUCTION
The world has been witnessing the rapid progress in the field of
safety, reliability and Digital Instrumentation and Control
Systems (DI&C) since the time of Chernobyl disaster.
Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) helps to control risk and
safety factors quite effectively in nuclear industry [1]. There are
various reliability models which are used in PSA to analyze the
safety of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). These models are either
probabilistic or deterministic depending upon the nature of the
analysis. Probabilistic approach (rather than the other approach
es ) is discussed in this research work. The motivation to adopt
this approach lies in the following facts: useful for uncertainty
evaluation, common and usual in PSA levels and also useful in
Bayes theorem decision making. The decision theoretic
foundations of other approaches are not yet developed as
consistently as the Bayesian decision theory. Each model is
characterized by some of its parameters. The parameters are
the input data in risk evaluation and can be estimated from
historical failure statistics [2]. Model ca1culations play a vital role
in the present analysis because all the decisions related to
nuclear safety are made on the basis of these ca1culations.
Usually, these ca1culations have some uncertainty due to
imperfect model's assumptions. One has to trust these
calculations because there is no experimental data available for
some types of failures such as the rare events data is scarcely
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

unit.Temperature 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 NaN03salts.In 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.

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