SITE MONITORING SYSTEMS FOR THE NUCLEAR FACILITIES IN KOREA: STATUS AND PROSPECT

The purpose of the Site Monitoring System (SMS) for nuclear facilities is to ensure continuously their site safety through the monitoring and analysis of the characteristics of geohazards that might affect the nuclear facilities. The targets of the SMS consist mainly of earthquake, surface deformation and flood.

Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company (KHNP) has been operating the Eupcheon fault monitoring system (EFMS), which is composed of strain meter, GPS, seismometer, creepmeter, etc. at or near the fault to monitor the behavior of the fault near the Wolsung Nuclear Power Plant site. Korea Radioactive Waste Agency (KORAD) has also been operating the SMS consisting of strain meter, GPS, seismometer, sea and ground water-level recorder to monitor the behavior of the near the fault and to ensure the site safety of a low-intermediate level radioactive waste disposal facility. On the other hand, Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS), as a regulatory body, plans to set up an independent SMS by the end of 2016 for cross-checking analysis, including comparative verification of measurement data produced from KHNP and KORAD. Also, KINS has been operating its own real-time seismic monitoring network on every nuclear power plant site and a radioactive waste disposal site. If earthquake magnitude more than 3.0 in Korean peninsula or ground acceleration more than 0.01g within the plant site occurs, KINS reports the analysis results to NSSC (Nuclear Safety and Security Commission) and also opens the information to the public.

In this paper, we introduce the Korean SMS which is operated and planed for site safety of nuclear facilities in south Korea, and discuss the technology for the data processing and DB development.