Nuclear reactor safety analysis

STAMPS, D.W., BENEDICK, W.B., TIESZEN, S.R., Hydrogen-Air-Diluent Detonation Study for Nuclear Reactor Safety Analysis, Report NUREG/CR-5525, SAND89-2398, Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque, USA (1991). 

In 1967, E R. Farmer of the United Kingdom proposed that the probabilities as well as consequences of potential accidents need to be estimated to assess the associated risk. Farmer used 1-131 as a surrogate for consequences. By plotting the probability and consequence of each postulated accident, one could distinguish those with high risk from those with low risk. He proposed a boundary line as a criterion for acceptable risk. Farmer s work was a conceptual breakthrough in nuclear reactor safety analysis. Farmer takes full credit as the originator and pioneer of PRA. 

The notion that methods of statistical analysis should be applied to reactor safety standards was first put forward by Siddall of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Chalk River, Ontario in 1959 (57). This early paper is of interest because it invokes the notion of a balance between increased wealth of the community that may be expected to accrue from the advent of nuclear power on the credit side, and risks of injuries and deaths because of the hazards of the nuclear process on the other it goes on to suggest money costs (economic criteria) as the avenue through which to achieve such a balance. The details given in the paper are only generally relevant today, but some of the introductory sentences have a modern sound to them and are worth quoting as an introduction to the basic philosophy of the probability approach to reactor safety. The study of nuclear-reactor safety (i.e., in 1959, some 15 years ago in the life of an industry now only 20 years of age) is in an unsatisfactory state. Some aspects of the problem have received... 

H. TOFFER, Nuclear Criticality Safety Analysis and Technical Basis for the Storage of N Reactor Irradiated Fuels In K Reactor Basins, UNI-263, United Nuclear Industries, Inc. (Mar. 1975). 

Our approach in this chapter will begin with an overview in Section 21.1 of the common physical and mathematical aspects that are important to the study of criticalities, and then follow this in Sections 21.2 and 21.3 with the particular concepts, analytical approaches, tools, and data that are used in the disciplines of nuclear reactor analysis and nuclear criticality safety analysis, respectively. 

Muhlestein L.D, Application of Na Concrete Reaction data to Breeder, Reactor Safety Analysis. Nuclear Safety. Vol. 25, April, 1984. 

Solomon, K. D. and W. G. Kastenburg, 1985, Estimating the Planning Zones for the Shoreham Nuclear Reactor, A Review of Four Safety Analysis, Rand note N-2353-DOE September. 

The analysis of transient flows is necessary for safety analysis of nuclear reactors. Such efforts usually result in the development of large computer codes (e.g., RELAP-5, RETRAN, COBRA, TRAC). Rather than going into the details of such codes, this section gives the principles and basic models involved in the analysis. 

Yadigaroglu, G., and M. Andreani, 1989, Two Fluid Modeling of Thermal-Hydraulic Phenomena for Best Estimate LWR Safety Analysis, Proc. 4th Int. Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactors Thermal-Hydraulics, Karlsruhe, U. Mueller, K. Rehnee, and K. Rust, Eds., Rep. NURETH-4, pp. 980-996. (3)... 

Island/Thurrock Area, HMSO, London, 1978. Rasmussen, Reactor Safety Study An Assessment of Accident Risk in U. S. Commercial Nuclear Power Plants, WASH-1400 NUREG 75/014, Washington, D.C., 1975. Rijnmond Public Authority, A Risk Analysis of 6 Potentially Hazardous Industrial Objects in the Rijnmond Area—A Pilot Study, D. Reidel, Boston, 1982. Considine, The Assessment of Individual and Societal Risks, SRD Report R-310, Safety and Reliability Directorate, UKAEA, Warrington, 1984. Baybutt, Uncertainty in Risk Analysis, Conference on Mathematics in Major Accident Risk Assessment, University of Oxford, U.K., 1986. 

In the past ten years the number of chemistry-related research problems in the nuclear industry has increased dramatically. Many of these are related to surface or interfacial chemistry. Some applications are reviewed in the areas of waste management, activity transport in coolants, fuel fabrication, component development, reactor safety studies, and fuel reprocessing. Three recent studies in surface analysis are discussed in further detail in this paper. The first concerns the initial corrosion mechanisms of borosilicate glass used in high level waste encapsulation. The second deals with the effects of residual chloride contamination on nuclear reactor contaminants. Finally, some surface studies of the high temperature oxidation of Alloys 600 and 800 are outlined such characterizations are part of the effort to develop more protective surface films for nuclear reactor applications. ... 

Background. Natural convection driven by internal heat sources is of interest in geophysics, and the heat transfer associated with such motion is important in the design of tanks in which fermentation or other chemical reactions occur and in the safety analysis of nuclear reactors where a core meltdown is postulated. The last of these applications has led to the intensive study of internally generating horizontal fluid layers. 

V.M. NOVIKOV, et al., Nuclear Reactors with High Safety (Conception Analysis) , Energoatomizdat, Moscow, 1993, (Rus). 

NOVIKOV, V.M., SLESAREV, I.S., ALEXEEV, P.N., et al., "Nuclear Reactors of High Safety. (The Analysis of Concept Designs)", Moscow, Energoatomizdat, ISBN 5-283-03817-3,1993,... 

Toward the end of the Second World War, systems techniques such as fault tree analysis were introduced in order to predict the reliability and performance of military airplanes and missiles. The use of such techniques led to the formalization of the concept of probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). The publication of the Reactor Safety Study (NRC, 1975)—often referred to as the Rasmussen Report after the name of principal author, or by its subtitle WASH 1400—demonstrated the use of such techniques in the fledgling nuclear power business. Although WASH 1400 has since been supplanted by more advanced analysis techniques, the report was groundbreaking in its approach to system safety. 

Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology, Tsinghua University. Standard Content and Format of the Safety Analysis Report of the lOMW High Temperature Gas-cooled Test Reactor, 1993... 

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