Reactor safety studies

Reactor Safety Study An Assessment of Accident Risks in U.S. Commercial Nuclear Power Plants, Report WASH-1400 (NUREG-75/014), U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C., Oct. 1975. 

Investigation of Potential Hazar ds fr om the Oper ations in the Canvey Island/ Thurrock Ar ea, HMSO, London, 1978. Rasmussen, Reactor Safety Study An Assessment of Accident Risk in U.S. Commer cial Nuclear Power Plants, WASH-... 

The Reactor Safety Study (RSS) directed by Professor Norman Rasmussen of MIT may have had its beginnings in a letter from Senator Pastore to James Schlesinger, AEC Chairman, requesting risk information for the Price-Anderson renewal. The RSS study began in September 1972 with Saul Levine, full-time staff director assisted by John Bewick and Thomas Murley (all AEC). 

The Reactor Safety Study was the most important development in PSA because it ... 

Following the release of WASH-1400, the techniques were disseminated by the authors and interpreters through publications, lectures, and workshops. Many organizations set up in-housc PS. groups, and the nucleus of the organization that had produced the Reactor Safety Study coiKinucd at the NRC. 

The. statement goes on to acknowledge the contribution of the Reactor Safety Study (WASH-1400) to risk quantification but points out that safety goals were not the study objectives and that the uncertainties make it unsuitable for such a purpose. After pointing out that the death I f any individual is not "acceptable," it states two quantitative objectives ... 

The Reactor Safety Study extensively used the lognormal distribution (equation 2.5-6) to represent the variability in failure rates. If plotted on logarithmic graph paper, the lopnormal distribution is normally distributed. 

This method was used in the Reactor Safety Study. 

PREP, used by the Reactor Safety Study, is a preprocessor for KITT that perfo fault... 

AMPI F. d. system tilure data Monte Carlo simulation Mathc niaticaJ Uniform, normal, li.croimal Usoil in the Reactor Safety Study outpul i.s a probability di.slribution for the top > . ent -... 

The frequency of fire-induced core melt, calculated by averaging the observed frequency of the Browns Ferry type of fire over the experience of U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, was found to be lE-5 per reactor-year, or about 20% of the total core-melt probability e.slimated in the Reactor Safety Study. Kazarians and Apostolakis (1978) performed the same type of calculations under different assumptions and concluded that the frequency of core melt could be higher by a factor of 10. 

Table 8.2-1 Reactor Safety Study Accident Release Categories ...

The validity of the risk of nuclear that was estimated by the Reactor Safety Study was questioned when the TMI-2 accident occurred. This showed a misunderstanding of the probabilistic nature of risk, A single event neither proves nor disproves a statistical result it may, however, question the usefulness of risk as a safety measure. 

RSSMAP - Reactor Safety Study Methodology Applications Program. 

WASH-1400, Reactor Safety Study An Assessment of Accident Risks... 

APS, l975, Review of the Reactor Safety Study Rev. Mod. Phys. 42 Supp 1. 

There had been small-scale probabilistic risk studies, but the first in-depth study v, as initiated by the U.S, Atomic Energy Commission in September 1972 and completed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). This was known as the Reactor Safety Study, W. SH-(400, Ociuher 1975) that set the pattern for subsequent PSAs not only nuclear, but chemical md tniii portation, PSA had it beginnings in nuclear power because of the unknown risk and the large amounts of funds for the investigation. 

I am a physicist who switched to nuclear engineering for my Ph D. My introduction to PSA was as an original participant in the Reactor Safety Study in 1972. Material for this book was first gathered in 1974 for a workshop on what to expect in WASH-1400 (the results of the Reactor Safety Study). Materials were gathered over the years for EPRI, Savannah River Laboratory, and other workshops. A culmination was in 1988 with "Probabilistic Risk Assessment in the Nuclear Power Industry" with Robert Hall as coauthor. This book updates these materials and adds material on PSA in the chemical process industry. I prepared the material for printing using a word processor... 

The Reactor Safety Study (WASH-1400) was published by the USNRC in 1975 to set down a methodology for assessing nuclear plant reliability and risk. Of particular Interest to the data analyst are Appendix III, "Failure Data," and Appendix IV, "Common Mode Failures."... 

Taylor, B. T. et al. (2000) HAZOP A Guide to Best Practice (Institution of Chemical Engineers, London). USAEC (1975) Reactor Safety Study, WASH-1400 (United States Atomic Energy Commission). 

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. 

Rasmussen, N.C. Reactor Safety Study WASH-1400. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 1975. 

The battle over nuclear power waxed hot and heavy for several years, swaying back and forth as incidents unfolded. The publication of the government-sponsored Reactor Safety Study in 1975, which showed that there would be very modest consequences from nearly all reactor accidents, was a positive event. The report concluded that the average number of fatalities from a meltdown would be about 400 and that there might be one meltdown in every 20,000 years of plant operation, or 0.02 deaths per year versus about 25 deaths per year due to air pollution from a coal-burning plant.8 It received little notice outside the scientific community. The movie The China Syndrome (released in 1979), which implied that a reactor meltdown accident would have— not possibly might have—very horrible consequences, was an important negative event. 

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. ... 

Recently begun reactor safety studies will require surface studies to determine the nature of the reaction products fission... 

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