Fire protection of safe shutdown capability at commercial nuclear power plants
Abstract
The comprehensive industrial safety standards and codes that exist today have evolved from lessons learned through past experience, research results, and improvements in technological capabilities. The current requirements for fire safety features of commercial nuclear power stations operated in the US are a notable example of this practice. Although fire protection has always been an important design requirement, from the aftermath of a serious fire that occurred in 1975 at the Browns Ferry plant, it was learned that the life safety and property protection concerns of the major fire insurance underwriters may not sufficiently encompass nuclear safety issues, particularly with regard to the potential for fire damage to result in the common mode failure of redundant trains of systems, and components important to the safe shutdown of the reactor. Following its investigations into the Browns Ferry fire, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) promulgated guidance documents, which ultimately developed into mandatory regulations, necessary to assure the implementation of a fire protection program that would address nuclear safety concerns. The new criteria that evolved, contain prescriptive design features, as well as personnel and administrative requirements the Commission determined to be necessary to provide a defense-in-depth level of protection against the hazards ofmore »
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (United States)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 10175237
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-NUREG-49137; CONF-930807-6
ON: DE93017591; TRN: 93:017984
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-76CH00016
- Resource Type:
- Conference
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 16. reactor operations international topical meeting,Long Island, NY (United States),15-18 Aug 1993; Other Information: PBD: [1993]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS; NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS; FIRE HAZARDS; REACTOR SAFETY; SAFETY STANDARDS; HISTORICAL ASPECTS; INSURANCE; REGULATIONS; IMPLEMENTATION; BROWNS FERRY-1 REACTOR; ACCIDENT INSURANCE; REACTOR ACCIDENTS; REACTOR SHUTDOWN; 220901; ACCIDENT LIABILITY
Citation Formats
Sullivan, K. Fire protection of safe shutdown capability at commercial nuclear power plants. United States: N. p., 1993.
Web.
Sullivan, K. Fire protection of safe shutdown capability at commercial nuclear power plants. United States.
Sullivan, K. 1993.
"Fire protection of safe shutdown capability at commercial nuclear power plants". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/10175237.
@article{osti_10175237,
title = {Fire protection of safe shutdown capability at commercial nuclear power plants},
author = {Sullivan, K},
abstractNote = {The comprehensive industrial safety standards and codes that exist today have evolved from lessons learned through past experience, research results, and improvements in technological capabilities. The current requirements for fire safety features of commercial nuclear power stations operated in the US are a notable example of this practice. Although fire protection has always been an important design requirement, from the aftermath of a serious fire that occurred in 1975 at the Browns Ferry plant, it was learned that the life safety and property protection concerns of the major fire insurance underwriters may not sufficiently encompass nuclear safety issues, particularly with regard to the potential for fire damage to result in the common mode failure of redundant trains of systems, and components important to the safe shutdown of the reactor. Following its investigations into the Browns Ferry fire, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) promulgated guidance documents, which ultimately developed into mandatory regulations, necessary to assure the implementation of a fire protection program that would address nuclear safety concerns. The new criteria that evolved, contain prescriptive design features, as well as personnel and administrative requirements the Commission determined to be necessary to provide a defense-in-depth level of protection against the hazards of fire and its associated effects on safety related equipment. These criteria are primarily contained in Appendix R of Title 10 to the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR 50). Since 1983, various members of the Department of Nuclear Energy (DNE) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) have provided technical assistance to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in support of its evaluations of fire protection features implemented at commercial nuclear power stations operated in the US. This paper presents a discussion of the insights gained by the author during his active participation in this area.},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/10175237},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 1993},
month = {Thu Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 1993}
}