skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Digraph matrix analysis applications to systems interactions

Conference ·
OSTI ID:6976896

Complex events such as Three Mile Island-2, Brown's Ferry-3 and Crystal River-3 have demonstrated that previously unidentified system interdependencies can be important to safety. A major aspect of these events was dependent faults (common cause/mode failures). The term systems interactions has been introduced by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to identify the concepts of spatial and functional coupling of systems which can lead to system interdependencies. Spatial coupling refers to dependencies resulting from a shared environmental condition; functional coupling refers to both dependencies resulting from components shared between safety and/or support systems, and to dependencies involving human actions. The NRC is currently developing guidelines to search for and evaluate adverse systems interactions at light water reactors. One approach utilizes graph theoretical methods and is called digraph matrix analysis (DMA). This methodology has been specifically tuned to the systems interaction problem. The objective of this paper is to present results from two DMA applications and to contrast them with the results from more traditional fault tree approaches.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
6976896
Report Number(s):
UCRL-90116; CONF-840614-3; ON: DE84004815
Resource Relation:
Conference: Annual meeting of the American Nuclear Society, New Orleans, LA, USA, 3 Jun 1984
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English