Empirical Bayes estimation of the average reliability of nuclear power plant emergency diesel generators to load-run upon demand
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (United States)
If offsite power is interrupted, the availability of onsite alternating current power supplies is a major factor in assuring acceptable safety at commercial light-water-cooled nuclear power plants. To control the risk of severe core damage during station blackout accidents at a given plant, the reliability of the emergency diesel generators (EDGs) to load-run upon demand must be maintained at a sufficiently high level. The minimum EDG reliability is targeted at either 0.95 or 0.975 per nuclear unit consistent with the reliability level that the plant operator assumed in the coping analysis for station blackout. Because the reliability of the EDGs is critical to safety, it is important to estimate this reliability as accurately as possible. We are also interested in comparing the estimates to the target reliability values. In soliciting public comment on the target reliability levels, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) asked the following question [SECY-93-044 (1993)]: Is there a method which could utilize industry-wide EDG performance experience to estimate EDG reliability, while providing adequate reliability degradation information for plant specific use? As we shall see, empirical Bayes (EB) is one such method; thus, the answer to the question is affirmative, and this report provides a discussion of this method.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 10103619
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-93-3462; CONF-940312-7; ON: DE94000686; CNN: Contract FIN L1836-3; TRN: 94:001319
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2. Probabilistic safety assessment and management conference (PSAM), San Diego, CA (United States), 20-24 Mar 1994; Other Information: PBD: [1993]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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