Research on U.S. nuclear power plant major equipment aging
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), in cooperation with nuclear power plant utilities and the Nuclear Energy Institute, have prepared equipment aging evaluations of nuclear power plant equipment for life extension considerations. Specifically, these evaluations focused on equipment considered important for plant license renewal (U.S. Code of Federal Regulations 10CFR54). {open_quotes}Industry Reports{close_quotes} (IRs), jointly funded by DOE and EPRI, evaluated the aging of major systems, structures, and components (e.g., reactor pressure vessels, Class I structures, PWR and BWR containments, etc.) and contain a mixture of technical and licensing information. {open_quotes}Aging Management Guidelines{close_quotes} (AMGs), funded by DOE, evaluate aging for commodity types of equipment (e.g., pumps, electrical switchgear, heat exchangers, etc.) and concentrate on technical issues only. AMGs are intended for systems engineers and plant maintenance staff. A significant number of technical issues were resolved during IR interactions with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). However, certain technical issues have not been resolved and are considered {open_quotes}open{close_quotes}. Examples include certain issues related to fatigue, neutron irradiation embrittlement, intergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC) and electrical cable equipment qualification. Direct NRC interaction did not take place during preparation of individual AMGs due to their purely technical nature. The eventual use of AMGs in a future license renewal application will likely require NRC interaction at that time. With a few noted exceptions, the AMG process indicated that current aging management practices of U.S. utilities were effective in preventing age-related degradation. This paper briefly describes the IR and AMG processes and summarizes the unresolved technical issues identified through preparation of the documents.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States); Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 10190825
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-94-2400C; CONF-940970-4; ON: DE95001829; TRN: 94:022688
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 7. international symposium on solar thermal concentrating technologies,Moscow (Russian Federation),26-30 Sep 1994; Other Information: PBD: [1994]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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