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Title: Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1214664· OSTI ID:1214664
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2]
  1. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
  2. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

Reduction in safety margin can be expected as passive structures and components undergo degradation with time. Limitations in the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) methodology constrain its value as an effective tool to address the impact of aging effects on risk and for quantifying the impact of aging management strategies in maintaining safety margins. A methodology has been developed to address multiple aging mechanisms involving large numbers of components (with possibly statistically dependent failures) within the PRA framework in a computationally feasible manner when the sequencing of events is conditioned on the physical conditions predicted in a simulation environment, such as the New Generation System Code (NGSC) concept. Both epistemic and aleatory uncertainties can be accounted for within the same phenomenological framework and maintenance can be accounted for in a coherent fashion. The framework accommodates the prospective impacts of various intervention strategies such as testing, maintenance, and refurbishment. The methodology is illustrated with several examples.

Research Organization:
The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States); Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
DOE Contract Number:
AC07-05ID14517
OSTI ID:
1214664
Report Number(s):
DOE/NEUP-11-3030; 11-3030; TRN: US1500411
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English