Incorporation of Risk Insights in the Regulatory Treatment of Nuclear Power Plant Structures,Systems,and Components

Conference · Mon Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2002

OSTI ID:21062283

Imbro, Eugene; Scarbrough, Thomas G ^[1]

---

1. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001 (United States)

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has established an initiative to risk-inform the requirements in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) for the regulatory treatment of structures, systems, and components (SSCs) used in commercial nuclear power plants. As discussed in several Commission papers (e.g., SECY-99-256 and SECY-00-0194), Option 2 of this initiative involves categorizing plant SSCs based on their safety significance, and specifying treatment that would provide an appropriate level of confidence in the capability of those SSCs to perform their design functions in accordance with their risk categorization. The NRC has initiated a rulemaking effort to allow licensees of nuclear power plants in the United States to implement the Option 2 approach in lieu of the 'special treatment requirements' of the NRC regulations. In a proof-of-concept effort, the NRC recently granted exemptions from the special treatment requirements for safety-related SSCs categorized as having low risk significance by the licensee of the South Texas Project (STP) Units 1 and 2 nuclear power plant, based on a review of the licensee's high-level objectives of the planned treatment for safety-related and high-risk non-safety-related SSCs. This paper discusses the NRC staff's views regarding the treatment of SSCs at STP described by the licensee in its updated Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR) in support of the exemption request, and provides the status of rulemaking that would incorporate risk insights into the treatment of SSCs at nuclear power plants. (authors)

• Research Organization: The ASME Foundation, Inc., Three Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5990 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 21062283
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
DESIGN
HAZARDS
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
REACTOR SAFETY
REGULATIONS
SAFETY ANALYSIS