Containment performance of prototypical reactor containments subjected to severe accident conditions

Technical Report · Sun Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/431187· OSTI ID:431187

Klamerus, E W; Bohn, M P ^[1]; Wesley, D A ^[2]; Krishnaswamy, C N ^[3]

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1. Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
2. EQE International, Irvine, CA (United States)
3. Sargent & Lundy, Chicago, IL (United States)

In SECY-90-016, the NTRC proposed a safety goal of a conditional containment failure probability (CCFP) of 0.1 and the alternative acceptance criteria allowed for steel containments, which specifies that the stresses should not exceed ASNE Level C allowables for severe accident pressures and temperatures. In this work, the need for an equivalent criterion for concrete containments was studied. Six surrogate containments were designed and analyzed in order to compare the margins between design pressure, pressure resulting in exceedance of Level C (or yield) stress limits, and ultimate pressure. For comparability, each containment has an identical internal volume and design pressure. Results from the analysis showed margins to yield are comparable and display a similar margin for both steel and concrete containments. In addition, the margin to failure, although slightly higher in the steel containments, were also comparable. Finally, a CCFP for code design was determined based on general membrane behavior and imposing an upper bound severe accident curve developed in the DCH studies. The resulting CCFP`s were less then 0.02 (or 2%) for all the surrogate containments studied, showing that these containment designs all achieved the NRC safety goal.

• Research Organization: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (United States). Div. of Engineering Technology; Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States); EQE International, Inc., Irvine, CA (United States); Sargent and Lundy, Chicago, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000
• OSTI ID: 431187
• Report Number(s): NUREG/CR--6433; SAND--96-2445; ON: TI97001759
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CONCRETES
CONTAINMENT
FAILURES
MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
PERFORMANCE
PROBABILITY
REACTOR SAFETY
STEELS
STRESSES