Probability and consequences of misloading fuel in a PWR

Technical Report · Thu Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 1991

OSTI ID:5410608

Diamond, D J; Hsu, C J; Mubayi, V ^[1]

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1. Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States)

This report documents the results of a study into the frequency and consequences of misloading fresh fuel assemblies during the reloading of a pressurized water reactor. The consequences that were considered included (1) loss of required shutdown margin, (2) inadvertent criticality, and (3) worker exposure within the plant given inadvertent criticality. Neutronic calculations were performed for different patterns of fresh fuel clustered together in a Combustion Engineering rector. The fresh fuel considered had a high U-235 content and was assumed to be loaded without control element assemblies. The frequencies of misloading fresh fuel assemblies into these clustered patterns were calculated taking into account operator errors an equipment malfunctions that could occur during an offload/reload sequence. The study has improved our understanding of how difficult it is to misload fuel and has quantified the loss of shutdown margin and the frequency of occurrence for specific misloadings as well as the doses that might result from an inadvertent criticality. 15 refs., 18 figs., 13 tabs.

• Research Organization: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (United States). Div. of Systems Research; Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USNRC; Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76CH00016
• OSTI ID: 5410608
• Report Number(s): NUREG/CR-5771; BNL-NUREG-52294; ON: TI91018416
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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