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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Containment failure modes: insights and uncertainties

Conference ·
OSTI ID:5538244
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently sponsored nationwide working groups on containment loads and containment performance. These efforts, together with a reassessment of severe-accident source terms, a review by the American Physical Society of state-of-the-art methods for calculating radiological source terms, NRC technical exchange meetings with the Industry Degraded Core (IDCOR) program, and a variety of other ongoing severe-accident research programs, provide technical bases for NRC decisions regarding severe accidents. The NRC is currently integrating this array of technical information to provide rebaselined risk estimates for selected plants. As a key part of this effort, insights gained on containment loads and containment performance are being used to characterize the relative likelihoods of competing containment failure modes. Uncertainties in these relative likelihoods exist because of incomplete knowledge regarding physical processes that affect containment loading and containment performance. This paper attempts to reflect the current state of knowledge regarding containment failure modes including uncertainties that remain. Key uncertainties are discussed and a qualitiative perspective regarding their relative importance is provided. 45 refs.
Research Organization:
Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-76DP00789
OSTI ID:
5538244
Report Number(s):
SAND-86-1627C; CONF-860906-15; ON: TI86012661
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English