Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Effects of fire suppressants on electrical components in nuclear power plants

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5888808
The purpose of the project described in this report was to develop practical guidelines to enable utilities to identify instances of potential electrical equipment failure as a result of exposure to fire suppressants. The report addresses the effects of CO{sub 2}, Halon and Water applied in the vicinity of electrical equipment during a fire and as a result of inadvertent actuation. It is however not the intent of this report to preclude certain types of suppression systems, but rather to address mitigation factors which will reduce potential effects of fire suppression systems on electrical equipment. Existing data in the form of test reports and incident reports were used to define the effects of suppressants on electrical components and sub-components. Environmental equipment qualification data was used to define equipment behavior under environmental exposures and to define typical sub-components and constituent materials in power plant electrical equipment. By correlating the observed effects of suppressants with power plant components and sub-components, guidelines to identify potential equipment failures were developed in addition to specifying measures to prevent those failures. Where existing data was inadequate to define damage thresholds, recommendations for additional testing were specified. 187 refs., 3 figs.
Research Organization:
Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (USA); Impell Corp., San Ramon, CA (USA)
Sponsoring Organization:
EPRI; Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (USA)
OSTI ID:
5888808
Report Number(s):
EPRI-NP-7253
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English