Closeout of IE Bulletin 80-07: BWR jet pump assembly failure

Technical Report · Thu Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1984

OSTI ID:6151468

Dean, R S; Mills, W R; Foley, W J; Hennick, A

In February 1980, disassembly of a jet pump at Dresden 3 was diagnosed from changes in operating parameters. After prompt shutdown, it was found that a broken hold-down beam had caused the failure and that six other beams had small cracks. In March 1980, one cracked beam at Quad Cities 2 and three at Pilgrim 1 were discovered, and an earlier pump failure at a foreign facility was found to be like that at Dresden 3. IE Bulletin 80-07 was issued April 4, 1980 to licensees of all General Electric BWR/3 and BWR/4 operating facilities to require daily operability surveillance of jet pumps and nondestructive examinations every refueling outage. The bulletin was issued for information to holders of construction permits for General Electric facilities; later, 13 of these facilities were selected for written responses. Extensive studies led to the conclusion that failures were caused by very slowly progressing stress corrosion cracking, and resulted in manufacture of improved beams. Bulletin status is determined by applying closeout criteria. Closeout of bulletin Item B.2 requiring operability surveillance is based on the short-term action of implementing an acceptable method and the long-term action of continuing that method until satisfactory corrective action has been completed. Followup items are suggested for all 20 operating facilities to ensure compliance with bulletin requirements and intent. The safety significance of a jet pump failure is that flow distribution would be affected during normal operation and the water level in the core region would decrease during a coincidental loss of cooling accident.

• Research Organization: Parameter, Inc., Elm Grove, WI (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6151468
• Report Number(s): NUREG/CR-3052; ON: TI85900344
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
210100* -- Power Reactors
Nonbreeding
Light-Water Moderated
Boiling Water Cooled
BWR TYPE REACTORS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CORROSION
DRESDEN-3 REACTOR
ENRICHED URANIUM REACTORS
FAILURES
POWER REACTORS
PUMPS
REACTORS
STRESS CORROSION
THERMAL REACTORS
WATER COOLED REACTORS
WATER MODERATED REACTORS