Use of influence diagrams for evaluation of severe accident management strategies

Conference · Mon Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 1990 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States)

OSTI ID:7022289

Jae, M; Apostolakis, G E ^[1]

---

1. Univ. of California, Los Angeles (United States)

This paper presents a new approach for developing and assessing severe accident management strategies under uncertainty in nuclear power plants. The strategy of flooding the reactor cavity during the TMLB{prime} sequence as a means to prevent vessel breach is used as an example. The modeling of complex decision problems, such as those encountered in severe accident management, involves a large number of random variables. While the state of the art relies on decision trees, influence diagrams have been proposed as an alternative. Large decision trees cannot be displayed except in pieces, but influence diagrams (as suggested in this paper) can depict much larger and more complicated models, such as those required for the development of strategies for managing severe accidents in nuclear power plants. The advantages of influence diagrams include a compact and unambiguous representation of probabilistic dependencies of various events or processes and good communication of the structure of a decision model. Furthermore, influence diagrams allow for the rapid identification of important variables and are easily modified in case the decision maker wants to add or remove some nodes or reverse arcs, making the influence diagrams good tools for developing, as well as evaluating, severe accident management strategies. The superiority of this model is clear in more complicated situations, such as multidecision problems.

• OSTI ID: 7022289
• Report Number(s): CONF-911107--
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States), Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States) Vol. 63; ISSN TANSA; ISSN 0003-018X
• 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
210200 -- Power Reactors
Nonbreeding
Light-Water Moderated
Nonboiling Water Cooled
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
220900* -- Nuclear Reactor Technology-- Reactor Safety
ACCIDENTS
BWR TYPE REACTORS
CONTAINERS
DECISION MAKING
DISEASES
EMERGENCY PLANS
ENRICHED URANIUM REACTORS
HAZARDS
HEALTH HAZARDS
IRRADIATION
LETHAL IRRADIATION
LOSS OF COOLANT
MITIGATION
NEOPLASMS
OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE
POWER REACTORS
PRESSURE VESSELS
PROBABILISTIC ESTIMATION
PUBLIC HEALTH
PWR TYPE REACTORS
RADIATION HAZARDS
REACTOR ACCIDENTS
REACTOR CORE DISRUPTION
REACTOR SAFETY
REACTORS
SAFETY
SENSITIVITY
THERMAL REACTORS
WATER COOLED REACTORS
WATER MODERATED REACTORS