The NRC staff evaluation of shutdown and low-power operation at nuclear power plants in the United States

Conference · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1992 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States)

OSTI ID:7044187

Holahan, G M; Caruso, M A ^[1]

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1. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (United States)

The results of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff's recent evaluation of shutdown and low-power operations at US commercial nuclear power plants are summarized in this paper. The NRC staff's evaluation was initiated following their investigation of the loss during shutdown of all vital alternating current power on March 20, 1990, at the Alvin W. Vogtle nuclear plant. The objective of the evaluation has been to assess risk broadly during shutdown, refueling, and startup, addressing not only issues raised by the Vogtle event, but also a number of other shutdown-related issues that had been identified by foreign regulatory organizations as well as the NRC and any new issues uncovered in the evaluation process. The key issues concerning shutdown risk identified in the integration process described earlier and subsequently addressed by the staff include the following: (1) outage planning and control; (2) stress on personnel and programs; (3) the need to improve training and procedures; (4) technical specifications; and (5) PWR safety during midloop operation. Other technical topics identified for further study by the staff included loss of RHR, containment capability, rapid boron dilution, fire protection, instrumentation, emergency core cooling system recirculation capability, effect of PWR upper internals, on-site emergency planning, fuel handling and heavy loads, potential for draining the BWR reactor vessel, reporting requirements for shutdown events, and need to strengthen inspection program.

• OSTI ID: 7044187
• Report Number(s): CONF-920606--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States) Journal Volume: 65
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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