Comparing Simulation Results with Traditional PRA Model on a Boiling Water Reactor Station Blackout Case Study
A previous study used RELAP and RAVEN to conduct a boiling water reactor station black-out (SBO) case study in a simulation based environment to show the capabilities of the risk-informed safety margin characterization methodology. This report compares the RELAP/RAVEN simulation results with traditional PRA model results. The RELAP/RAVEN simulation run results were reviewed for their input parameters and output results. The input parameters for each simulation run include various timing information such as diesel generator or offsite power recovery time, Safety Relief Valve stuck open time, High Pressure Core Injection or Reactor Core Isolation Cooling fail to run time, extended core cooling operation time, depressurization delay time, and firewater injection time. The output results include the maximum fuel clad temperature, the outcome, and the simulation end time. A traditional SBO PRA model in this report contains four event trees that are linked together with the transferring feature in SAPHIRE software. Unlike the usual Level 1 PRA quantification process in which only core damage sequences are quantified, this report quantifies all SBO sequences, whether they are core damage sequences or success (i.e., non core damage) sequences, in order to provide a full comparison with the simulation results. Three different approaches were used to solve event tree top events and quantify the SBO sequences: “W” process flag, default process flag without proper adjustment, and default process flag with adjustment to account for the success branch probabilities. Without post-processing, the first two approaches yield incorrect results with a total conditional probability greater than 1.0. The last approach accounts for the success branch probabilities and provides correct conditional sequence probabilities that are to be used for comparison. To better compare the results from the PRA model and the simulation runs, a simplified SBO event tree was developed with only four top events and eighteen SBO sequences (versus fifty-four SBO sequences in the original SBO model). The estimated SBO sequence conditional probabilities from the original SBO model were integrated to the corresponding sequences in the simplified SBO event tree. These results were then compared with the simulation run results.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE - NE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 1194027
- Report Number(s):
- INL/CON-14-33757
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: International Topical Meeting on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis PSA 2015,Sun Valley, ID,04/26/2015,04/30/2015
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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