IR 05000020/1979001
| ML19261D690 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | MIT Nuclear Research Reactor |
| Issue date: | 04/13/1979 |
| From: | Mccabe E, Stetka T NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19261D687 | List: |
| References | |
| 50-020-79-01, NUDOCS 7906260061 | |
| Download: ML19261D690 (7) | |
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U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF INSPECTION AND ENFORCEMENT Region I Report No. 50-20/79-01 Docket No. 50-20 License No. R-37 Priority Category F
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Licensee:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT Research Reactor 138 Albany Street Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 Facility Name:
MITR II Inspection at:
Cambridge, Massachusetts Inspection conducted:
March 14-16, 1979 Inspectors:
Y 4./s[71 T. F. Stetka, Reactor Inspector da'te signed date signed d te signed k /A !7 7 Approved by a
E. C. McCabeV Jr., Chief, Reactor Projects
' date signed Section No. 2, RO&NS Branch
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Inspection Summary:
_ Inspection on March 14-16, 1979 (Report No. 50-20/79-01)
Areas Inspected:
Routine, unannounced inspection of logs and records; 1.icensee event report (in office and onsite); experiments; operator's licenses.; design modifications; licensee audits; and licensee action on previous inspection findings. A facility tour was conducted.
The inspection involved 15 hours1.736111e-4 days <br />0.00417 hours <br />2.480159e-5 weeks <br />5.7075e-6 months <br /> onsite by one NRC regional based inspector.
Results:
No items of noncompliance were identified.
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7 90Gefio 08/
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DETAILS 1.
Persons Contacted
- J. Bernard, Senior Shift Supervisor
- W. Clancy, Shift Supervisor
- L. Clark, Director of Operations
- K. Collins, Superintendent of Operations G. Dooley, Assistant Superintendent of Operations
- B.
Fecych, Reactor Utilization Staff 0. Harling, Director of the Reactor Laboratory
- E.
Karaian, Radiation Protection Officer The inspector also interviewed other licensee representatives including operations and office staff personnel.
- denotes those present at the exit interview.
2.
Licensee Action on Previous Inspection Findings (Closed) Followup Item (77-07-01):
The licensee has revised proce-dure 1.10.8, Experiments and Irradiations, on December 12, 1978, to specify operator control of pneumatic sample station use and require qualification of operators for the NW-13 rabbit system.
Two personnel were designated on February 23, 1979, as qualified to operate the rabbit system.
(Closed) Followup Item (77-07-03):
Procedure 6.1.4.2, D 0 Reflector
Dump Time has been revised to eliminate the recording of flow data.
(Closed) Unresolved Item (78-03-01):
The licensee submitted sup-plemental report 50-20/78-02A on June 28, 1978, which specifies the actions being taken to upgrade facility instrumentation and, therefoie, minimize recurrence of instrumentation failures.
(Closed) Fellowup Item (78-04-01):
The licensee has revised the
" Manual of Procedures and Instructions Related to Accountability for Source, Special Nuclear and Certain Other Materials," in September, 1978. This revision incorporated the changes the licensee had committed to make to the NRC.
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3.
Logs and Records The following logs and records were reviewed.
a.
Console Log - February 10 - March 15, 1979.
b.
Weekly Reactor Utilization Summary - February 12 - March 11, 1979.
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c.
Operating Data Log - February 15 - March 14,1979.
d.
Equipment Malfunction Log - All outstanding entries and completed work for February and March 1979.
e.
Recombiner temperature recorder chart for the period February 21 - March 14, 1979.
f.
Core thermal power recorder chart for the period February 27 - March 9, 1979.
g.
Coolant flow recorder chart for the period February 6 -
March 2, 1979.
No items of noncompliance were identified.
4.
Facility Tours The inspector toured various areas of the facility including the control room, rear panel areas, reactor building, shops and process areas to determine the general state of cleanliness, housekeeping and adherence to fire protection guidelines.
The inspector checked equipment status and operability and verified by comparison of control room indications that limits for power, flow and nuclear channel operability were being adhered to. Coolant conductivity and temperature parameters were also examined.
The inspector also verified that the minimum licensed operator complement required by Technical Specifications was satisfied and that specific license restrictions if applicable were adhered to.
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During this tour, the inspector observed an air meter used to conduct the containment Leak Rate Test (LRT).
The inspector quiered the licensee representative with respect to the calculation of this instrument and determined that the instrument was not scheduled for periodic calibration.
The licensee was requested to review the calibration status of this instrument and determine a sufficient calibration interval.
This item (20/79-01-01) will be reviewed during a subsequent inspection.
5.
Review of Nuclear Material Accountability Logs The inspector reviewed the MITR Nuclear Materials Accountability Logs for the period October 1,1978 through Decemoer 31, 1978 and the Summary of Nuclear Material Physical Inventories dated Octo-ber 31, 1978 to determine the licensee's compliance with 10 CFP.
Part 73.55.
This review indicates that the licensee has less than 5 kilograms of unirradiated material on site.
No items of noncompliance were identified.
6.
Nonroutine Report Review The inspector reviewed Reportable Occurrence 50-20/79-1, Non-Con-servative Nuclear Safety Channel Scram Trip Settings, both in office and onsite, for safety significant circumstances and rela-tionship to Technical Specification protective limits.
The licen-see's review, evaluation and corrective actions was also verified by inspect.or review and observations.
The report stated, as part of the corrective actions, that a better test signal generator was being investigated.
The licensee is installing a hard-wired test signal generator into the instrumen-tation.
Progress on this installaion will be followed up on a subsequent inspection (20/79-01-02).
This reportable oc'cifrrence has no't' been reviewed by the Safeguards Committee.
A cognizant licensee representative stated that this review would be accomplished at the next meeting.
This item (20/79-01-03) is unresolved.
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7.
Experiments The licensee's experimental program was reviewed.
Specific areas examined included safety reviews, identification of potential hazards, reactivity effects, operational tests, and implemen-tation of necessary procedures.
Two experiments are being conducted, a "Fatique Cracking Experi-ment" and the " Insertion of Pneumatic Tube Samples from NW-13."
The reactivity effects of these experiments were negligible and the inspector verified that reactivity limitations were in accor-dance with Technical Specification requirements.
This review identified that the pre-operational test conducted on January 19, 1979 for the "Fatique Cracking Experiment" was not reviewed by the MIT Reactor Safeguards Committee prior to implementation.
This item will be examined during a subsequent inspection (20/79-01-04).
8.
0_oerator License Review The licenses of all active licensed operators were reviewed to verify that the licenses were current and that the duties per-formed by each operator were consistant with the license level.
As a result of this review, it was determined that the senior operating license of one watch-standing operator had expired on January 26, 1979.
In accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR Part 55.33, the licensee had applied for renewal of this license on December 27, 1978, but has not yet received the renewal license.
This item (20/79-01-05) is unresolved.
9.
Design Modifications The following design modifications were reviewed to verify that the changes were reviewed and approved as required by the facility Techncial Specifications and 10 CFR 50.59.
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The licensee has made two design modifications.
One modification, completed on March 14, 1979, involved the installation of a new Core Flow - AT Measuring Instrument.
The other modification, which is still in progress, involved installation of an additional Hot Cell.
Review of the Hot Cell modification indicates that a revision of the Safety Analysis Report (SAR) will be required to assure that the SAR accurately reflects current facility layout.
The licensee will revise the SAR as part of the modification package.
This revision progress will be reviewed during a subsequent inspection.(20/79-01-06).
10.
Review of Licensee Audits The licensee's quality assurance (QA) audit entitled " Final Audit,17 November 1978" was reviewed to verify that the audit was not conducted by the individual responsible for the item audited and to assure that identified problems were appropr.acely resolved.
This audit identified that weldina certification records were not properly completed in that welds were not initialed and were not separated into different weld categories.
The inspector's review of this item indicated that only partial corrective action; relating to' initialing of the welds, had 'been completed.
The licensee's welder was unavailable during this inspectinn to discuss identifi-cation of weld categories.
This item (20/79-01-07) will be reviewed during a subsequent insnection and is considered unresolved.
11.
Unresolved Items Unresolved items are those items for which more information is required to determine whether they are acceptable items or items of noncompliance.
Unresolved items are contained in Paragraphs 6, 8, and 10 of this report.
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12.
Exit Interview The inspector met with licensee representatives (denoted in Para-graph 1) at the conclusion of the inspection on March 16, 1979.
The inspector summarized the scope and findings of the inspection as they were detailed in this report.
During this meeting, the unresolved items were identified.
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