IR 05000259/1980013
| ML19318A856 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Browns Ferry  |
| Issue date: | 04/23/1980 |
| From: | Chase J, Dance H, Sullivan R NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION II) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19318A846 | List: |
| References | |
| 50-259-80-13, 50-260-80-11, 50-296-80-12, NUDOCS 8006240273 | |
| Download: ML19318A856 (6) | |
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o UNITED STATES
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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,a REClONil r'N
101 MARIETTA ST N.W SulTE 3100 h-ATLANTA. GEORGIA 30303
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Report Nos. 50-259/80-13, 50-260/80-11, and 50-296/80-12 Licensee: Tennessee Valley Authority 500A Chestnut Street
Cattanooga, Tennessee 37401 Facility: Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant
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Docket Nos. 50-259, 50-260, and 50-296 License,Nos. DPR-33, DPR-52, and DPR-68 Inspection at Browns Ferry Site near Decatur, Alabama Inspectors:
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Date Signed
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Date Signed
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i Approved by:
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H. C. Dance, Section Chief, RONS Branch Date Signed SLMIARY Inspection on February 4 through March 7, 1980 Areas Inspected
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This routine inspection involved 140 resident inspector-hours in the areas of plant operations, plant tours, reportable occurrences, refueling, plant phyrical proteccion, and radiation area controls.
Results
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,1 Of the six areas inspected, no items of noncompliance or deviations were identi-
fied in five areas. One item of apparent noncompliance was found in one area (Infraction - Failure to demonstrate HPCI operable when RCIC was inoperative for maintenance, paragraph 6.c).
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DETAILS 1.
Persons Contacted Licensee Employees H. L. Abercrombie, Plant Superintendent
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J. L. Harness, Assistant Plant Superintendent
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J. B. Studdard, Operations Supervisor R. Hunkapillar, Assistant Operations Supervisor J. A. Teague, Maintenance Supervisor, Electrical
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M. A. Haney, Maintenance Supervisor, hechanical J. R. Pittman, Maintenance Supervisor, Instruments R. G. Metke, Results Section Supervisor
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-G. T. Jones, Outage Director
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R. T. Smith, QA Superv:isor W. C. Thomison, Assistant Results Supervisor
S. G. Bugg, Plant Health Physicist
D. C. Cummin, Outage Lealth Physicist Al L. Burnett, Shift Engineer R. E. Jackson, Chief, Public Safety J. D. Glover, Shift Engineer R. Cole, QA Site Representative Office of Power
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Other licensee employees contacted included Licensed Senior Reactor Operators and Reactor Operators, auxiliary operators, craftsmen, technicians, public safety officers, QA personnel and engineering personnel.
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2.
Management Interviews Management interviews were conducted on February 8, 22, 29 and March 3, 1980 with the Plant Superintendent and selected members of his staff. The inspectors summarized the scope and findings of their inspection activities.
The licensee was informed that one apparent item of noncompliance was identified _during this report period.
3.
Licensee Action on Previous Inspection Findings
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Not inspected.
4.
Unresolved Items No unresolved items were identified during this inspection.
5.
Plant Operations The inspector kept informed on a daily basis of the overall plant status -
.and any significant safety matters related to plant operations. Daily discussions were held with plant management and various members of the
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operations staff. Frequent visits were made to the shift engineer's office and control rooms to review current reactor operating status. Special visits to specific locations in the plant areas were made as deemed advis-able to observe activities and to verify system or component status.
Selected portions of the daily journals and operations data sheets were i
reviewed on at least a weekly basis during the report period The inspectors made general plant tours on the following dates: February 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25, 26, 27, 29, March 1, 5, 6, and 7, 1980.
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Selected areas in the turbine building, reactor buildings, refueling floor and the outside areas were visited. Observations included witnessing work activities in progress, status of operating and standby safety systems, val,ve positions, snubber condition, instrument readings and recordings, annunciator alarms, housekeeping, radiation area controls and vital area controls.
Informal discussions were held with operators and other person-nel on work activities and equipment status.
The. inspectors, by observation and informal interviews, followed the HPCI ped.stal bearing repair work on Unit I and 2.
The licensee had discovered
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during the refueling outage that the foreward pedestal on Unit 1 HPCI was cracked, further examinations by the licensee using the visual and dye penetrant methods discovered the rear pedestal bearing cracked on Unit I and the fereward pedestal on Unit 2 cracked. The cracking problem is attributed to water hammers which occur at times when returning the HPCI system to operation following maintenance. The licensee theorized that water collected between the isolation <alves when the system was removed
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from service for maintenance. The inability to adequately throttle these valves during return to service a water hammer can result and transmit an abnormai force to the pedestal.
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Plant personnel have requested design to determine necessary piping modi-fications to correct the problem.
In the interim, the licensee will minimize shutting the two main steam isolation valves for maintenance. The inspectors reviewed the operating procedures for operation of the HPCI system and noted that the procedure does recognize the need for slowly warming up the HPCI main steam line if both isolation valves are shut to minimize water hammer. The importance of strict adherence to the procedure is to be covered in the retraining program.
The inspectors also reviewed details of the 3 spurious scrams on Unit 2
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which have occurred during this reporting period. By interviews with instrument engineers and operation personnel and examination of recordings and computer printouts, the scrams could not be attributed to any direct Extensive troubleshooting by the licensee could not definitely cause.
locate the cause other than a few loose leads on various components.
Special'high speed monitoring of the reactor protection system was installed to aid in further troubleshooting if the problem reappeared. Within the
- areas inspected no items of noncompliance or deviation were identified.
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6.
. Reportable' Occurrence Review The below-listed licensee event reports were reviewed to determine if
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the_information provided met NRC reporting requirements. The deter-mination included adequacy of' event description and corrective action taken or planned, existence of potential generic problems and the relative safety significance of each event.
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LER No.
Date Event A
259/801 01/07/80 3A diesel generator speed control was lost due to failure of speed pickup
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259/7936
- 12/26/79 Drywell continuous air monitor had low sample flow 259/7929 10/16/79 Design flow rate testing was not-performed I
on the primary containment purge system i
as required by technical specifications 259/7917 08/09/79 GE SIL 299 reports that reactor water i
level could be 29" less than indicated during post-LOCA conditions 260/7908 05/04/79 Secondary containment integrity was not conclusively demonstrated prior to
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breaking primary containment 296/7833 11/14/78 Total leakage from 35 isolation valves which terminate below the suppression pool water level exceeded the inventory restriction 296/7928 12/18/79 Reactor pressure switches did not actuate
,5 at the correct setpoint 296/7927_
12/16/79 During surveillance inspection APRM B was found to be less than 120% and rod block occurred at 12 LPRM vice 13 LPRM inputs. RCIC failed to reach rated flow
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296/7910 07/23/79 Reactor pressure switch was found set above Technical Specifications 296/7831-11/28/78 Discovered all LPRMs were connected
backwards following startup.
. Corrective _ action indicated on the above reports was determined to be l
adequate. 'The inspector's questions were satisfactorily anawered.'
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The inspector also ' conducted a followup on LER 50-260/802. The licen-
see reported that the recirculation flow control valve 2-FCV-68-79
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(recirculation pump discharge. valve) would not operate because the gears on the'limitorque valve were installed improperly. As correc-
tive action, the licensee implemented procedure MdI-88, Inspection and
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Corrective Action of. Improperly Staked. Locknut on limitorque Operators.
.MMI-88 as written,.did not provide for an adequate inspection of the
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limitorque gears being installed properly, nor did it cover all major safety related limitorque valves. The license has committed to revising LER 50-260/802 to implement a program for inspection of the gears on a selected number of safety related limitorque valves and have the procedure issued by April 4, 1980.
In addition, the licensee has
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committed to inspect the gears on all safety related limitorque valves disassembled during regular plant maintenance. This LER will remain
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open' until dua new procedure is written and approved by the licensee.
The inspector also followed up on LER 296/7926 concerning Unit 3 I
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RCIC's failure to reach rated flow. On 12/08/79 at 0200, RCIC was removed from service for approximately 4 hours4.62963e-5 days <br />0.00111 hours <br />6.613757e-6 weeks <br />1.522e-6 months <br /> for replacement and calibration of its EGM box. RCIC was then demonstrated to be operable at 0750 on 12/08/79. HPCI was demonstrated to be operable at 1150 on 12/08/79.
- i A review of the unit operators, assistant shift engineer and the shift engineer journal for 12/07/79 and 12/08/79 shows that none of the journals documented the fact that RCIC was inoperable or that there was a problem with RCIC as required by Browns Ferry Standard Practice 12.2 which requires the logging of significant equipment malfunction.
In addition no journal entries or surveillance records could be located that indicated HPCI was demonstrated to be operable either immediately before or after RCIC was inoperable.
The inspectors identified as an apparent item of noncompliance the failure to declare RCIC inoperable and to demonstrate HPCI operable with RCIC inoperable as required by Technical Specification 3.5.F.2 j
(5e-296/80-12-01).
7.
Unit 1 Refueling Outage During this report period, the inspectors made frequent visits to the refuel-
.ing-floor to observe work in progress and discuss activities with personnal
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involved.
No items of noncompliance or deviations were identified by the inspectors.
8.
Plant Physical Protection
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During the course of routine inspection activities, the inspector made observation of certain plant physical protection activities. These' included i
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personnel badging, search and escort, vehicle search and escort, vital acea access control and physical barriers.
No items of noncompliance or deviations were noted.
9.
Health Physics
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During t'ais reporting period, the inspectors made frequent inspections of contaminated storage and work areas. The inspectors considered that poor housekeeping existed in some of the areas and so informed plant management.
In response, the' licensee implemented a program where QA makes frequent tours of contaisinated sorage and work areas to identify problems or poten-tia,1 problems in these areas and report their findings. Since this program was instituted, the inspectors have noted a general improvement in all contaminated storage and work areas.
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No items of noncompliance or deviations were noted.
10.
Pre-Action. Alert On March 1, 1980, a severe winter storm engulfed the Northern Alabama area and caused temporary and sporadic power outages throughout the area.
During this time period Unit I and 2 were in cold shutdown and Unit 3 was operating at full power. At 1036 both offsite power supply lines to the site were lost. Unit I and 2 diesels functioned as required. One off site,
power supply was regained at 1042 but the other remained unstable until approximatel 1830 March 2, 1980 when. weather conditions subsided. The licensee, because of the potential for losing the only off site power supply, declared a Pre-Action Alert at 1640 on March 1, 1980. At 1219 on March 2, 1980, the Pre-Action Alert was cancelled after regaining the
second off site power supply and the severe weather had passed. An inspec-tor observed activities at the site during initial phases of the alert.
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