IR 05000424/1986011
| ML20211A145 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Vogtle  |
| Issue date: | 10/08/1986 |
| From: | Grace J NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION II) |
| To: | John Miller GEORGIA POWER CO. |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8610150001 | |
| Download: ML20211A145 (5) | |
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! OCT 0 8 W Georgia Power Company TTN: Mr. J. H. Miller, Jr.
President P. O. Box 4545 Atlanta, GA 30302 Gentlemen:
SUBJECT: REPORT NOS. 50-424/86-11 AND 50-425/86-06 Thank you for your responses of May 23 and August 18, 1986, to our Notices of Violation and Deviation issued on April 24, 1986, concerning activities conducted at your Vogtle facility.
We have evaluated your responses to the Violation and found that they meet the requirements of 10 CFR 2.201.
We will examine the implementation of your corrective actions for the Violations during future inspections.
After careful review of the basis for your denial of our Notice of Deviation, we l
have concluded, for the reasons given in the enclosure to this latter, that the Deviation occurred as stated.
Please submit to this Office, in writing, within 30 days of the date of this letter, a description of corrective actions regarding the Deviation, actions taken to avoid further deviations, and the dates when these actions will be completed.
We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
Sincerely,
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fsj J. Nelson Grace Regional Administrator Enclosure:
Staff Assessment of Licensee Response 9c w/ encl:
VJ. P. O'Reilly, Senior Vice President Nuclear Operations
[R.E.Conway,SeniorVicePresident&
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Project Director
/D. O. Foster, Vice President, Project Support (cc w/enci cont'd - see page 2)
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OCT 0 8' 1986 Georgia Power Company
/(P.D. Rice,VicePresident, Project cc w/ encl cont'd)
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H. Pinson, Vice President, Project Construction vd. T. Beckham, Vice President &
M.GeneralManager-Operations A. Thomas, Vice President,
\\/b. Licensing S. Read, General Manager, Quality Assurance f.W. Hayes,VogtleQuality Assurance Manager J.C.Ramsey, Manager-Readiness Review
/G.B.Bockhold,GeneralManager, Nuclear Operations M. Gucwa, Manager, Nuclear Safety and Licensing I H. Googe, Project Construction Manager y. D. Groover, Quality E
Assurance Site Manager -
d. Construction A. Bailey, Project Licensing d. Manager F. Trowbridge, Esq., Shaw, Pittman, Potts and Trowbridge vB. W. Churchill, Esq., Shaw,
/ Pittman, Potts and Trowbridge
\\/E. L. Blake, Jr., Esq., Shaw, Pittman, Potts and Trowbridge
/J. E. Joiner, Troutman, Sanders,
/.LockermanandAshmore J
G. Ledbetter, Connissioner, Dcpartment of Human Resources tf H. Badger, Office of Planning J.andBudget Kirkland, III, Counsel, Office of the Consumer's Utility M. Council C. Teper, Georgians Against Nuclear Energy QM.B.-Margulies,Esq., Chairman, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel (cc w/ encl cont'd - see page 3)
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Georgia Power Company
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r. O. H. Paris, Administrative Judge Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel
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. A. Linenberger, Jr., Administrative Judge
- Atomic Safety and Licensing Board P
l yd.ane P. Garde, Citizens Clinic, Director Government Accoun'tability Project bec w/ encl:
yE. Reis, 0GC p.M. Hill,IE
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Brach, 0GC Sinkule, RII
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ENCLOSURE Staff Assessment of Licensee Response lted in the following Our assessment of the licensee's response has resu
. concerns:
Concern #1:
Description:
-The first concern is with the licensee's follow-up investigation of the pipe support failure which occurred at relatively low applied stress in plate material adjacent to _a support weld.
The licensee's metallographical analysis of samples from the failed support attributed the -failure to lamellar tearing caused by large stresses from heavy welding and the presence of inclusions and ferrite banding near the The licensee was aware that their welding controls had not plate surface.
precluded excessive welding and performed a follow-up investigation to help assure that this had not resulted in additional lamellar-tearing and asso-ciated degradation of support weld capabilities.
The follow-up included visual and magnetic particle examinations of welds on a randomly selected The licensee did not samnle of supports similar to the one that failed.
reqaire any examinations of weldments made from the heat of plate that exparit ad the lamellar tearing, as they had concluded that the near territe banding and inclusions implicated in that failure were to exist uniformly or to recur in a given heat of plate material.
sutface This.onclusion was presented without basis in the response which denied unMV the deviation.
The NRC considers that the licensee should have, if practical, examined additional examples of weldments fabricated from the plate that hadIt exhibited the lamellar tearing.
without a large expenditure of time or effort, and that it would be justi-fied by the additional confidence that it would provide in the adequecy of the supports.
The staff's review of lamellar tearing data indicated Staff Assessment:
that it occurs very infrequently and that the potential for its recurrence in the licensee's supports is very low.
Even so, we believe that if the licensee can identify additional weldments fabricated from the heat of plate in which the lamellar tearing was discovered, a sample of theAn u l
weldments should be examined.
be used if practical and, if not, a magnetic particle technique with i.
subsurface capabilities should be used.
(Note:
References utilized by 424/86-11 the staff-in their review are described in NRC Inspection Reports l
and 425/86-06).
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- Enclosure
Concern #2 Description:. The second concern is with - the submittals the licensee provided to the NRC in identifying the lamellar tearing. and describing their actions to. assure that there were no additional examples which might affect the safety of the plant.
In-a July 11, 1983 letter, the-licensee informed the NRC of the lamellar tearing support failure and of their plans for a follow-up investigation.
-They stated that their planned investigation would include a field walkdown inspection of supports which utilized weldments of similar size and type and that it would include weldments made to plates fabricated from heat numbers
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7417461 and 7419919.
These were, respectively, the heat numbers of the plate in the support that originally failed and of the plate 'in another support that had failed similarly, but reportedly under much greater loading, in a destructive test performed by the licensee.
In reviewing the licensee's actions after they reported that they had completed their investigation, an NRC inspector found that they had not taken any action to i
assure examination of weldments fabricated from plate. heat numbers 7417461 and 7419919.
The licensee's failure to examine weldments fabricated from
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these heats, contrary to their statements in their July 11 letter, resulted in the issuance of the NRC Notice of Deviation.
Responding to this Devia-
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-tion (in their May 23, 1986 letter) the licensee denied that they nad made
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any commitment on the following basis:
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The investigation described in the July 11 letter was only a " proposed plan."
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2.
A subsequent licensee letter, dated December 19, 1983, indicated that the previously described investigation program had been modified and clearly indicated that the = support sample examined was randomly selected from the total population of installed embed plate supports.
Staff Assessment: The staff found that, as stated in the licensee's denial, the field walkdown inspection of weldments fabricated from heats 7417461 and j
1419919 was described to the NRC as part of a " proposed plan". However, the
staff also found that the licensee did not clearly indicate to the NRC that
the'.r plans to assure field inspections of these items had been changed.
l Thr. licensee's December 19, 1983 letter stated that they had been conducting their investigation "as previously outlined in our letter GN-240 dated
7-11-83."
They stated that their investigation "was modified to include weld size as an additional variable" and that it included " randomly
. selected" supports.
They specifically did not state that their previous
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intention to include weldments fabricated from heats 7417461 and 7419919 had been altered.
The staff concludes that the bases presented by the licensee
in their denial are insufficient and that the Deviation should continue as
stated.
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