IR 05000424/1986011

Ack Receipt of 860523 & 0818 Responses to Violation & Deviation Noted in Insp Repts 50-424/86-11 & 50-425/86-06. Notice of Deviation Stands.Nrc Assessment Re Deviation Discussed in Encl

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, J 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 inspection 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 state 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 complete We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.

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Sincerely, f

sj 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& .

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 2

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/(P.D. Rice,VicePresident, Project

/. REngineering 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 .E D. Groover, Quality 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. Nuclear Council C. Teper, Georgians Against 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 3 cc w/enci cont'd)

r. O. H. Paris, Administrative Judge Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel .

. 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 Hill,IE

. Miller, NRR Brach, 0GC h Sinkule, RII

. Christnot, RII RC Resident Inspector Document Control Desk State of Georgia

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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 wel 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 plate surface. The licensee was aware that their welding controls had not precluded excessive welding and performed a follow-up investigation to help assure that this had not resulted in additional lamellar-tearing The follow-upand asso-included ciated degradation of support weld capabilitie visual and magnetic particle examinations of welds onThe a randomly licensee selected did not samnle of supports similar to the one that faile reqaire any examinations of weldments made from the heat of plate that exparit ad the lamellar tearing, as they had concluded that the near sutface territe banding and inclusions implicated in that failure were unMV to exist uniformly or to recur in a given heat of plate materia This .onclusion was presented without basis in the response which denied the deviatio The NRC considers that the licensee should have, if practical, examined additional examples of weldments fabricated from the plate that hadIt exhibited the lamellar tearin 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 support Staff Assessment:

The staff's review of lamellar tearing data indicated that it occurs very infrequently and that Even the potential for its recurrence so, we believe that if the in the licensee's supports is very lo licensee can identify additional weldments fabricated from the heat of l

plate in which the lamellar tearing was discovered, a sample of theAn u weldments should be examined. be used if practical and, if not, a magnetic particle technique References withby utilized subsurface capabilities should be used. (Note: 424/86-11 the staff-in their review are described in NRC Inspection Reports l

! and 425/86-06).

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Enclosure 2 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 plan 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 investigatio 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 ,

These were, respectively, the heat numbers of the

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7417461 and 741991 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 741991 The licensee's failure to examine weldments fabricated from

[ 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 ,

. any commitment on the following basis: The investigation described in the July 11 letter was only a " proposed plan."

l~ 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 support 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

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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