IR 05000456/1986020

Partially Withheld Insp Repts 50-456/86-20 & 50-457/86-18 on 851008-860425 (Ref 10CFR2.790).No Violation or Deviation Noted.Major Areas Inspected:Review of Concrete Patching & General Condition of Structural Concrete

ML20197H066
Person / Time
Site:	Braidwood
Issue date:	05/13/1986
From:	Muffett J NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION III)
To:
Shared Package
ML20197H045	List: IR 05000456/1986020 ML20197H042
References
50-456-86-20, 50-457-86-18, NUDOCS 8605190046
Download: ML20197H066 (11)

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U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

REGION III

Report No. 50-456/86020; 50-457/86018 Docket No. 50-456; 50-457 License No. CPPR-132; CPPR-133 Licensee: Commonwealth Edison Company ,

Post Office Box 767 '

Chicago, IL 60690 l

Facility Name: Braidwood Station, Units 1 and 2 Inspection At: Braidwood Site, Braidwood, IL Inspection Conducted: October 8 and November 21, 1985, and February 18-19 and

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April 25, 1986 wo )

Inspector: J. W. Muffett 6[t3 [6L '

Date N

Approved By: J. W. Muffett 5 /t2, /gG Chief, Plant Systems Section Date '

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Inspection Summary Inspection on October 8 and November 21, 1985, and February 18-19 and April 25, 1986 (Reports No. 50-456/86020(0RS); 50-457/86018(DRS))

Areas Inspected: Review of concrete patching and general condition of structural concrete in response to Allegation RIII-85-A-014 Results: No items of violation or deviations were identifie l

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8605190046 860513 PDR ADOCK 05000456 O PDR l

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DETAILS 1. Persons Contacted Commonwealth Edison Company (CECO)

• Wallace, Project Manager C. Schroeder, Licensing Superintendent G. Marcus, Special Assistant to Project Manager

• D. Shamblin, Project Construction Superintendent W. Vahle, Project Field Engineering Manager S. Hunsacher, QA Supervisor Sargent and Lundy Engineers Ken Kostal, Project Director D. Carreira, Engineering Specialist Richard Netzel, Senior Structural Project Engineer Steve Wahlert, Structural Project Engineer Steve Berthau, Senior Structural Engineer C. A. Sward, Senior Structural Engineer Gust K. Newberg Construction Company Don Stegemoller, Vice President, Power Construction Rick Donica, QA Manager Mike Swinford, QA Engineer

• Denotes those attending exit meeting on April 25, 1986.

2. (Closed) Allegation RIII-85-A-0142 On July 29, 1985, an individual who had been employed by Sargent and Lundy Engineers in the Braidwood Construction Assessment Program (BCAP)

at the Braidwood Station, submitted a complaint to the U.S. Department of Labor alleging employment discrimination concerning his termination by Sargent and Lundy Engineers. The individual believed that he was terminated because he " observed significant defects in several concrete repairs during their removal" and he also " observed serious unrepaired concrete defects." The Department of Labor notified the NRC concerning the complaint and on September 5, 1985, a sworn statement was taken by the NRC from the individual regarding his technical concern As an aid in the technical aspects of this inspection, the NRC retained the services of an experienced consultant, Mr. Robert Philleo (Past President of the American Concrete Institute). Mr. Philleo visited the Braidwood site on three occasions; he interviewed the individual making the allegations and inspected the areas of concern in the presence of

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the alleger. Mr. Philleo also interviewed all of the individuals named in the sworn statement. The following is a summary of the reviews conducted by the inspector and Mr. Philleo. Mr. Philleo's final report is attached (Attachment 1).

Concern 1 The alleger believes that the deficiencies he identified in the sample of concrete repairs and the identified defective areas constitutes the "tip of the iceberg." He reasoned that to have so many discrepancies in a ;

randomly selected sample indicates bigger problem The following is a verbatim copy of the individual's report of the defects to Sargent and Lundy Engineers:

Item No. I

"BCAP area CSR-I-S-001-XXX-57 located in the underside of a slab in the Unit 2 Auxiliary Feedwater Tunnel near Q and 29 at Elev. 373' .

There was a patch over a structural defec Exposure of the bottom reinforcing steel by chipping revealed the presence of unknown quantities of unspecified materials (silicon and grout) that has intruded into the spaces between coarse aggregate where no concrete mortar was initially present."

Item No. 2

" Unit 2 Steam Tunnel on the south face of a beam immediately south of 30- line at the east face of P- line wall, (approximately) Elev. 395'.

This anomaly is adjacent to BCAP area CSR-I-S-001-14-01. There was a patch over a structural defect and honeycomb at the surface."

Item No. 3

"BCAP area CSR-I-S-001-49-01 located in the underside of a slab at Elev. 399'. It is located 7 ft. north of 20 line and 7 ft. east of L- line. There was a patch over a structural defect."

Item No. 4

" Tendon grease has flowed from a sloping cold joint in the vertical concrete surface clockwise from Buttress No. 1 at (approximately)

Elev. 387' on the Unit I containment exterior. There is a rock pocket (honeycomb) above the cold joint. This is not a BCAP area."

Item No. 5

"There is a rock pocket (honeycomb) on the south chamber of a beam between Columns P-15 and Q-1 The beam is in the Essential Service Water Pump Room (Elev. 330') on the Unit 1 side. This is not a BCAP area."

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Item No. 6

" Fuel handling building under Slab 439",15 and W" water leak, foreign material at interface of patch and base materia Roof flashing misinstalled leading to water leak."

Item No. 7

" Patch located under Slab 401 at M and 8."

NRC Review The NRC inspector and NRC consultant (Mr. Philleo) reviewed the concrete checklists used in the Braidwood Construction Assessment Program (BCAP),

a the Construction Sample Reinspection Evaluation of Concrete Placements,

the complete documentation of the 13 BCAP concrete areas which included patches and the actual concrete placements including the patches. All surface defects which the alleger submitted to the the NRC were also visually inspected and reviewe Conclusion Concerning the allegation regarding the sample of repairs, the original BCAP did not contain a reinspection of a sample population of concrete patches; the reinspection sample consisted of a sample of 80 concrete placement There were 13 patches contained in the sample of 80 concrete placements; of these three were found to be discrepant but none of the patches were structurally significant. Because of the small number of patches reviewed it was not possible to determine if a patching problem existe Subsequent to these allegations a random sample of 61 patches were reinspected and reviewed by the licensee using Procedure No. PCD-43,

Overview Review of In-Place Concrete Patches." A selected sample of the results of the reinspection of the patches was reviewed by the NRC inspector and NRC consultant. The results of the review indicate all of the patches were satisfactor Concerning the allegation regarding identified defective areas outside the BCAP sample, two important facts are involved. The first is that the Braidwood procedures in force during the time the alleger was on the Braidwood site did not require Nonconformance Reports (NCRs) to be written for surface defects which did not expose reinforcement. None of the defects (outside the BCAP sample) exposed reinforcement; therefore, NCRs i were not require Nevertheless, all of the surface defects contained in l

the allegation were the subject of the pre-existing or new NCR l Mr. Philleo's review found that all of the specific deficiencies submitted by the individual were adequately dealt wit j l

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Concern No. 2 The tendon gallery wall has a design defect which caused cracking of the concrete allowing water seepag NRC Review The NRC inspector reviewed the design of the tendon gallery. It appears that the structure complies with applicable codes and NRC regulatory requirements. All large concrete structures contain cracks to some degree; therefore, the presence of cracks does not necessarily indicate that the structure is defectiv Concerning the water seepage problem the individual in his sworn statement says "a good waterproofing system would have overcome defects like that" (water seepage).

Conclusion The design of the tendon gallery does not appear to be defective. Based on the NRC review, the design complies with applicable codes and regulatory requirements. Due to the presence of normal cracking and ground water, seepage has occurred. The status of the water seepage problem in this area will be monitored in the future as an open item. (456/86020-01; 457/86018-01)

Concern 3 The individual believed there was "a gimmick" in their (CECO) assessment program. Their concrete inspection procedure says that in order to require an increase in the sample size the defect has to be structurally significan NRC Review l The NRC inspector and NRC consultant reviewed the BCAP procedures and result Conclusion The individual is correct concerning expansion of sample populations in the BCAP. BCAP samples were based on randomly chosen samples, engineering judgement samples, and samples biased toward more highly stressed element The BCAP was not a strictly statistical program. The elements of the BCAP concerning expansion of samples were reviewed by the NRC prior to the initiation of the Program. Engineering judgements and technical conclu-sions were to be drawn from the results regardless of any specific number of defects discovere Employment Discrimination Allecation The Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, received an employment discrimination complaint from the former Sargent and Lundy employee on August 14, 1985, in which it was alleged the employee was dismissed for identifying concrete deficiencies at the Braidwood Plant. The Department

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i of Labor conciliated the matter at which time Sargent and Lundy denied the charges and the former employee withdrew the charge and " acknowledges j that the termination of his employment with Sargent and Lundy was due to a general reduction in the work force".

As part of the technical inspection of the issues concerning these allegations, the inspector reviewed documents relating to the termination of the individual making these allegations. Approximately one year before the individual was assigned to Braidwood Station to participate in the BCAP activities he was identified as an individual to be terminated for lack of work in his field. Also, the individual was terminated by Sargent and Lundy approximately six months after being reassigned from the Braidwood site to the Chicago offic Overall Conclusions After review of pertinent documents, procedures, and records relating to the allegations concerning the concrete at the Braidwood Station, a number of conclusions can be made. These are as follows: There was no change in the way the concrete portion of the BCAP activities was performed after the alleger was removed from the sit , Subsequent to the allegations the licensee conaucted a program to reinspect a sample of concrete patches. All the patches in the randomly chosen sample were satisfactor Defects (outside BCAP) which the alleger mentioned in his sworn statement have been adequately addresse The individual's concern regarding the widespread problem of deficient concrete or concrete patches can not be substantiate . Open Items Open items are matters which have been discussed with the licensee, which will be reviewed further by the inspector, and which involve some action on the part of the NRC or licensee or both. The Open Item disclosed during this inspection is discussed in Paragraph _

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' Exit Interview

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The NRC inspector met with the licensee representatives (denoted under i Paragraph 1) at the conclusion of the inspection on April 25, 1986. The ,

inspector summarized the purpose and findings of the inspection. The  !

licensee acknowledged this information. The inspector also discussed the

likely informational content of the inspection report with regard to

, documents or processes reviewed during the inspection. The licensee did

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1 Attachment: " Evaluation of Concrete Construction Allegations

at the Braidwood Station" - '

Robert E. Philleo i

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ATTACHMENT EVALUATION OF CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION ALLEGATIONS AT THE BRAIDWOOD STATION Robert E. Philleo, Consulting Engineer In January 1985 an employee of Sargent and Lundy, was assigned to the Braidwood Plant to participate in the Braidwood Construction Assessment Program (BCAP). After spending parts of five days at the plant, he was relieved of his duties; and his duties were transferred from Sargent and Lundy to Commonwealth Edison. Prior to leaving the project he made allegations of seven deficiencies in concrete construction, five of which were in areas nat included in the BCAP samples. His observations are detailed in a sworn statement before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on September 5, 1985; and his specific allegations are sumnarized in Attachment A to this report. I was asked to investigate whether the allegations could be substantiated and whether they were syrptomatic of a generic problem at the plan INVESTIGATION I visited the plant on October 8, 1985 and met with key plant personnel, examined all the areas mentioned in the allegations, and interviewed Those attending the meeting were the following:

Co=monwealth Edison M. Wallace, Plant Manager C. Schroeder, Licensing Superintendent G. Marcus, Special Assistant to Project Manager D. Shamblin, Project Construction Superintendent E. Fitzpatrick, Assistant Manager, QA W. Vahle, Project Field Engineering Manager S. Hunsander, QA Supervisor Sargent and Lundy Ken Kostal, Project Director D. Carreira, Engineering Specialist Nuclear Regulatory Commission C. Williams, Chief, Plant Systems Section, Engineering Branch, Division of Reactor Safety, Region III On November 21, 1985 I returned to the site and interviewed the following:

Sargent and Lundy Richard Netzel, Senior Structural Project Engineer

tir. mas cf r rti^- -'~~N 'n identifying dete!!: L , to pr2 vent a cicarly '

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!, cc!": Strev2 W;hl;rt, Structural Proj2ct Engin2sr

/ Stsv2 B;rthtu, Sinior Structural Engin:cr C. A. Sward, Senior Structural Engineer (on loan to Commonwealth Edison for BCAP)

Gust K. Newberg Construction Company Don Stegemoller, Vice-president, Power Construction Rick Donica, QA manager Mike Swinford, Quality engineer On this and a subsequent visit on February 18-19 1986 I examined the non-conformance reports (NCRs) which had been prepared for the lllllll allegations, the concrete check lists used in the BCAP program, the Construction Sample Reinspection Evaluation of Concrete Placements, the complete documentation of the 13 BCAP concrete areas which included patches, the documentation of an expanded sample of 61 patched areas, and a report entitled " Visual Inspection of Selected Concrete Patches at Braidwood Station, dated February 28, 1986, by W. Gene Corley, consultant to Commonwealth Edison; and I examined 15 patches in the fiel FINDINGS The interview with essentially confirmed the information in his sworn statement before the NR He expressed the opinion that the concrete problems at Braidwood were probably not as serious as at Marble Hill, an identical plant at which he had been previously employed, because the labor pool in the Chicago area was better, but he expressed a concern as to the quality of patches at Braidwood. He further suggested that the deficiencies he had found may merely have been the "tip of the iceberg."

The interviews with plant personnel produced agreement on the following facts: llllll[wasassignedtotheBCAPprogram. His responsibility was to advise Newberg personnel on the extent of chipping required when deficient concrete was discovered. The ultimate responsibility for chipping, however, was with Newberg QC, and sometimes the QC representative required more chipping than had been recommended by lllllll During his time on the job he examined about ten areas of surface defects identified by BCAP. During this time he also looked at areas not included in the BCAP sample which were the counterparts of areas which had demonstrated concrete consolidation problems at Harble Hill. While he was walking around the project, Newberg employees who had worked at Marble Hill, and who recognized him from Marble Hill, called his attention to concrete surface defects at Braidwood. These two groups of observations produced the five allegations not connected with BCAP. No one knew which of the allegations could be attributed to each group. It was the responsibility of Sargent and Lundy to evaluate the structural significance of concrete defects. This is a particularly important responsibility since identification of a structural defect requires expansion of the BCAP sample size. According to Braidwood procedures NCRs were required only on surface defects which exposed reinforcemen NCRs had been prepared for the deficiencies cited bylllllll There was no difference in the way the concrete portion of BCAP was carried out afterllllll[left the job as compared with the way it was carried out while he was ther The concrete portion of BCAP consisted of a sample of 80 item Sixty qsmas of r mi - ' r -2f n:' r Identifying

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. were s21cetGd ct rcndtm cnd 20 wira c21setsd by Gngin22 ring judgment. Th2 cnginocring judgn;nt itcms w2ra s21ected from systems judged to be highly significant to safety and included the containment buildings and supports for the emergency diesel generators, and auxiliary feedwater, reactor coolant, residual heat removal, and containment spray pumps. The items were selected from a population of 1,307 concrete placements. The use of placements as the population unit biased the sample toward small placements. The attributes inspected were satisfactory for the purpos l There was no requirement that concrete patches be included in the sampl ,

Patches were examined whenever the selected placements included patche l As it turned out, 13 patches were examined. Three were found deficient, !

but none were structurally significant. The individual records indicate '

that the BCAP inspection was carried out adequatel NCRs 213-1003, 213-1006, 213-1023, 213-1214, and 213-1275, all prepared in Februar 1985, describe in detail the repair of deficiencies identified by The repair procedures are satisfactor Because most of M concern dealt with patches and the BCAP as originally conceived did not comprehensively investigate patches, the NRC ,

directed that there be an in-depth examination of patches. Accordingly )

61 patches were selected at random for examination. Patches described in the following NCRs were found to contain loose or delaminated concrete 167, 237, 240, 274, 450, 459, 472, 484, 815, 931, and 1150. These are the patches discussed in the Corley report. It was reported that in many cases patches were removed to examine the underlying concrete. In no case was any unsound concrete found below the patch. In addition patches corresponding to the following NCRs were inspected by me because there was j some discrepancy between the NCR description of the patch and the BCAP description:

815, 1026, and 167, 339, 350, 381, 397, 411, 412, 417, 428, 431, 443, 474, 115 In some cases the discrepancy was resolved in favor of the NCR, in some cases in favor of BCAP, and in some cases the issue could not be resolved; but all the patches were satisfactor CONCLUSIONS

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The allegations made by were the subject of pre-existing or new NCR All these specific deficiencies were adequately dealt wit It is impossible to determine from the original concrete BCAP whether there is M concern. a generic problem with patches, the principal focus of The number of placements sampled is not sufficient for !

such a determination. However, the expanded sample of patches does make an evaluation possibl Of the 61 patches sampled, all were either tight or were shown to have had all the originally unsound concrete removed when they were inspected after removal of the patche The E suggestion that a widespread problem of deficient concrete may exist at Braidwood cannot be substantiated, i

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P4 ATTACHMENT A The following is a verbatim copy of " report" to S&L managemen GKN CEMENT FINISHER ALLFGATION ITEM NO. I

"BCAP area CSR-I-S-001-XXX-57 located in the underside of a slab in the Unit 2 Auxiliary Feedwater Tunnel near Q and 29 at Elev. 373: There was a patch over a structural defect. Exposure of the bottom reinforcing steel by chipping revealed the presence of unknown quantities of unspecified materials (silicon and grout) that has intruded into the spaces between coarse aggregrate where no concrete mortar was initially present."

ITEM NO. 2

" Unit 2 Steam Tunnel on the south face of a beam imediately south of 30- line at the east face of P- line wall, (approximately) Elec. 395. This anomaly us adjacent to BCAP area C5R-I-S-001-14-0 There was e patch over a structural defect and honeycomb at the surfac ITEM N0. 3

"BCAP area CSR-I-5-001-49-01 located in the underside of a slab at Elev. 399:

It is located 7 ft. north of 20 line and 7 f t. east of L- line. There was a patch over a structural defect."

ITEM NO. 4

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" Tendon grease has flowed from a sloping cold point in the veritical concrete l surface clockwise from buttress no. I at (approximately) Elev. 387' on the Unit I containment exterior. There is a rock pocket (honeycomb) above the cold joint. This is not a BCAP area."

ITEM NO. 5

"There is a rock pocket (honeycomb) on the south chamber of a beam between columns P-15 and Q-15. The bean is in the Essential Service Water Pump Room (Elev. 330') on the Unit I side. This is not a BCAP area."

ITEM NO. 6

" Fuel handling building under slab 439',15 and W" water leak, foreign j material at interface of patch and base material. Roof flashing misinstalled leading to water lea ITEM NO. 7 Patch located "under slab 401 at M and 8."

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