L-02-093, Supplemental Information in Support of LAR No. 165 New Fuel Storage Racks Enrichment Limit

Supplemental Information in Support of LAR No. 165 New Fuel Storage Racks Enrichment Limit

ML022590017
Person / Time
Site:	Beaver Valley
Issue date:	09/11/2002
From:	Bezilla M FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co
To:	Document Control Desk, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
References
L-02-093
Download: ML022590017 (5)

Text

"" FFNO ENO C Beaver Valley Power 168 Station Route PO Box4 Shippingport, PA 15077-0004 FirstEnergy Nuclear OperatingCompany 724-682-5234 Mark B. Bezilla Fax: 724-643-8069 Site Vice President September 11, 2002 L-02-093 U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Attention: Document Control Desk Washington, DC 20555-0001

Subject:

Beaver Valley Power Station, Unit No. 2 Docket No. 50-412, License No. NPF-73 Supplemental Information in Support of LAR No. 165 New Fuel Storage Racks Enrichment Limit This letter provides the FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) response to a verbal NRC request for supplemental information on August 28, 2002, pertaining to FENOC letter L-02-070 dated May 31, 2002.

FENOC letter L-02-070 submitted License Amendment Request (LAR) No. 165 that proposed changes to the Beaver Valley Power Station (BVPS), Unit No. 2, to increase the new fuel (fresh fuel) storage rack enrichment limit to 5.00 weight percent. Supplemental information is provided in Attachment A of this letter.

This information does not change the evaluations or conclusions presented in FENOC letter L-02-070. If there are any questions concerning this matter, please contact Mr. Larry R. Freeland, Manager, Regulatory Affairs/Corrective Action at 724-682-5284.

on I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed September 11, 2002.

Sincerely, Mark B. Bezilla Attachments 00ool

Beaver Valley Power Station, Unit No. 2 Supplemental Information in Support of LAR No. 165 New Fuel Storage Racks Enrichment Limit L-02-093 Page 2 c: Mr. D. S. Collins, NRR Project Manager Mr. D. M. Kern, NRC Sr. Resident Inspector Mr. H. J. Miller, NRC Region I Administrator Mr. D. A. Allard, Director BRP/DEP Mr. L. E. Ryan (BRP/DEP)

Letter L-02-093 - ATTACHMENT A Supplemental Information in Support of New Fuel Storage Racks Enrichment Limit for Beaver Valley Power Station, Unit No. 2 (License Amendment Request No. 165)

NRC Supplemental Information Request No. 1 The request to increase the fresh fuel enrichment limit to 5 w/o includes a manufacturing tolerance of +0.05 w/o. Section 1.0 includes a statement that the analysis assumes all available storage cells are occupied with fresh, 5.0 w/o U-235, 17x 17 fuel assemblies.

However, the analysis assumptions listed in Sections 3.1 and 3.2 include 5.05 w/o enrichment to account for the manufacturing tolerance. Clarify whether the analysis was performed at 5 w/o or 5.05 w/o.

FENOC Response The actual KENO runs were performed at 5.05% enrichment, although NRC approval is only requested for a maximum storage of 5.0% enrichment.

As stated in the report, Section 2.1 (5th paragraph), the fresh fuel racks are analyzed under "worst case" scenarios conservatively accounting for fuel parameter variability and tolerances on rack dimensions. This is a more conservative approach than analyzing the variability of each individual fuel parameter or rack tolerance separately in PHOENIX and then statistically combining the results and adding it to a nominal K-eff result from KENO.

NRC Supplemental Information Request No. 2 The benchmarking of WCAP-14416 used critical experiments only up to 4.31 w/o U-235 enriched fuel, whereas the requested amendment would allow enrichment to as high as 5.05 w/o (including the tolerance). Provide the details of the process used to extrapolate the critical experiments to 5.05 w/o, U-235.

FENOC Response The requested amendment would allow enrichments only up to 5.0% (as-built) enrichment. Due to licensing limitations at the Westinghouse Columbia Fuel Site and in the rest of the industry, Westinghouse only accepts orders for fuel up to 4.95% enriched (nominal). Therefore, the maximum enrichment of fuel that could be stored in the rack is 5.0% (4.95% + 0.05% manufacturing tolerance).

The extension of the WCAP-14416 methods up to 5.0% enrichment was based on the fact that no significant biases or trends were observed in the Westinghouse benchmark

Letter L-02-093 - ATTACHMENT A Page 2 results as a function of enrichment. This was documented in the response to the second Request for Additional Inforfiatilon (RAI) on WCAP-14416; irid the NRC documented their agreement that the methods were valid up to 5% in their Safety Evaluation Report (SER) on the WCAP.

NRC Supplemental Information Request No. 3 The third paragraph of Section 2.1 includes method bias and uncertainty taken from the WCAP-14416 topical report. Clarify whether or not this analysis used the same code version and cross sections as those used in the WCAP-14416, Section 2.1, benchmarking? If the same code versions and cross sections were not used, provide the basis for using the bias and uncertainty from the topical report.

FENOC Response The code versions and cross section libraries are the same as used in the original benchmark. However, the codes were re-compiled in 1998 on a computer with a Y2K compliant operating system. As part of that effort, Westinghouse re-ran all of the benchmark cases and revalidated the use of the WCAP-14416 bias and uncertainty.

Letter L-02-093 - ATTACHMENT B Commitment List The following list identifies those actions committed to by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) for Beaver Valley Power Station (BVPS) Unit No. 1 in this document. Any other actions discussed in the submittal represent intended or planned actions by Beaver Valley. These other actions are described only as information and are not regulatory commitments. Please notify Mr. Larry R. Freeland, Manager, Regulatory Affairs/Corrective Action, at Beaver Valley on (724) 682-5284 of any questions regarding this document or associated regulatory commitments.

Commitment Due Date None None