ML19220A257

Transcript of 790404 TMI Subcommittee Meeting in Washington, Dc.Pp 1-62

ML19220A257
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Site:	Crane
Issue date:	04/05/1979
From:	Bender M, Carbon M, Etherington H Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards
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NUDOCS 7904170122
Download: ML19220A257 (63)

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To -3 2 s NUCLE AR REGUL ATORY COMMISSION ADVISORY COSU4ITTEE ON REACTOR S AFEGUARDS 3

IN THE M ATTER OF:

EECEiVf t' ALV!50RY COMYlTTLE O.3 LLACTUP, 5 AI L GL /..ES t;.5. N.rt.s THREE MILE ISLAND APR 5 1979 g

1 ( y-pg SUBCOSU4ITTEE MEETING 7 8 i ib i i il i'-i d: l S G 9

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PI' ce - Washington, D.

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a Date. WeGaesday, 4 April.1979 Pager 1 - 62 e

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. Washingten, D.C. 20001 f1ATIOf4WIC E COVERAGE - D AILY

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I PUBLIC NOTICE BY THE 2

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR PhGULATORY CCFCIISSIGN'S 3

ADVISORY CCFCIICEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUAPJJS s

"3 Y'

^P 5

0 The contents of this stenographic transcript of the a

7!

proceedings of the United States Nuclear Regulatory l

8l Ccamission's Advisory Ccmmittee on Reactor Safeguards (ACES),

l 91 as reported herein, is an uncorrected record of the discussicns 10 recorded at the meeting held on the above date.

Il No member of the ACRS Staff and no participant at this 12 meeting accepts any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies 13 of statem.ent or data contained in this transcript.

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

'22 23 24i

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!cporters inc.,i 25l

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1 UNITED STATES OF A'4 ERICA 2I NUCLEAR REGULATORY CC:'. MISSION l

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THREE MILE ISLAND i

5 SUBCCMMITTEE MEETING i

i 6'

l 7,

l Room 1130 s]

1717 H S tree t, N.

W.

Washington, D.

C.

4 9

Wednesday, 4 April 1973 10 Th Subccmmittee on Three Mile Island of the ACR.'

11

! convened, pursuant to notice, at 3:30 p.m.

12 \\

! BEFORE:

i 13,

l, MR. HAROLD ETHERINGTON, Chairman of the Subcommittee 14 !l, 15 ll MR. MYER BENDER, Member 16 {l DR. MAX W.

CARBON, Member l

PROF. WILLIAM KERR, Member 17 ll l

DR. STEPHEN LAWROSKI, Member 18 j

j DR. DADE W.

MOELLER, Member 0

ll CT. DAVID OKRENT, Member i

20 1 4

'l DR. MILTCN PLESSET, Member 21 h

.I

j DR. CHESTER P.

SIESS, Member

-,i

• • il l' CONSULTANTS :

s 1

23 o tj DR. ZUDANS

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DR. STRATTON 1

ai Recor?ers. Inc. '

MR. MICFELSON b

3/93 3

I 1

F 1 ;l P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2'

l'a.

ETI!ERINGTOM :

The meet:inc Frill cor.,e to order.

1 l

3 This is a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards',

l l

4 fubcommittee on the Three Mile Island Nuclear Station.

l1' i

5i

._ __I _an iia ro. l_d-E_the.r i.nc..t_o.n_,. - - - -. - the..s-_ubccmmit tee and am - - - -

9 6 chairman.

The other ACRS members present, I think I will go i

7 ;around the tz Sle starting with Mr. Eender, who is facing me.

8 There is Dr. Siess, Mr. Eender, Dr. Moeller, Mr.

t 1

9,,Michelson, consultant to the committee, Dr. Okrent, Dr.

1 i

10, F le s s e t, Dr. Carbon, Dr. Kerr, Dr. Lawroski, and next is Mr.

e 1

11 )IcKinley -- I will have to come to him later.

He is Mr.

1 12 ?l!cKinley.

And Mr. Muller of the ACRS staff.

Dr. Stratton,

.I 1

13 : consultant to the committee, and then immediately n front of la me is Mr. Case, NRC, and Mr. Eisenhut, with NRC.

15 Did -I miss somebodv. ?

Didn't I mention vou, Dr.

16 ZLcans?

17 '

DR. ZUDANS:

I am last in the alphabet, so it doesn't 18 matter.

19 (Laughter.)

20 MR. ETHERINGTC":

This meeting is to develo_r infor.ation j. - - -

.. _ ~ -. _ _ _ _. _ _ _ _ - - - - -. - - - - - -. - - -

^

2)"'for consideration by the ACPF in its revietr o - the recent inci-denti at Three~:iile Island Unit 2.-

~

~~~

~

2: The meeting 2.s being ccncucted in accordance with t.he 23 provisions of the Advisory Ccmmittee Act and the government in o

24 the Sunshine Act.

/ n? n o,.,

.c = c.,or m i:

3 Mr.

J.C.

'icKinley is the designated employee for this

4 t

l.l 1 "n i

meeting.

The chief cpokesman for the NRC staff wou]c be Mr.

n 2 0 Case and Mr. Eisenhut.

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i I

I 3

i The saecific item to.e discussed today is the i

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I "Il accident at Unit 2 which resulted in the emergency situation n

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I "y

e i

i near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

6l A transcript of the meeting is being kept and it i is requested that each speaker first identify himself and speak 6

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i with sufficient clarity and volume that he can be readily il 9

j heard.

The transcript will include the executive sessions 10 ) as well as the regular part of the meeting.

r 11 I think we might discuss the subecmmittee's wishes 12 y with regard to the agenda.

You have the agenda; read the

1 13 1'

.Items.

14 The chronology commencing niith the feedwater system 15 ]' up s e t.

Current plant status.

This, I take it, would incluce i

1 ~4 ' precautions and procedures to cover possible further degradation 17 h' of systems, the generic aspects, to discuss the possibility

I 1

13 l of an inherent defect that may be common to other reactors lo '

of tnese particular types.

'O' Health aspects.

Recovery plans.

1. 1i We have neard most of these items presented in one form or another, and I don' t know whether the subccmmittee

.ti s h e s

'3 to hear a complete recap of them or whetner it wishes to handl 9

them in questions and answers, Or to have emphasis placed on

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particular items here.

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Il 1

Could I have some expression from the subcommittee 2[ members on this?

Dr. Okrent?

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DR. OKRENT:

Well, what we heard, those of us who i

I

1. l were here in the hour or so of the ccmmissione-= -nating dealt l

1 i

5l or marily with the chronology of F' a 'ncicent for roughly 6

a day or sc, but there was not very much on current plant 7 i stacus.

Il 3

If ycu are going to deal with the subject more by 9

cuestions and long answers, it might be item no.

1.

But i

10 ' perhaps a presentation j

into the area of current status and 11 P' other aspects might be at least a way of intrcducing the topic.

i 12 MR. ETHERINGTON:

Are there other topics that the 13 4h members would like to particularly discuss?

14 "

MR. BENDER: I think it would be useful for the 15 staff to take a few mcments to discuss alternative scenarios 1

16 that they may have considered.

I think it is not totallv, 17 : obvious to all of us, at least, that the scenario suggested 6

13 ; ' y which this accident propogated is necessarily the one that o

4 19 occurrec.

It would b interesting to know if they have any other e^, thoughts on the matter that they would like to volunteen.

'2 MR. EISENHUT:

Let me comment on that.

7, a - a q arg 2

The scenario that we just basically went through was "v.4 ased, or the accident sequence, I guess, would be more

,,. y _,,.., r m appropriate, that we went through basically ras based upon the

6 i

l 4

c th 4 Id strip chart recordings in the plar*

cd upon discassions /ith!

2 C the operators.

And there was not very much in the discussion we just had, conjecture on what was actually causing what was l

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exceot for a couole of occasions where nacceninc in the clant, l5l I pointed out that we were assuming what happened.

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6 Most of it was based on actual data that ee 7:1ti accumulated from the plant.

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l As such, we didn't really sit down and do a study of

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i 9 1 the oossible secuences that can cet vcu there.

We have gone a

10 l through over the last few days trying to take the secuence of J

11 J' events ; hat I just described an hour or so ago.

We are trying 12 to take that and we are trying to look at it and see what it q

.I 13 ej might mean.

I 1

That is actually what physically was happening, 15 whac physical phenomena.

16 I think once you start doing that, then you'll get I

into a lot of conjecture about wnat might be there.

4 18 Where we are right now is we don't have a staff 19 pcsition as to what happened because we are still analyzing it considerably.

J i

,1

' o MR. ETHERINGTCN:

I would like to keep this to the

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kind of planning that we are going to cover.

I take it that

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you feel that it would not be very easy to co tnis, bu t we

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a cln raise a cuestion --

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~. C DR. JUDANS:

I would line to kncw whetner the

1 5

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4 l i'! presentation that preceded this one is in a written form other i

2g than transcript?

1

'1 MR. EISENHUT: No, not at this time.

l 4

MR. ETHERINGTON:

Will it be?

t i

AR. EISENHUT:

We didn't plan it.

The transcript is l

4~ j what we will probably use as the written forn.

We are

-l'.l planning, as I said, to give out the sequence of events that

! will be attached to the bulletin that will be going out.

d i

9:1 We are presently finalizing that and we think it will 10 l be finalized by tomorrow.

11 i DR. PLESSET: One question I think might be explored, 12 if there is a suitable point, and that regards the interpretaticn s

13 ', of the operator turning off the main reactor coolant pump.

14 !

I think that we in our previous discussions had 15 j some other views of this.

And this bears on the new 16 requirement which would forbid an operator from turning off 17 these pumps fc a certain number of hours, which may not be 13 desirable different interpretation of this event is 19 made.

20 Hare, again, Mr. Alchelson might contribute.

21 MR. ETHERINGTON:

Eefore we go any further with

~'

naming particula-topics, is it generally felt that we do not need a general presentation?

Does anybody want a general g

cresenta+eion?

cai =e a m i :

p.. o 9.e14 DR. SIESS: Cn the scenarlo.

6 8

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DR. CARBON: Mr. Chairman, let me say something to e1 the members and then to the oublic about our clans for 2

b i

' tomorrow.

That might influence what we ask of the staff today.

3 i

With regard to our full ccmmittee meeting tomorrow, i

l several things have been cancelled, as you are already aware.

L The cne thing that has not been cancelled as yet is our

, "i scheduled meeting with the ccmmissioners at 1:30 tomorrow

/a

! afternoon.

3, l

It is presumed that they will be most likelv 9:

interested in talking with us on this particular topic, and that has had an influence on the timing of this particular

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meeting this afterncon.

In addition, it is planned, if it is reasonable to i

ll] the members, that tomorrow morning will devote. to a continued et, a continuation of s

n m

p 15 1ithis meeting, I guess.

t If we get our information from the staff that we g

are seeking, either all we are seeking or all they have, then jg it would be planned that we will hold a discussion among 39 ourselves tomorrc'1 morning with particular emphasis on Mr.

,0 4

! Michelscn, whose knowledge of this particular kind of reactor 21

'and his study of the information that nas been available --

.e he has been in Bethesda over the past 2 or 3 cays --I can't 4J remember ;nich.

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The aim tcmorrow morning Onen will be to ccntinue this

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IO discussion with or without further staff inout.

I would lir.e 1,

7*c to then tell the public that we will be initiating a discussion on the Three Mile Island incident at the full ACRS committee

,i 4

meeting at 9:00 tomorrow morning instead of 11:00 as C

' l.creviousiv.olanned.

6' That covers all I wanted to say.

7 MR. ZTHERINGION:

Thank you.

i I

m I think it is obvicus that the subccmmittee and the 9 !!

full committee are going to have many future meetings on this i

I 10 i?l subJ'ect when the Oeople 'nost immediatelv. concerned are free 11 to attend meetings.

l

This is, then, a very preliminary meeting.

And ll inasmuch as I haven't heard any pleas for general discussion, l 'a I think that se will open the meeting to questions.

i 1 ~5 I

Am I premature in this?

16 DR. KERR: I believe Dr. Okrent suggested a i

17 presentation on tne present status of the plant.

18 MR. ETHERINGTON: Yes, that was treated as a particular 19 question, right.

Why don't we start with that, then, the 70 current status of the plant.

21 I think we would like -- Dr. Okrent would like a presentation on the present status of the plant.

DR. OKRENT:

My intent was to take up your item 1 and

• hen you ;ere done with it, ask the staff to give us a

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presentation on item 2, which is plant status.

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MR. ETHERINGTON:

Okav.

Are there any cues'. ions on

'( the chronology?

a 3)

DR. SIESS: Daryl, when we heard this chronology i

.,'F yesterday, it was thought that the pumping frca the drain tank il c

,'q to the auxiliary building began -hen the safety injection and 6, contairment iso.l.ation were reset at acout six minutes.

I 7

rrom what you said this morning, I got the jnoression 3

that the container did not isolate wnen the ECCS initiated a

9,I in three minutes.

So the pumping could have beer. noing on a

1 10 ij before that.

11 ]

MR. EISENHUT: Yes.

Let me clarify a couple of things.

12 Yesterday, as you referred to, we were, of course, over at s

13 'tj the incident center having a number of discussions to try to i

o 14 put this thing cogether in perspective.

And we were going 15 through what we thought might be the early pieces of the 16 sc e n ar ic,.

17 1 Since that time we have gotten an awful lot of 18 information.

We have gotten the computer dump on the 10 information frcm the actual plan ~, frem the plant ccmputer.

We 70 have gotten a lot of other people at the site working the 21 scenarlo.

So that tocay's estimate of what I went thrcugh is pq o,q g<

what we confirm of as today.

~~

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- that vcu may have also cotter. scme Ncw one thina erroneous information yestercay is it appears that jou can get

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h 1Hn a pump back situation from either inside the drain tanx or u

2 L frcm the sump.

You can pump from either place.

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Right now we are going through PMIDs. We don't know

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i' 4 i.l whether it is two pumping trains cr one pump, 2 nrains.

But

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'l e.i you can get pumping frcm either place, apparently.

i 6 -

DR. SIESS:

And that would have started when?

l

- i I

MR, EISENHUT:

The only data point we have that we

i have a handle on is the time, 7-1/2 m:'nutes into the transient,

• j 9

the reactor building, the containment building, che sump / pump 10, came on.

11 ij DR. SIESS:

At 7-1/2 minutes.

1,'

MR. EISENHUT:

That's right.

13

DR. SIESS:

And when was it off?

1 1 '4

+

MR. EISENHUT:

We don ' t know.

It was

-- when the 15 i containment isolated at 5 hours5.787037e-5 days <br />0.00139 hours <br />8.267196e-6 weeks <br />1.9025e-6 months <br />, it was off but we don't know 16 how long;it continued to pump.

17 '

DR. SIESS:

It was off but not off automatically.

MR, EISENHUT:

No, we think -- we are not just sure 19 on whcn the pumps came on, when the pumps came off, how much 0

they pumped, et cetera.

21 1 They may have come on for some reason, it appears, before there was enough level to trip them off.

There are a lot 13 of ancmalies with that piece of the s c ena r io. r>.<1 a '.o s]-

71 We are activelv icrking

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ry W cc or, Ic

" cn it to tr" to cin that

• C one cown.

10 12 i

d 1h DR. KERR:

Nhat was observed at 7-1/' minutes?

7, MR. EISENHUT:

The sump / pumps came on.

DR. KERR:

I thought that is uhat you said and then

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I thought you jast said we don't know when the pumps came on.

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MR. EISENHUT:

There is more chan ene pump, we think.

6 We don't know what the actual timing of the sequence is.

Ne 7

know one indication that the pump came on in the containment l

2 pumping out that sump.

He are not sure if that is the only time it came on.

I 1'^' We are not sure when it turned off.

We don't know what the 11 I levels were, what the valve arrangements are.

3,

We think also there is a configuration where it gets i

13 i suction from the drain tank.

The whole scenario there we are 1'.

,not sure of.

I "C DR. KERR: Thank you.

, DR. OKRENT: When do you thirk water got into the 17 ' sump?

MR. EISENHUT: After the rupture disk blew, at first 17 when you open the valves in the pressurizer, they are blowing 70 into the quench tank or drain tank.

We think that the water

'l iwould be blowing into the tank until the tank ruptured.

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DR. SIESS: 15 minutes.

7,

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MR. EISENHUT:

Right.

Our best guess is that that is when vou start -

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cettinc water in the sumo.

That doesn't really correlate with the sumo /oumo ccminc on 7-1/2 minutes earlier.

h 11 13

.I i

That is why I said even though we nave one indication of when tne pump came on, we are not sure of what that sequence 3

1s.

l 4

Now I might add that our emphasis, tne emphasis that s

5',j we have been putting ongoing through the chronology has not I

6i really been directed to that pathway because since that timt 7 ! when the waste has been pumped into the rad waste building, 1,

3i the pump has since been pumped out into a tank.

9 It j s a oroblem that we went throuch cyclinc a I

10 il few days earlier -.. the transient.

11 i However, at this point, it is secondary but.ee are 12 actively working on it to get that scenario.

13;i MR. BENDER:

Darrell, I am not completely clear on 14

1. , your description of how the hydrogen evolved into the reactor 15 g vessel and how it moved from the reactor vessel into the 16 containment building.

17 :'

I would like to know whether you think it occurred 13 in several stages or whether you have some other understanding 19

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of it?

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LOCK nte 1 MR. EISENHUT:

We deliberately did nor try to j

ualify whether there would have been hydrogen evolucion.

2 i

I two hours !

3, The period of time of about one and three gaarters to l

was clearly the hes t-up transient, and if vou look at that 4,

i I

5l transient, you would think that that may well be when a lot

- l of hydrogen was being generacec, wnen the core was actually o

hea ting up, because that was actually a big transient.

7 One of the things we are actually following over 8i I

9l the last few days that has go tten the mos t atten tion is how I

I 10 much hydrogen was generated, where did it come from and where t,

i 11 j did it go.

We are not prepared to comment in de tail on that i

l 12 right now.

13 MR. ETHERINGTON:

I am surprised at th a t.

14 MR. EISENHUT:

You could postulate tha t there is a t

15 !

cer. in amo un t o f it b urned.

You could postulate a number o f i

i 16 th ings.

We do know that there is presently, right now, there 17 is about a tao percent hydrogen concentration in the ac tual 18 re ac to r con ta inmen t.

That hydrogen concentration has varied 19,

somewhat, according to the measurements we have had over the l

1 20 ] last few days, from one percent up to 2.7 percent and back i

21 h down to 2 percen.

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C :. course, wi tnin t.ne area t.nat jou calculate it you 22 o I,.!

23ll can have a lot o f f unny numb ers.

At the present time, the re h

1 24 is one hydrer.2n recombiner runninc an d the hy'~ rogen recombiner

• JI ReDC f;?rs, IFC.

25 is saying that there is about 2 percent in th e co gingr at

15 2

t i

this time.

I l2l MR. ETHERINGTON:

I use th e ficure of 2.3 hydrogen.

(

3i This would correspond to a volune o f 4 5,0 0 0 c ubic fee t, which l

4l is about 1.000 cubic feet, about a 1,000 cubic foot bubble.

i 5'

So vou have a fairly gccd balance between what you thought you i

6 had in the vessel and what you have, by analysis, in the i

7; co n ta i nmen t.

l t

3 Did you look at tha t?

i I

9l MR. EISEMHUT:

No, we have not.

Le t me clarify.

10 There were a lot of numbers floating around for th e l

11 first couple of days when we were doing balances to try to i

l 12 figure out if there was a hydrogen bubble in the re ac to r 13 l vessel and how big it might be.

The calculations tha t have I

14 been done based upon letting the reactor go up and down in 15 !

pressure varied considerably.

They are still varying cons i-16 derably.

17 !

.The general thought is that the hydrogen bubble is I

18 li essentially about gone.

However, the calculations tha t are 1

I 19 1 being don 2 clearly have a significant error on th e m.

And we 20 L are going through, try ing to balance out what tha t is.

The 1

l 2'

1

- sys tem right now is at a 1,000 psi.

If you look at th e amo un t 22 of hydrogen solubility at 1,000 psi, you realize th e re is also g

n 23 ;l p rob ab ly, if the system is uniforn -- fo r th e s ame o f d is c u s -

4 24 '

sion fo r a morent, you can probably postulate th e re is a f 31 R PDG f t f f1, I F C, 9 (.I

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cons iderable amoun t o r..ny crogen in solution.

re. '

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1 You drop the pressure, you get rare hydrogen back out-.

i 1

2[

MR. ETHERINGTCM:

9,000 cubic feet of free hydrogen i

3l in solution.

I 1

I 4'

DR. CARSON:

If I caucht vour words, you do n ' t know I

i 5'

where it came from.

Did it come trom the metal-water action?

j 6'

MR. EISE.'UT:

It ni at have.

But there has been i

7 radiolytic decompositin of the coolant fo r some time, too.

8l DR. CARBOM :

Basically, from the metal-water.

i 9l MR. EISENHUT:

Yes.

i l

10,

MR. BENDER:

Is th ere correspondence between the l

II l time the bubble appeared to disappear and increases in the 12 concentration of hydrogen in containment?

'3 MR. EISEHHUT:

Not that much.

That is why I nade 14 the comment I did about where it went.

i 15 -

MR. BENDER:

It wasn't clear before that you were 16 saying you were uncertain.

il 17 MR. EISENHUT:

The concentration in containment, if 18 it was zero before, you could do a calculation and le t th e 19 ll thousand cubic feet of hydrogen, free hydrogen, out, change it i

20 I to compensa" for the pressure and calculate what the concen-21 tration should be.

rJ ra a.r m. s o

22 MR. ETHERINGTCH:

That would be 2.3 percent.

1 23 ll MR. EISENHUT:

Curing th a t sare period of time when

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24 "

we were calculating you may have 1500 cub ic feet, we had a

• 3i AeNrters, Inc. I c'

pressure it the containrent -- we had a hydr; gen concentra tion,

17 I

I I;

we were calculating, on the order of 2 percenc at tha t time.

l I

2 If any thing, the hydrogen concentration in containment stayed 3

essentially constant, let's s ay, while the bubble was disap-4 pearing.

That is why it doesn't completely correlate, based i

l Sl on the information we have todav.

6ll We may, as we '-:eep going through data -- it nay ba i

7l better calculated.

8!

MR. BENDER:

There is the pos sibili ty th at some came 9

out early and some late.

10 '

MR. EISENHUT:

Yes, sir.

We think that in fact that II may be the case,

i 12 !

DR. PLESSET:

You are quite confident, are you not, 13 tha t die only path to the containment f rom the re actor vessel Id j is through the pressurizer relief valve?

Isn't that yor i

15 !

view, or do you have any modification of th a t?

t I6 MR. EISEMHUT:

I th nk tha t is where the credominant 17 araunt care from.

He are not sure.

There could conceivably 18 be a leakage path, however, for example, as Ed s ugges ts,

I9 maybe around the control rod drive.

It is speculation at th is

'7 0 O.' M.

20 1, p o i n +m.

21 i

Certainly, you are right, the primary source th a t is i l,

'2 l'l blowing out is not the pressurizer re lie f valve as much as 4

0 23 the vent line, which is another srall line, an inch line with

^4 an inch valve partially cocked cn th e cressurizer, f P R tOOf f f f t, I r.C.

I 25 i j

MR. ETHERINGTO:i:

Did you get any large a= cunt of

1S 9

o

)

l i

1jl hydrogen in the control volume, volume control tank at any 2 hl, time?

3' HR. EISENHUT:

We don ' t have a cood sannle of dhe i

I 4l cnemical volume control tank.

We did look at it in a waste gas' I

i 5

decay tank.

We go t a s ample o f th a t.

The licensee go t a 6!

secole of that.

To av. recollection, it was about 56 percent l

7j hydrogen, and the res t --

)

i 8

MR. ETEERINGTON:

I meant was there a large volume l

l 9l of gas.

I 10 '

"R.

E IS E'iHUT :

In the was te gan decay tank.

We den't 11 l have a good scmple of what the composition would be in solu-12 !

tion.

I I

13 1 DR. OKRENT :

Could I ask for a follow-up on the i

i 14 l chenical

.d volume con trol tank?

Is th e re sono reason why l

15 l you don ' t have a s ample?

I 16 j MR. EISENHUT:

I ar not sure.

I know there is a 17 great amount of dif ficulty in getting the was te gas tank, 18 decay tank sample, because of high levels of radiation, n urbe r 19 !

one, and because when they tried to get it out of the systen i

20,

there was some form of leakage in the systen, th ey thought, at 21 l that time.

There was certainly an effort to, n umb e r une, keep

.i o

22 Y; She dosages to personnel low, and two, to keep a ny of f-site i

t 23 h releases to an absolute ninimum.

C

,1

.o the bes t of my knowledge, there has not been an 4

ral R ecor:ers, Inc.

attempt as or p"q or<>

, right now.

L

19 i

1 DR. OKRENT-If I could follow tha t along for a 2

r.in ute, is th ere some real advantage to be able to get such l

3l a measurenent, if we could get it, in yo ur opinion, or if Je i

I 4'

could get it every other day for the next several days?

5 MR. EISEMHUT:

Certainly, the more sarples jou can 6l; get, of course, the better you are.

That is no re o f a theore-7' tical answer.

a At the same time, Ete practicalities of the situation 4

9 involved are involved with high radia tion, wi th -- i f yo a have 10 !

to valve up to nake some ch ange s to do it, where do you put 11 vour emphasis?

\\

f 12 DR. OKRENT:

Is it irpractical because of the high 13 radiation around this area, to ge t the s amples, in your opinion, i

14 l if one accepts the possibility that there night be some 15 release of f-site, not very large but sone?

16 MR. EISENHUT:

I an no t s ure wha t the radia tion is 17,

for the CVCS.

I do know that there was a considerable arount i

IS l of problems getting the was te gas sanple.

I would speculate i

19il there is probably the same kind of a probeln with the CVCS.

d 20 '

You recall that there was contamina ted waste punged in th e i

21 ;

aux building,..into the tanks that overflowed in the aux building, i

22 h and it was hichly radioactive.

So there fo re, you would have to II

l 23 d check the actual layout arrangement to see where the prcbler 9

<p _, o r : "1

,l g., -

,* J 24 'l

.z a s.

Reoorters. Inc. j

'r a t 25 -

DR. OK?EUT:

It is ny inpression, 1: s tening to othe rs

20 i 7

'l l

i l

I who :now more than me, that a sample from this tank might give you the most c,irect knowledge or. t.ne gas ccrposi tion in tn.e 9

primary system.

Am I correct?

1 4

• i MR. EISENHUT:

If it was a grab s ample, so that yo u

{

5!

could grab and not get the liquid, certainly, if you could I

6' actually get some of the gas.

If you are j us t pulling off the i

/t bottom of the tank, where it has been evolving for sore 8

period of time, you may not be getting it.

9 DR. OKRENT:

Again --

10 MR. EISENHUT:

It gets back to af ter you get the li t sample -- for example, if you ge t a s ample from a radwaste gas 12 tank and you find that it is 56 Enrcent hydrogen and the res t 13 I l

nitrogen, it doesn't necessarily tell you directly whether i

i Id i

there is any oxygen in it, for example, to start with.

And 15 you get into all of -these ganes of how long the sarple has been i

16 l the re, what was there before, becaus e c the se tanks had things i,l I7 I in them before the incident.

i 18 DR. OKRENT:

I guess by now the chemical and volume i

19 !

o n trol tank has an atnosphere th at re la tes to what has been "O

coming into it recently.

2I y

MR. EISENHUT:

It is certainly scmething

t. tat is *.co r th 4

,,43

,r-a

,2 6

'a

(

~

n checking.

F d

23 'l DR. OKRENT:

The cues tion 7 am asking myself and you

's, 2 4

at the s ame time is waether,

'r ecause of the possibili ty of FJi A f DO f f f f 5. I nc, 2 '<

what I will call a small release in the process of ge tting such

i l

i I

i 1l a sample, we may be missinc information that could be very q

2 l!

useful, very significant, either in reducing pressure or in i

3l the event vou later lose a niece of ecuipnent or something.

4*

I would hooe not.

I thinn one nicnt be"-a-

• ake scme small 51 releases and even perhaps look for scne volunteers for one or 6

two exposures of these that could be very significant as a i

7!

piece of information, l

i 3:

. IR. EISENHUT:

I don't get the impression, because l

9' th ere is the oss ibility of some very small expo sures,.c eo ole e

l 10 l are avoiding taking samples.

There were -- certainly personnel i

Il did get exposed to go take the gas decay 'ank sanple.

There 12 !

was, in fact, some small, however controlled, rele as e s asso-l 13 !

ciated with the waste gas tank in getting thos e samples.

So l

I4 !

you would expect th a t.

And in fact, as I said, I think it is i

i 15 !

somethina we will have to look in to.

It is probably a goc' 16 I idea co check and see what the practicalities are.

17 l DR. ZUDANS:

If it is not too repe titious, I wou]i 18 like to know:

How did you actually measure, determine the i

19 1 size of the gas bubble?

How did you take into consideration --

20 wait a ninute.

How did it take into consideration le ak s that 21 j, might exis t?

Did you determine leaks before you measured the J

d s

22 volume?

Did you es tablish some kind of s teady-state addition 23 11 of water and then turn around and add it in a ranid crocession?

.i 24 l I would like to see the technology that you used for a, nex ners.

-c.

,Lq

,,,.c.>

-e this.

22 1

'te 9 i

i i

1 MR. EISENHUT:

I don ' t have the technology wi th me.

2 l There was a very long, complicated equation th a t we developed 3

over a few days by simply looking at a basic PV approach with i

4, corrective terns.

I am not sure what the corrective tern wes.

I i

5!

I do know it is a lanc ecuation.

I don' t have it with re.

t 6

DR. ZUD?MS:

It wodld appear to ne a good idea to 7I aave such an equation established and tested at the ope rational; I,

8' level.

Then you have a sys tem that you can access and check 9

all of the leaks, and now you have a real to ol later on to see i

10 l what the conpositic n in the licuid,noncondensables is.

I don't II ll see how you cuald successfully ceasure this bubble.

12 !

DR. PLESSET:

I would like to defend hin a little t

13 !

bit, i

l 14 DR. ZUDAMS:

I j us t want to und ers t an d.

i I

15 l MR. EISENHUT:

Dr. Zudans, tha t is certainly all I

l 16 '

right.

There have been a considerable number of people --

17 '

DR. SUDANS:

There is a significant number of skeptics.

18 There is a leak tust you don't know, there is a' vo lume, a 19 !

tenpera ture dl.= ' rib utio n.

I 20 l MR. E IS ENHUT:

We have to compensate for a long 21 nu-b e r o f te rms.

s 22 J DR. PLESSET:

I th ink tha t is what made.vour ec_uation g

i!

o.a or'6' e,"i, longer, tco -- condensation.

X. ?

a

. s 2d MR. EISESHUT:

Yes, sir.

There are so rany cons ide ra-i 3; A fCCrf eT1, Inc.

25 tions, and I think C.e ecuation tha t is being used, is being

23

.0 i

I i

i developed. --it seems to be an evolving process -- as a 2l function of time over a number of days, with a number of 3

e::pe rts around the country worki.g on it.

We certainly can i4' get you the approach that we 2 sed.

5 DR. ZUDANS:

In the sane connection, the re is another' i

6 question that has been bugging re.

7 MR. ETHERINGTON :

Is this th e sa e cuestion?

8l Dr. LFtroski has one on this s ane cues tio n.

i 9ll DR. ZUDAMS:

It is the s ane s ub j e c t, but it ray not il require the sane type of answer, and th in I will sign off.

11 I understand daat you have s till operating thermo-12 couples in the reac tor.

13 MR. EISENHUT:

Yes.

14 l DR. ZUDAMS:

You have some ho t spots and some cool 15 spots.

Can you in any way identify the f raction of the volure 16 that is hot and the fraction that is cool in the core?

I 17 MR. EISEUHUT:

This gets back to -- you don't have 18 a the rmocouple in every fuel bundle.

I can give you an idea 19 !

of what the thernocouples are reading as o f now, and an idea i

20 bl of some of the hot ones.

From that point on v_ ou can -- we can q

q 21 b all sceculate.

,r"s

.i

,o <,

.. i 22 ]

Let ne just give you a quick handle on the high h

'l 23 it the rno cc uples in the region in th e co re.

This was as of 4'30 a.r b

I 24 this morning.

The hottest one in -- of course, you will ave al A eDorters, iPC.

25 '

.o bear tith re on the locations of th e se.

I will cive vou

11

!l 24 I

i i

l' the loc ation.

However,.zou are familiar with what a core a rr av. -

i I

2l looks like.

The ho ttes t th ermo ccuple reading as of this morning i

i 1

i 3

at 4:30 a.m.,

as I said, was 461 degrees F.

There were a t

4l co uple more over 40 0.

I seem to have only one on ny chart here,i l

i 5i at 413 degrees.

l l

l 6

Now, another question is, there are o thers, for i

71 example, tha t are reading, for example, 328 degrees, even i

l 8i though the coolan t is at 280 degrees.

But it has been s tabi-t 9'

lined at 320 degrees for a couple of days, which would infer I

il 10 '

tha t the thernoccuple is a high reading, and probably the i

l 11 I reading is reading high.

i 12 DR. STRATTON:

Are these readings on the nearby 13 structure or what?

f 14 MR. EISENHUT:

Four inches above th e fuel ass emblies,

15 ;

essentially right over the fuel bundle.

16 DR. ZUDANS:

460 would be superheat for the pressure IlI 17 ll tha t exi'sts?

i 18 l MR. EISENHUT:

1,000 psi.

I do n ' t believe so, but 19 '

you would have to look at a table.

I 20 '

I should alse note th at that thernocou. ole was o.re-21 [!!

vicusly reading much higher and it ccoled down and has basically 11 22 jj been hovering around 460 degrees.

23 'I s

24 -l

,o neconces. inc.

F4 'f f-]

25

R 3793 25 N:jwo

1. 3 j !!

DR. ZUDANS:

The reason I asked that cuestion is, 2"

if you can identify what fraction of the volume, you could i

1 3,

figure out how much of the (inaudible) has interacted with l

.l the water, and then vou could ficure out hcw much gas is 4

i i

5' 1

6}

MR. EISENHUT:

There are certainly es timates of that.

I N: Peoole are accroaching that question from the opposite 7

direction and making the same estimates.

g

}

9l If you took a primary coolant sample, which we i

10 have seen, we have had a primary coolant sample analyzed and I

h li t they are analyzing for a number of things to try to get an 12 l idea of, for example, how much fission gases are released, t,

13 trying to get a handle on what we have seen, if there is any ja '

product from control rods.

n 15,

We are basically taking the samples we do have d

16 and analyzing them for everything we can possibly get out of 17 h them.

I should point out, the labs have been extremely 18 ]l cooperative, literally working -- if you call them at 4:00 t

'l 19 i in the morning and say, " quick, take that sample and look for 20. somethinc else," they have been doing an extremely thorough, 1

'j l.)

O t M]

al 21 extremely good review of the samples.

1 i

DR. LAWROSKI:

When you consider the pattern of the u,

23 apparent change rate -- the rate of change of the hydrogen 7a bubble,.: ave you speculated where might be the most likely rJI P eDo, tees. lac.

laces through which the releases have occurred of the hydrogen a

e

-2 jwb 26

(

i a

a l'

1l bubble?

l 2[

And the second part of my question:

If so, why i

2]

micht these not be routes bv which to turtner remove the volume 1

a i

4 ]i, of hydrogen, perhaps by changing the pressure, whatever?

5' MR. EISENHUT:

Let me take the first part first.

6l I think the path, if I look at the spectrum of i

I 7]

technical expertise, the mean value would probably say tha v

B]

the hydrogen is being swept through the system and out the

i s

9; vent valve of the pressurizer, most of the hydrogen.

I am 10 not saying it is all gone.

I am saying most of the hydrogen g

t l

11 !l' that is being evolved is going out of this vent valve.

12 i It is also probably that at this pressure in the i

13 y pressure vessel, you reach an equilibrium between the amount ll It 14 :j of radiolysis the oxygen coming out might react at high 4

l 15,

temperatures, and you may not be evolving anymore hydrcgen d

16 ;l once vou reach equilibrium.

l l

17 P We think mos t o f i t is probably being swept out

.i o

13 ] through the hot leg and out the pressurizer vent valve, which

'l 19 1 has been open for several days, and they are making up the 20,e appropriate flow to keep the situation bas _cally at equilibrium, 21 l but they have been oscillating up and down very slowly ramping i

22 in pressures.

So they continue to make measure.ments on the

<ar n r.D r:. ?

v 23 different pressure levels.

24 The second part of the question -- that is, can it 4a s eec,w.s. inc.

25 he a mode for removing hydrogen that may be locked in?

de

-3 jwb 27 I

l l

certainly hope so.

1; The second question is:

If you start dropping the

• i 3

pressure -- for example, if you drop the pressure from 1000 psi to 800 osi, if you droo the.cressure, as I recall, the solubility curves go from 1500 to 1200 -- don't hang me on 3

those numbers -- standard CCs per kilogram, it was some funny 6

units.

/

S y u can see that there will be a change, and 8

you will probably have some gas evolved.

They will probably 9

10 be more sensitive to pressure than temperature because the o

11 J temperature ef fect is not nearly as big a contributor to the

'2 solubflity of hydrogen in solution.

13 3 You also have these other compensating factors, as ja we talked about before, on this equation.

So it is very

,1 15 'l complicated.

i 16 1 However, if yua generate another hydrogen aubble, 17 you would certainly hope you would do it in a very controlled 18 y manner as you come down in pressure, and you hope ie

o i!

19 j out the same path.

90 percent of that was speculn DR. LAWROSKI:

When you say that you spec _ ate on 20 1

i 4 this loss of the hydrogen bubble, that would explain roughly l

e a

the pattern which you have seen with tine, the rate with ihich "J o mc4 23 ' you have been losing the bubble?

24 blR. EISENHUT:

It may well be.

I am not sure.

.s p.xr us. im

3 MR. ETHERINGTON

You figure that you can get rid

-4 Swb 28 q

s 1a 1h of a 1000 cubic foot bubble in five days through the a

o 2 ~

pressurizer.

1 3

DR. SIESS:

Just the pressurizer, without the 4l letdown?

The letdown is about twice the rate of the pres-I 5

surizer?

6 MR. ETHERINGTON :

I don't know.

7

.D R. SIESS:

You had 7-1/2 gallons per minure through n

i:

8 the pressurizer.

i 9,

MR. ETHERINGTON:

That was an error.

This is a 10,

correcting number, 11n 11 1, DR. CARBON:

Do you know if this proposed weepout i

12 theory is consistent with the size of the bubble that the 13 " vendor has been making since Saturday or so, if he is plotting I;

il 14 ] the curve here?

P, 15 1 MR. EISENHUT:

Ler me make one comment.

And since i

i 6 ', I am not working in the bubble. group, as we call it -- I have h

17!! done bub'ble chamber work, but not bubble group work -- the 4

h 18 $

outputs of that group has generated a curve showing the bubble i

!i 19 4 decreasing in size, reaching essentially zero, plus or minus 20 ' the error about a day or so ago, which would correlate to

.i 21 ' losing 1000 cubic feet in something like 5 days.

o 22 I believe the NSSS vendor B&W calculated a curve 23 which had it hitting -- it was a curve that went parallel,

<n,.' c o 24 but hit the zero point earlier than we did.

.ral E L OC r f *f t, ' f" C.

25 DR. CARBON:

In a period of time consistent with

& 'b y

• At

-7 o

%Qs Q}'

ll'l/

?,

'Ql**l' ' }?pp j'

l h

9 as q,

tg, g

4

'te T ST TARGET (MT-3)

' l.0

? '2

• E2*

7lz3e 32 022

,-=m bm l$l2.0 l,l uma

~~

!! l.8 n me l1.25

!.4 Iti 1.6 l

11=

6" Ar +/,"

sg%s>, h;

&+ ass *

&g 1y AFA 4

s; 9 e

'O O

p-O

+

+

,.y s

g %.

0

,%l I",e$

j//jf

\\

C'

/

%,+)QF

%f'y s

TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 1 "" ?

9 [ B2 i

l l,l

[ " lg24

!!in 1.25 l'l.4- _ ! _1.6_

i c

A Aer*/,

48++A egh

' '=, eygs c,-

s ;:g/,,

c

%g 4y Oyjp 4'

+

-S jwb 29

.I

.il U

i I

ill this?

il 4

2 l!

MR. EISENHUT:, They reached it earlier than we did.

1 l

3l Probably it could have been since it has been -- this is the i

4 eighth day that we have been into the accident situation.

i 5'

I just don't know.

6' DR. MOELLZR:

Could I ask a cuestion?

7' You have reviewed with us the chronology of the 1

8, events which occurred at the plant.

These include the events 9i that occurred, and then the responses of the people in trying 10,

to compensate for there events at some time, and I would i

11 i like to know when the first NRC person arrived or entered into 12 !

communication with the plant personnel.

And from that point 13 l on, you have interacted and perhaps had some input into the 14 Il decisions and actions that were taken.

15 I am curious as to when that began and what amount i

16 ] of the actions, or which specific actions, you influenced.

3 17 MR. MOSELEY:

Our first on-site people arrived at 18 10:05, after having been dispatched, and they then began to if 1

19:l retrieve and send more infor:.iation back to us that improved 1

20 1 our communications with the site.

I 21 [

We had been -- within that early period, we were il 22.1 monitoring what they were doing, rather than telling them what O- (sV ~G G1 23 i to do.

> = +

24 DR. MOELLER:

You would say, in the main, that you it at Ee"crfers. inc.

25 have monitored and you have not really influenced tco much

-6 jwb 30 d

1

.r 1 ll what they have done?

.i 2,.

MR..:OSELEY:

It is hard to say how much we 4

.l i

i influenced them.

4 MR. CASE:

It is a situation where we started 5

influencing t1 n when they stopped dumping the water.

I 63 don't know what night it was, but it was about 6:15 at night, l

7 Tuesday or Wednesday.

d i

3]

In that case, we said, "Stop pumping the water,"

9 and they stopped.

10 !

MR. MOSELEY:

There have been other cases where we 11 h have asked:

"Have you considered; have you thought of."

I l

12 MR. EISENHUT:

Ilaybe I could add one more thing.

13 ]

Mr. Moseley wasn' t saying that we were act in communication befort l'

d

?4 i 10:00 o' clock in the morning.

We were actually in communica-15 l tion from when we were notified early in the event, and from il 16 a practical standpoint have had a continuous phone conversa-17 j tion with the site since that point in time, except for the i

18.l times that we have lost contact.

It has been running more than 19 ) one in parallel since that time.

20 DR. CAR 3ON:

Is there a light on the control room

• t 21 canel that indicates the status of that electrcmagnetic valve?

I 4

22 ;

MR. EISENHUT:

I have no idea.

23 iiR. MOSELEY:

I don't know.

We don't have anyone

<3 pi - q /10 24 here on that.

v "e

Pf a' % eDC r *?'t. I"C.

25 DR. SIESS:

I have a cuestion relating to

-7 jwb 31 4

1

'l 11' Dr. Moeller's as to who was there.

Do you know at what point l

I 2

the senior plant personnel were in the control room, SRO, or i

21 plant supervisor?

.i

+

1 4

MR. MOSELEY:

Ge haven't gotten into that detail I

5 in our review of it so far.

I am sure the senior ocerator i

~

6 was there very early on, but I an only speculating.

I can't i

i 7i cive vou a time.

4 8

DR. SIESS:.One other cuestion.

9h Would things have gone any differently if there l

10,i had been a reactor inspector on site?

11 3.R. MOSELEY:

Well, the reactor inspector would 12 probably h;.ve not been on site at 4:00 a.m.

I can't say.

13!l DR. SIESS:

He would have been there a little a

ll 14 l bit befere you people got there, but not before you were in 15 l telephone communication?

n 4

16 '

MR. MOSELEY:

He would probably have been on-site 17 'l before,'about the time we had telephone connunication.

I am 13 speculating, of course.

19 DR. SIESS:

Thank you.

20 MR. ETHERINGTON:

Dr. Stratton?

1 21 '

DR. STRATTON:

Would ycd clarify the radiation field 22 ' measurements in the containment for us, please?

And dc you 22 have estimates as to how many curies of the various isotopes 21 have actually been released to the environment?

And how many erai ae x rre n u c.

25 were released in the containment?

.'.'. I

'*3

-8 jwb 3.9 i

i i

i 1 !j MR. EISENHUT:

I can tell you the containment II o

,c ficures,.as I recall them.

The number of curies that have c

3 3

been released,

' not sure there is anyone here who has i

4 got that number.

5 Ed, do you have the number?

6 (Pause.)

j 7l We basically, from early in the transient accident 1

R 8'

situation, have had readings from inside the containment, and I

.I 9

we basically have been following two readings -- the reading I

10 l from very early, and "very early" meaning the first day a

11 l sometime, not moments

..to the accident -

was we were getting 12 readings up on the order of about 10 per hour at the operating 13 j deck.

J 14 q ihe instrumentation in the dome of the containment l

15 l building, uhe first day as I recall, started out reading on the 16 l order of 600 and ent up to 3c or 4000.

A day or two later

.i 17 j it was 10,000.

.i 18 We understand from yesterday or the day before --

19 MR. CASE:

Yesterday it was 20, I think.

i 20 MR. EISENHUT:

The highest it ever read was about 21 ! 40,000, but it is abou 20- or 40,000.

o We b 2sically think that the atmosphere was xenon --

23 was from xenon.

,a n< -nno 2

24 MR. ETHERINGTON:

I think we should defer further R 'C/3r?t*1 i t'C.

tT3>

6 25 discussion until Item 4,

" Health Aspects," the chronology of

-9 jwb 33

'l i

i l

I l 'i the incident.

t DR. OKRENT:

I would like to follow uo that coint

.?.

l 3

on radiation level.

4 There is centainment isolation on some radiation level?

5 MR. EISENHUT:

Yes.

DR. OKRENT:

I don't remenhe: in your listing of 7

chronology when that occurred, or if it occurred, or if there l

3' was a reset so it could occur, or what.

Certainly when you i

1 9i got the hydrogen explosion there must have been fission a

l 10 products in the building.

0 11 ]

Was there containment isolation pric mo that 2

spike burning, whatever it was?

13 h MR. EISENHUT:

The 28 psi spike was at 10 hours1.157407e-4 days <br />0.00278 hours <br />1.653439e-5 weeks <br />3.805e-6 months <br />, d

o 14 1 and containment isolation was at 5 hours5.787037e-5 days <br />0.00139 hours <br />8.267196e-6 weeks <br />1.9025e-6 months <br />.

15 MR. CASE:

From pressure.

l 16 l MR. EISENHUT:

That hit 4 psi, or 4-1/2.

17 DR. OKRENT:

I would have anticipated by the time i

la 1 you had enough primary system water, even fairly clean water, 1

19 ] that you might have had enough radiation to get containment i

20 isolation, and it probably wasn't very clean at 4 hours4.62963e-5 days <br />0.00111 hours <br />6.613757e-6 weeks <br />1.522e-6 months <br /> anyway.

I i

21 Uhy would we not have gotten containment isolation i

22 on radiation?

q s r-23 MR. CASE:

We don't know.

bg r, D

C' 24 MR. EISENHUT:

Someone else will have to look at rai m:or m. :.:.

25 that.

-10 jwb 34 d

n il 1

1 DR. VERR: Do you have a feel for the dose rates at j

2 f which those "n act, those system were set, do vou?

I 3

DR. OKRENT:

They should be set so they will pick 4I that uo..

If thev. are not set where thev will c.ick un. that i

l 5h much water, chen I would think there is a moed for reconsid-6! eration of what the setting is.

l 7 ),

MR. BENDER:

Darrell, vou think you have measured a'l 3l the radiation levels above the dome in the containment outside, 9

and also you are measuring the pressure somewhere.

'l 10.l I would like to have some feeling for where the o

il 11 ! pressures are being meacared in the containment, and also what 12 radiacior. levels you measure outside on top of the dome.

13 h MR. EISENHUT:

From the outs _de of the too of the f

il-la 1 containment on the outside of the dome, as I recall it was a 15 few MR.

I remember the actual nu-ber was maybe 3 or 4.

This 16 l is a very thick dome containment with an awful lot of l

17 reinforcing steel.

This is the one hardened for aircraf t.

18 " It also has a thick _ plate ofsteel on the inside of the

!l 19 " containment.

20 "

We have done the calculations to see what the I

21 l attenuation would be throuc.h the conta.'.nment.

It seems like n

I 22 it corresponds with an order of magnitude.

This is in the 23 dome.

The dome is on the order of 20,000 MR, and they range 7

9 24 from 10 to 10 attenuations.

<qn'- no gJ r 31 i-eCC rt*'t i f* C.

25 MR. BENDER:

With respect to where you measure

-11 jwb 35 N

i I

't N

j

',I

~oressure?

2, MR. EISENHUT:

I am not sure in containment.

I t,

, I' i

AR. BENDER:

In more than one place, or only one t

1 i

4 place?

l ll 5;

MR. EISENHUT:

I think it would be more than one

.I

'l 6

place, just from my judgment.

However, I don't know where it l

7j would be.

l 3

DR. CAREON:

You have just said that when you make t

9 your measurements -- Darrell, you just said that when you make 10 ; your measurements outside the dome, and you allow for n

e 11 ] attenuation, then you come up with a level of 10,000 or 12 scmething inside.

1, l

MR. EISENHUT:

Within a factor of 10.

I am not sure 13 ;

J; 14 of the num.cers.

I am speaking from recollection.

We have a 1

15 :!

stack of notes, now, as we work the problem.

And as I recall 16 l the numbers, it is a few MR outside looking down the top of the 17 ] dome, and it i,s an attenuation factc.r of 10 10 is generally l

18 h where it falls.

There is some variation and it would 19 correspond to something on the order of 10,000 or 20,000.

3 20 D.". SI"SS:

ciot a '.inC staff menber.

U4 21 MR. EISENHUT:

By an NRC staff member climbing the i

I e.,"

dome.

e e

\\[f

""f-6 r36 R eDorf ers, I r';.

• C

,sw

36 v,q 4.1 pv 1

DR. ZUDANS:

I have a pre viour question and. then a 2

.new one that was generated.

What time in the sequence of 3

events, at what time did the s t a f f -- o r no t the s t af f -- th e 4

operators of the plant realize that they had something more than just a casual failure.

6 MR. EISENHUT:

I think at 6:00 o' clock, 7

plus in the morning.

When they declared a site emergency.

8 MR. MCSELEY:

7:30, they declared a general site 9

genera. emergency.

It was before that -- and I don't have the 10 time on this piece of paper.

11 MR. EISENHUT:

Before that they declared a site 12 emergency; and sometime even before that, at 6LCO-something, 13 they saw radioactivity in, I think, the let-down line, and it 14 was reading very high.

I don't know the numbers, but it was 15 reading high.

And that was the thing that alerted the site 16 that something anomolous wa s going on.

17 DR. ZUDANS:

If I remember correctly the sequence of

'a eventL, all of.the likely e rrors that we re made by ceople were 19 already done at that time, before that.

So, it is f airly 20 likely that all of the fuel damage had been done before

' hat c

21 time.

22 MR. CASE:

Some, but I don't think all.

23 MR. ZUDANS:

Wasr/t the shutdown of ECCS done six 24 minutes after it was initiated?

25 MR. EISENHUT:

Nhat we have done is take a look at

('

l}{v ang j

37 14.2 pv i

-- we are. coking at the amount of time that reac tor c oolant 2

pressure would be below saturation pressure.

There was a 3

period of time between two --- be tween 1-1/2 and three ho urs 4

where it was less than saturation pressure.

The r e wa s a pe r iod 5

of time, about 4-1/2 to f.ive hours, where it was below 6

saturation.

And there was a long time, between eight hours and 7

about la hours, where it was below saturation pressure.

8 MR. CASE:

There appear to be t hr.ee episodes.

9 DR. ZUDANS:

When you mention these hours. you 10 counted hours from the starting point?

J1 MR. EISENHUT:

Hight.

12 DR. ZUDANS:

You can't pinpoint it precitaly?

13 MR. EISENHUT:

That's r ight.

And it is a crudt 14 estimate.

We are presently right now trying to do that 15 calculation.

16 DR. OKRENT:

Could I raise a question.

I have the 17 impre ssion that the rather large group at the site who are 18 trying to work directly with the people from the various 19 industrial groups are trying to analyze not only what 20 transpired but also trying to recommend what should be done, 21 and that they are developing additional insight into what

\\

22 transpirec.

23 In fact, the telephone conversation, I had the 24 impression they obtained, f or e xample, t h ings like records fron 25 detectors outside the ve ssel which would give you a clue as to 70-onn u

.a

38 4.3 pv 1

how much water there was.in the vessel and you could relate 2

this.to it covering the core.

3 And I have a general question:

How is that 4

inf ormation readily e xchanged with the NRC, both at the 5

Ha rrisburg site and then back to the Bethesda s ite ?

For 6

example, when I was in Bethesda yesterday, I didn't hear of any 7

such information.

I don't know, it may be there and it nay not 8

be there toda y.

9 But it seems to me you are learning things here and

'O they are learning things there at a rapid pace.

Ji Also, with regard to planning for the next several 12 days, I think things are going on this way.

13 MR. CASE:

Spe ciflca ll y,. for instanc.e, the la chronology that Darrell talked from was sent up, I gu e ss, once

.5 or perhaps even twice to the slte, back and forth, as we made 16 changes based on their comments and _other people's comments.

17 That was essentially a joint e ffort.

18 DR. LAWROSKI Is that what we have here 19 (indicating)?

20 MR. CASE:

There is a B&W one that was coordinated.

21 MR. EISENHUT:

B&W is doing some work of their own.

22 We are trying to finalize curs by tcmorrow.

23 VR, CASE:

I gue ss we do n eed an answer on how much 24 more co mmunica t ion.

We have had one, two, three, four -- about 25 five, I would gue ss, full-time telephone lines, and people are

39, 9

39 14. 4 pv I

on it most of the time exchanging inf ormation back and forth.

2 DR. OKRENT:

Do you have people who are sort of 3

members or at least listening attendees to the indus:ry working 4

groups?

5 MR. CASE:

Yes.

6 DR. OKRENT:

For each gr up?

7 MR. CASE:

_I don't know in detail, but I know many 8

times when I would like to talk to somebody they are of ten in 9

an industry group meeting.

I don't know how many people go to 10 how many meetings, but a fair fraction of the time -- m a y b e 10

.11 percent or something like that -- they are at such' meetings.

12 DR. OKRENT:

That is diff erent than going and being 13 a member.

14 MR. CASE:

That's right.

15 DR. OKRENT:

I ld like to seriously suggest that 16 you consider finding some people who are still here and haven't 17 b een pulled in yet, and get into the Three Mile Island -- there 18 are such, perso nnel, I think.

19 MR. CASE:

A few.

20 (Laughter.)

21 DR. OKRENT:

Unless the industry people find it not 22 a reasonable approach, that you nave them there so that they 23 are partic ipating.

Presumably, you select people with the 24 right backgrounds, and then you will have -- at least you will 25 have a better means of communication, even if it doesn't help

,qq ry.9

40 4.5 pv 1

the ACRS directl y.

We may want to send an engineer down.

Our 2

engineers, maybe one of us to 10 of you.

3 (Laughter.)

4 The question is 15 to 150.

5 So, I might mention, Mr. Chairman, we might, in 6

fact, want to think of having somebody from our staff down 7

there ln Harrisburg so that we also have some direct knowledge 8

of what they are learning.

9 MR. EISENHUT:

I think I can say, Dr. Okrent, that 10 there are considerable very close ties betv'een both us here in

.11 headquarters in the incident center; the re are people on the 12 site and,.in fact, the licensee.

In fact, a s Ed said, there is 13 a considerable number of open telephone lines all the tine and 14 a considerable amount of discussion.

15 A couple of other. things.

We are actually sending 16 additional personnel up to the site, and I think a couple have 17 already come back.

We are starting to rotate some personnel 18 back and farth.

19 We have set up some f acs imile machines whe re we are 20 now - - when a pe rson either up there or uown here is working a 21 groblen, they will document the pieces of the problem they are 22 working on and send it generally back and forth.

23 de are aware that the sit e people are working some 24 problems, and we are working some problems down he re.

25 Sometimes we have decided to work it together and in parallel q n -.y o q;*1 g

o

41 4.6 pv i

f or redundancy, just to, in fact -- w e h a v e o n e g ro up of 2

consultants, and then if they get another to think through the 3

problen Independently to see if we come to the same conclus ion.

4 There is a considerable amount of dialogue back and 5

fcrth.

6 DR. OKRENT:

I know there is dialogue b ack and 7

forth, and I am not suggesting tnat you not work rn all of the 8

things that you are w,rking on as if you didn't h.ve s u c."

9 people th ere.

But I think if, in fact, you had one member in 10 each working group or sub-working group or wherever they are J1 set up, it would be --

12 MR. EISENHUT:

I think, in fa ct, they work with 13 those working groups to the point where the working groups, as 14 of yesterday, I belie ve, when they generate a piece of

~15 information, whether it be a document or whatnot, the y would,

16 in fact, send that around to the staff.

I think the staff is 17 working with the industry groups, as I understcod it yesterday.

18 The re are so many groups working, it is ve ry 19 difficult --

20 DR. OKRENT:

I didn't hear yesterday in Bethesda, 21 and I think I would have because I have chatted with enough of 22 you.

23 MR. EISENHUT:

Certainly.

24 DR. OKRENT:

This relates to plans for what to do 25 tcday and tomorrow and next week.

I am net relating it only to q, -

v: o s,'

'sr

42 4.7 pv 1

the past.

2 DR. ZUDANS:

You explained that the periods o f 3

t i m e s ---

4 DR. CARBON:

Could I raise a question before we 5

l ea ve this lest topic.

It has been my understanding and/or 6

expectation that lik ely the re would be some sort of staff task 7

force set up.

Is that planned to look deeply into the 8

incident?

9 MR. CASE:

There.will be multi le vels of review.

10 Basically, the inve stigation respons ibility of who shot John

.11

.when and why will be done by I&E.

As we indicated earlier, we 12 have a small group working on design analyses versus i3 expectations on B&W plants.

There will be most likely a review 14 group appointed similar to the group appoi7ted after the Browns 15 Ferry fire, which would take into acccunt how we ll both I&E and 16 NRR are doing, and more of a lesson to learn, look at the 17 situation that would presumably.come in the near future, that 18 that group would be started.

19 DR. CARBON:

Let me say to Dr. O': rent that it is 20 expected and hoped and so on that Mr. Etherington Will be a 21 member of that review group, which does not replace what you 22 are aiming at but addr to har supplements.

23 DR. OKRENT:

I am serious acout the suggestion that 24 I made.

I think there are lots of things being learned and 25 lots of plans being made.

y- -yA

43 4.8 pv 1

DR. ZUDANS:

You pointed out times during which the 2

reactor pressure was below saturation pressure.

This would be 3

an information that you have on the average but not on 4

individual locations.

Is this one of such curves that we s ee 5

here where you have seemingly an indication that p re.s s ure is 6

below saturation between four and.eight minutes?

7 MR. EISENHUT:

There are a number of times that yo u 8

can infer that it was below.

9 DR. ZUDANS:

Wh e.

the ECCS pumps we re turned on.

10 And there are other minutes that the same s-ituation exists.

Ji MR. EISENHUT:

There is a number of times -- I wo ul d 12 have to go through in great detail as to the number -- a s to 13 the points where the system, looking at the system pressure and 14 temperature, where the co re was clearly below saturation.

The 15 average, there were probably or there could well have been 16 times when a particular f uel bundle was also below that.

I i7 wasn't meaning to exclude the possibility there were clearly 18 more than that.

19 There were clearly times, however, where the entire 20 system was below, for example, saturation pressure.

21 DR. ZUDANS:

I guess the real importance would be to 22 understand how soon af ter the SCRAM these things occu rred, 23 because you would have different states in the reactor.

Even 24 because it was below it wouldn't mean the damage potentially.

25 MR. EISENHUT:

We are 1 coking at a time secuence to

%q$

v. r:J

44

~

.9 pv i

see if we can get a handle on exactly -- inferring from the 2

information we do have, when that time was.

3 DR. ZUDANS:

Would it be fair to state that by the 4

time you were notified the great percentage of damage of 5

whate ver the damage was done was alreedy done?

6 MR. EISENHUT:

We don't necessarily think so.

We 7

.think it ma y we ll ha ve.o ccu rr ed -- a significant amount of 8

damage may have occurred -- yo u ha ve to l oo k at the extent to 9

which you are below saturation, the time you are there, and 10 clearly, for equal -- an equal amount and duration and extent J1 of below-saturation as a function of time, it would be le ss 12 severe as time went on.

13 However, you could postulate that a very small time, 14 incremental time area below saturation at an early time and an 15 extremely big one an hour later may comple tely ove rride.

16 MR. CASE:

This isn't to say that some damage wasn't 17 done early on.

18 MR. EISENHUT:

t rly in the game, the first hour or 19 two, we may well have had a situation where you were below 20 saturation and actually had fuel damage.

21 MR. BENDER:

Mr. Chairman, I have a lot of burning 22 qu e s tio ns.

We have a lot to cover on this agenda.

I wo ul d 23 like to suggest that we termlnate this so we can hear the rest 24 of it before the night is out.

25 MR. ET:iER I NGTON:

I think that is a g ood sugge stion.

q5., q v (J

45 1.10 pv i

It is the importance of this that makes it responsible for our 2

dragging on on Item 1.

de will have a f ew more questions.

3 PROF. KERR:

I want to remind us that Dr. Plesset-a raised a question which I am interested and which is part o.

5 Item 1.

6 DR. PLESSET:

Yes.

I understood that there was a 7

fair amount of rumbling and cavitation noise in the main 8

coolant pump, and this would most likely justify the operator 9

turning this pump o ff because he might lose it if it continued 10 too long.

11 I think t h a t

'A r. Michelson has pointed c 4 some 12 indication of this on some of the records.

In thi s c onnection,

13 I wonder if you might not want to give more thought to your new 14 directive about always leaving the main ccolant pump on.

15 MR. EISENHUT:

Certainly, that consideration, as we 16 l ook a t the pressures in the full flow and pressures coming out 17 of the reactor c colant pumo s, we certainl y see the trace and 13 you can araw that inference.

And you can also, from the 1 9 observation that there was some vibra t io n.

Those 20 considerations did go in to this judgm ent.

21 I micht also point out that th is, in fact, is also a 22 r ec o r.m e nda t io n from B&'d, ta king the wnole system as a whole, 23 recognizing there were some minor vibrations in the pumps, and 24 the re is still some minor vibration on the one pump that is 25 r u nn ing.

It is sort of a package deal, all taken together.

I

<g n - y esc

46

2. 11 pv 1

think, just because our directive says to do this, it doesn't 2

necessarily say that you must keeo a.ll reactor coolant.oum ps 3

r unn ing.

It says uncertain situations you should have two a

low-pressure pumps until a certain point or one high pressure 5

pump until you are 50 degrees below T or if you have the 6

reactor coolant pumps running you should not shut o ff or down, 7

you should shut down the two, one in eacn Loop.

8 So, it does not preclude turning off a rumbling 9

ounp.

10 MR. ETHERINGTON:

This subject is to be discussed

.11 again tono rrow in the full committee.

We have almost a full 12 conmittee here for about thr ee hours, so I would suggest that 13 we try to limit any further questions on this subject perhaps 14 to two questions.

15 DR. CARBON:

May I ask one.

I mLssed an answer you 16 gave a while ago.

Is a total loss of feedwater, incl uding 17 auxiliary f eedwa ter, a design basis accident?

15 MR. CASE:

Yes.

But not -- inability to restore?

19 MR. EISENHUT:

I think that's right.

It depends on 20 the conf iguration.

A plant can get themselves out of a 21 s itua t io n.

It depends on whether you have got -- what kind of 22 an emergency f eedwater yo u h a v e.

Lass of f eedwater is clearly 23 a transient to design for.

24 I believe on most plants tne loss of f ee dvate r is a 25 design basis situation.

3" D qso J

47 4.12 pv 1

DR. CAREON:

Including auxiliary.

2 MR. EISE:: HUT:

I believe that's right.

3 DR. ZUDANS:

You don't lose primary ccolant pumps.

A MR. EISENHUT:

Yes, and you do not lose ECCS at the 5

same time.

It is a simple situation of where you can postulate 5

your s ingle failures in the right place so that you T.ust be 7

able to stand it, but for the time that you have used up your 8

trump cards on single f ailures you have still got a reactor F4 9

c oolant system and ~CCS.

1 10 11 12 13 la 15 16 17 13 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

'Tc ~ ' V !)

c J s, s, s

s 9

.: y.:n h

MR. MICHELSON:

I wonder if I might ask a couple 1

i 1l

,1 of short c.uestions.

.cv i.

3 The first one:

To your knowledge, was there any I

i 4

containment ventilation or purge valves open at tn,e beginning 5

of the incident?

l 6'

MR. EISENEUT:

I think not.

.icwever, I am not 7

sure; but I think not..

l Si MR. MICHELSON:

Could you give me a little more i

'l 9 il detail on the one-inch line that you're using to vent the

l.,

i 10 I pressuriner?

1 1

11 MR. EISENHUT:

It is a one-inch line off the 12 -

pressurizer, and the valve is a controllable valve.

It is i

13 ll not open or shut.

You can --

ll H

14 j MR. EISENHC.

Throttle or remote --

15 ;

MR. EISENHUT:

Throttle.

i a

16 j MR. ETHERINGTON:

I would like to proceed to the 17 p second i' tem, unless there is some urgent question on the a.

4 la h first.

ll 19,j MR. EISENHUT:

Excuse me.

Let me clarify.

20 :: :Ir. Moseley just pointed out that we believe at this tima q

i 21 l right now they are using normal let-down rather than throttling 4

4 22 j out of the vent valve.

We have primary coolant system let-23 '

down line.

They had used the vent valve for a nu-ter of days 24 into the transient because of back-pressure problems. 31 Q70 "al Redo r*?'S l

• C.

25 MR. MOSELEY:

They were having problems with control

49

-2 jwb i

i I

i 1

of the let-down.

i f

2; MR. MICHELSON:

I an assuming we will go to the e

1 2

let-down next, but what kind of let-down did vou cerform i

4 during the incident at any time?

/

l 5H MR. MOSELEY:

During the early phases of the i

6" event -- we don't have a very good handle on it at this point 7

in time -- there was some indication that perhaps the filters 8h on the let-down lines were plugged earlier, and there was 1

q 9 [I belief that there was some relief -- that there was some a

10,

letdown throuch a relief valve in that line.

4

(

11 !

So the let-down has varied rather over a band 12 and sometimes it has been difficult to determine just what it 13 'I was.

I la MR. IIICHELSON :

Ey " relief valve," you are saying i

4 15,' one in the let-down svstem?

1 l'

16 '

MR. MOSELEY:

Yes.

h 17 4 IIR. ETHERINGTON:

Is that satisfactory, o

I!

18 h Mr. Michelson?

19 MR. MICHELSON:

Yes.

20 llR. ETHERIUGTON:

The next item is " current plant i

21, status," and I would wa. t that to co'zer procedures to cover 22 degradation of systems now in operatian..

23 '

Dave, I think you had something particular in this 21

area, s.My - n < M..

cal R eGorters. InC.

25 DR. OKRENT:

What I said earlier was, in the

-3 jwb 50 I

t i

1h presentation to the Commissioners, there wasn't quite as much d

i 4

2' s aid by the NRC Staf f in this regard.

So I thought that l

i 2

tnere it would be useful if we had a five-or ten-minute I

I 4p summary by the staff so that we are brought up to date, if I 5

can use that term.

3i MR. EISENHUT:

The latest status summary sheet that 7'

we have happens to be 4:30 this morning.

We have been 3

running around slightly since then.

9 Let me run down -- I will tell you the things that 10 are in it, basically.

We have touched on a lot of these 11 l things.

12,

The heat removal path right new is through the 13 ; reactor coolant loop tnrougn cumo 1-A, and through the steam 1

14 4 generator, of course.

The steam lead is to the by-pass valve 1

15. on A steam generator to the condenser and return via the Il 16 l condensate pump.

And in f act, -if I had read the note, I could 17, nave cla'rified an earlier question.

a la j During this period of time on this cycle on this J

19 ! shif t that provided this at 4 :30 this morning, the degassing 20 flow through the pressurizer vent line was secured.

This was 21,d earlier this morning.

i 22 l We have been moving too fast tc keep the present 23 state.

Normal degassing is through the let-down flow line and 24 is continuing.

,,"U>-.v>o ral A e:cr'ers. I rc.

25 One hydrogen recombiner is cperating.

It is reading

-4 jwb 51 w-s-

i t

W-1I about 2 percent.

The other recombiner is on standby.

I U

2h, DR. STRATTON:

Where do they come from?

3 MR. EISENHUT:

I think they had one.

4, MR. MOSELEY:

One was there.

i 5j DR. PLESSET:

L'nere does that let-down line go 1

1 6j into the primary systt.-

about?

I e,,

AR. EISENHOT:

Uhere does it come out, let down il q

3 frcm?

Just a =cment.

I think I have that one.

i i

I 9

DR. KERR:

dr. Etherincton has distributed a 1

n 1

10 j diagram.

l*

11 !

MR. EISENHUT:

One of the cold legs before you get 12 ro the main pump.

13 !

DR. ZUDANS:

The way vou described it, at 4:30 l

14ll this morning, you said, condenser condensate pump is the n

4 15.i only one?

How is it secondary for the by pass?

Enat l

16 1 mechanical systems are running?

17 y MR. EISENHUT:

At this time, I am not sure.

The d

e 18 l main coolant pump is running.

o 19 1 DR. ZUDANS:

That is primary, n

20,

MR. EISENHUT:

This says it is cunn. inc. through a 1

21 9 condensate pump.

Maybe there is a by-pass on the cleanup, t

22 but I think it has arobably also got a feed pump running, too.

23 G DR. ZUDANS:

Maia?

Or auxiliary?

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p real Aeoorters, Inc. ; ,. g 25., I don't know what the radiation rate was. 6 jwb i 53 DR. ZUDANS: Is it isolated? 2 MR. MOSELEY: It is isolated. I 3l MR. EI3ENHUT: We don't have with us right now the 1 4 complete status sheet. 5 DR. ZUDANS: There is no concern? I 6i DR. SIESS: What is your situation on reactor I i 7 coolant pumps? You have one operating. What is the status I I g; of the other three? t i i 9l MR. EISENHUT: The other three we believe are 10, operable. The pumps have been tested and run. l l 11 l DR. SIESS: Are they outside containment? 12 MR. EISENHUT: I believe they are. Early in the i I i 13 transient, there was a situation where a couple of the lute j I 14 j. oil pumps were not operable. They have since -- I don't know n 15 whe ther -- i 16 i M9. MOSELEY: They are all operable at this time. ll 17 l DR. SIESS: One loop is not operable? i i 18 i MR. MOSELEY: That is correct. There is sealwater l 19 n flow to the non-operating pump in the A loop. There is I 20 not sealwater to the ocerating pump. i 21 DR. LAWROSKI: Uhen did you learn that you had I il 22j; some primary getting into the steam generatcrs? 11 23i; MR. EISENHUT: I don't have the detailed time. It 6 24 j was early in the transient, like in the first couple of al RfDOf f ff t, IPC. 25 ; hours, obviously, because they isolated the sbgam-gppgrator. o ...0 -7 jwb 54 I I j I went through it earlier. Most of the time it is a matter 2 of finding.the answer. Ne have been greatly swamped by the 1 3 amount of information we are trying to collect in order to i I I be aware and on top of contingencies. 4 l DR. SIESS: The isolated feed was at 2.3 hours3.472222e-5 days <br />8.333333e-4 hours <br />4.960317e-6 weeks <br />1.1415e-6 months <br />. l 5 MR. ETHERINGTON: I understand Mr. Case and 6ll 7: Mr. Eisenhut have to leave it 5:00 o' clock promptly, so we I I I have 12 minutes. 8 MR. EISENHUT: Maybe I can give you a summary. I 9 10, do have a list I can give you on the plant parameter status 11 sheet, so each of you have an idea of where we are right now. i i 12 ! Right now, again, is the early hours of this i i 13 morning because we physically have not been there, going ja ! through and keeping a log siuce that time. This was narly i l 15 l this morning -- and as I say, this is a 4:30 a.m. this morning 16 sheet. Things have not changed significantly since that hour. I 17, Pressurizer pressure was at 1066 psi. Pressurizer i 18 ! level was 235 inches. Pressurizer temperature was 558. The i l 19 i inlet temoerature on A loop was 283 degrees. The inlet I 20 1 temperature on B Joop was 281 degrees. I The let-down flow was about 15 gym. 21 l! il 22,4 HR. ETHERINGTON: That is "let-down"? T'lat is not 1 23 h pressurizer. <p) . r g, p J w 24 0 MR. EISENHUT: That is let-down. ?ral Aeoor ers, Inc. 25 ;i 'that is a calculated value. The secondary side. -8 jwb 53 i l l l 1 stean generator A pressure level, even though it says l 2 " pressure level," I think they nean just a " level." The level ! l 3l is 91 percent and 83 percent. The steam generator level -- 1 I 4j Norm says it is the secondary side, how full the j l stea2 generators are, 83 percent. It is relative to the full l 5l! t 6! situation. You would have to look and see on the diagram, i 7' MR. !!ICHELSON : Would it overflow into the steam 8 line, the main steam line? i 9 MR. EISENHUT: Percent of full. Containment i 10, hydrogen concentration was 1.97 percer.t. 11 DR. KERR: It wasn't 975. i I 12 i AR. ETHERINGTON: Do you feel that satis f actory i 13 procedures have beea developed to take care of any contingency 14 that ndght occur from now on? i i 15 ' MR. EISENHUT: 'rhey are presently being developeu. 16 Let me give you an idea of what they ar. the kinds l 17 of things. 18 MR. MICHELSON: Before you get away from this -- l 19 l MR. EISENHUT: Let me give you the two pressures. i 20 ' It is running around, on the steam generators, the pressure I 1 21 on A is around at 30 psi, and pressure o'n B is anywhere from p 22l 24 to 26. ..c i 23 4 We do have also a sheet, a " System / component i. .I 2d Ooeracility S tatus. " If you like, I will take about two

ral Recorrers, Inc.

25.; seconds and run through those, and then I understand you want 56 -9 jwb l I l 1 information on contincancioc r-i IIR. BENDER: Are you going to say anythinJ about j 2 li, 7 the fuel and the core structure? MR. EISENHUT: The only thing, I mentioned before, 4 i l is that the thermocouples and the outlets are all reading -- i 5 i 6 there are only a couple reading above 400. The rest are about 7f 300. We think, since the in-core thermocouples extend through i i 3] the core from the bottom, you may draw an inference from that. i l 9' The strength of the fuel, there is a lot of I 10 : speculation. We would think that there have been hot spotr 11 ! where you got some fuel failure, possible flow blockage. MR. BENDER: Cladding integrity? j 12 ; 13 l MR. EISENHUT: No. Ge think on the primary system i 14 samples we have seen, you have had a considerable cladding i 15 failure. i 16 h DR. LAWROSKI: ': ave-you lost any pertinent instru-o l 17 {! mentation? 18 ll MR. EISENHUT: Yes. The containment temperatures, it il 19 ;; depending on ele'/ation, they vary from about 84 degrees, or d 20 t 80 to 85 degrees, generally, Fahrenheit, so it is relatively i 21 cool system and conpanent and operability status. This was 22 l as of this morning. 30 9,' W 23 ll I said, the reactor coolant system pump l-A is I l 24 running; l-B and 2-B are operable; 2-A was shut down for a tral Rf A'r*ff s, Inc. 25 y seal water. There is a note that says it is shut down; the -10 jwb 57 i I I I seal water is in. Pressurizer heaters are all operable. 1 2 There was a time when they were not. Spray valves are all l I i 3j operable. The decay heat removal systems, both the pumps and I i i i 4 the system valves are all ocerable. l Sl The makeup in the high-pressure injection, the l I I 6l pumps and the valves, are all operable. Two trays of contain-I I 7'I ment spray are operable. Five containment fan coolers are gj cperable. l 9l On the service-water system, four pumos on two 10, trains are operable. Auxiliary feed, cwo electric pumps are I li l operable. Two diesel generators on site for that unit, for I 12 ' Unit 2, are operabla. They could also tie in from Unit 1 l 1 if need be. 13 l 14 ! Off-site power, they have two lines in that are i i 1 15 operable. Hydrogen recon 6iners, both are operable. i i 16 ' Two Pumps on the decay heat removal closed cooling II 17 l mode are operable. 18 And now, instruments, i 19 ! MR. ETHERINGTON: Ue have just got five minutes, t 20 ; I would like to give Mr. IEchelson as much time as he needs 1 for questions. 21 l 22 ! Could I ask one question, first? Don't tell me l' 23,! how, but are things in satisf actory shape in case they lose 24 all power, all off-site power? l3f ' ')lf9 trat Peoorrers. Irc. 25 ' MR. EISENHUT: I think so. They do have two on-site -11 jwb l 58 t I 1: diesels that have been started, run up, and tested. I i 2 l, MR. ETHERINGTON: Will these run the main circu-l 4 3' lating pump? t I a, AR. EISENHUT: No, thev Will not. l MR. ETHERINGTON: You will have to do something 5l i i 6' elSG. l 7 MR. EISENHUT: Yes. I think that is right. j I i It seems like they are 9000-horsepower motors. gI 1 9' MR. ETHERINGTON: I was wondering whether you have Ii' 10 a procedure to take care of it. l 11 i MR. EISENHUT:

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12 l MR. ETHERINGTON: Don't tell me what vou are 13 doing; there is not time. I i 14 DR. OKRENT: I would like to know, tomorrow. l 15 MR. ETHERINGTON: I would like to know, very much. 16 ' HR. EISENHUTr Certainly. I am not sure who will i p 17 l be here tomorrow, but I will make it a point to make sure -- i 18 l MR. ETHERINGTON: Perhaps Dr. Michelson doesn't 19 ; have a lot of questions. 20 MR. MICHELSON: do. f.P '.' O r 21 ' MR. ETHERINGTON: Then you can tell us now, then. l DR. OKRENT: I think it wouldn' t hurt to hear it. 22ji Il 23 jj I don' t think they will have time to explore it. I think we J, 24 '! ought to decide how we can really have some considerably more ral Reoorters, Inc. 25 f time of the staff to talk about this item, and also -12 jwb 59 l 1 the generic questions, how it relates to other plants in 2 operation. 3 ! DR. SIESS: I would lika to pose a question that t 4 could be answered tomorrow, if it can't be answered now. l 5-Do you have any basis for believing that you can i i i 6 put the plant in and maintain it in a condition that will l i I l 7 permit natural circulation? { 8 MR. EISENHUT: Right now we think we can get to l l 9 ! that mode and get it there; yes. i 10, This is part of the contingency plan arrangement. 11 Ue are looking at all of the possible cooling modes you can i I 12 l get to. That is one of those pathways. l l 13 DR. SIESS: You will address that for tomorrow? i 14 MR. EISENHUT: Yes. l I I 15 l JR. SIESS: You did not operate natural circulation?- l 16 i MR. EISENHUT: That is correct. 1. ll 17 i DR. LAWROSKI: Have you lost any important instru-i 18 mentation? 19 ! MR. EISENHUT: The only thing we have lost on level 20, is two things. We have lost one pressurizer level indication I 21 i " instrument. We have lost -- l ' fy - ' vM 22 DR. SIESS: Out of how many? I 23 I! MR. EISENHUT: One out of three. Two remain lil 24 operable. eral Recorrers, Inc. ; 25 j DR. OKRENT: Only one is operable; the qualified one, 1 60

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I IITLOCK I 6 mtel i 1 HR. EIS ENHUT : I don 't know if thev are all c.ualified! 2 or not. We were taking readings from all three. I do remember { I i 3 I asked the ques tion of how close are the readings, j us t for l 4l this eventuality. The loop flow on the B channel in each loop,! I I 5 we have lost the loop flow. I think we have lost are loop i i 6 flow indicator in 3 loop. Those are the only two pieces of j 7: equipment that have failed. [ i 8lt I MR. MICHELSON: One cuestion I would like to asp i 9 tomorrow is, if you are to lose your pressurizer heaters for 10 any reason, what do you intend to do? 11 MR. EISENHUT: We can, hope fully, have soneone here 12 tomorrow who can go through all of the contincencies enat we I I I 13 are going through. He are trying to do j us t that, every thing 14 from what if you lost some indication -- for example, what if i 15 you lost pressurizer level, what if you lost pressurizer 16 heaters. The cuestions go on: what i f, wha t if, what if ? 17 We probably won't have all of the stories and answers 18 tomorrow, but we can certainly tell you the kinds of things we 19 are thinking about. It is just a very broad question about l 20 1 contingencies. We are working that problem. A large number 1 21 of people are trying to work on th at. 22 MR. MICHELSON: Wodld you tell me a little bit about i 23 l the computer dump information you mentioned. You said you had 24 ; a computer dump of data. Can you tell us a little bit about at Aeoorters. inc. 25 tha t? 3.()-o'?g 61 l 2 i 1 MR. EISINUUT: What we did was go back to the l l 2 h computer and ask for some of the significant times and ask it 1 l 3l to print out a bunch of thing s, and we went through and kicked l l 4l out the significant items. And that is actually where the i l i 5 times and the sequence tha t I went through earlier, the l 6 chronology, th e times were confirmed by that. Scre of tho s e 7 ti ~..es have got a little hit.of range be tween this time and 8I th at time. It will cive an idea of how close in a lot of I l 9l cases une computer printout versus the instrur.ent readouts, 10 ! et cetera, is in that range. II All it did was confirm the chronology we went through. l 12 ' MR. MICHELSON: Does it verifv wnen maniculations I 13 are perforred? I I4 MR. EISENHUT: I am not sure uhat detail it is. i 15 MR. ETHERINGTON: Thank y( u very much. 16 MR. EISENHUT: Yes. 17 MR. ETHERINGTON: Next, at your meeting tomorrow, 18 would you like to say what the Committee would discuss, the 19 ! Subcommittee? ,';./ ' 'T'q l 20 l DR. CARBON: I would plan -- in our full Ccmmittee 21 meeting tomorrow, we will have a full Committee discussion 22 d continuation on this same topic, with the staf f who will be 23 present, and we will continue with Iten No. 3, generic aspects, r 24 1 and then health aspects, and the renainder of th e agenda. ral R eDorff f 5, Inc. 25 MR. ETHERINGTON : I don't think that there is any thing I J 62 l 1 I 1, further the Subcornittee can do today, unless someone has some j 2 ideas. It is disappointing that we had to finish so quickly. l 3 I But the meeting is adjourned. l ? 4 PROF. KERR: I was going to corr.ent tha t I think l 5l they did an excellent job. l 6 (Whereupon, at 5:01 p.m., the meeting was ad j o urned. ) ' 7' 8i i 9 f 10 ' I 11 12 l 13 l 14 15 16 17 18 19 l i I 20 ' i 21 I 22l 23 l 24 ' f1< 'V. )/1 Jh

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