ML19254B052
| ML19254B052 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 07/31/1979 |
| From: | Kunder G, Shackleton O METROPOLITAN EDISON CO., NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION V) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 7909190237 | |
| Download: ML19254B052 (29) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA l
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1,
i In the Matter of:
2!
IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW 3!
of George A. Kunder l
Unit 2 Superintendent -
4j Technical Support i
Si 6i 7i 81 Trailer #203 i
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NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10!
Middletcwn, Pennsylvania 11!
Julv 11. 1979 12!
(Date of Interview) 13!
July 31, 1979 (Oate Transcript Typec) 14{
330 15:
(Tape Numcer(s))
i 15i IT 181.
I 19i 20l 21!
NRC PERSONNEL:
22; Owen C. Shackleton James S. Creswell 23!
Thomas T. Martin
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1 SHACKLETON:
The time is now 1:35 p.m. eastern daylight time.
This is Owen 2
C. Shackleton speaking and this is an interview of Mr. George A. Kunder.
31 Mr. Kunder is a Unit 2 Superintendent for Technical Support at Three Mile Island, Metropolitan Edison Company.
This interview is taking place on Sj July 11, 1979, in trailer No. 203, which is parked just south of the south 6;
security gate at the Three Mile Island installation.
Present to conduct 7-this interview from the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is Mr. James S.
Creswell.
g Mr. Creswell is a Reactor Inspector assigned to Region III.
gj Also present is Mr. Thomas T. Martin.
Mr. Martin will frequently be referred to as Tim.
Mr. Martin is an Inspection Specialist of the Performance Appraisal Branch of Inspection and Enforcement with Reactor Construction and Inspection. My name is Owen C. Shackleton.
I am an Investigator assigned to Region V.
Just prior to beginning this interview on tape I discussed with Mr. Kunder a two page document that we referred to as an advisement document from the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission which advises Mr. Kunder and other persons who have been interviewed by our investigative team of their rignt to refuse to be interviewed, of their rights to have someone present of their choice, and of their rignts to refuse to give a signed statement.
In prior interviews Mr. Kunder has 19!
always expressed his cocperation which he expressed again today and for a 20t matter of record I'm going to ask Mr. Kunder the three questions on the 21, second page of this document.
22; l
23t SHACKLETON:
Mr. Kunder do you understand the document that I am referring 24i to?
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KUNDER:
I do, i
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i SHACKLETON:
And do we have your persiission to tape this interview?
3 4j gl KUNDER: You do.
6i SHACKLETON:
And would you like a copy of the tape?
j i
1 8t KUNDER: Yes, i
10l SHACKLETON: Alright, so that will be provided at the conclusion of the 11!
interview and also a copy of the transcription will be provided when that's i
12' completed.
Okay. At this time I'll turn the meeting over to Mr. Creswell 13}
and Mr. Martin.
14!
15i MARTIN: George, ara you aware of any problems prior to this event associated with starting makeup pumps. We know that early in the event the operators had problems trying lA makeup pump, about half way through the event they ISI even had to put 3 makeup pump in full to lock and use the medium C makeup pumps.
Had there been any prior history of problems with these pumps?
201 21!
KUNDER:
No, none that I'm aware of relative to starting the pumos.
I was 22!
involved in some of the correspondence of an LER.
I'm pretty sure it was a 23l LER whereby we had a wiring problem that was discovered which would have 241
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prevented the pumps from starting under a loss of load if I recall correctly.
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I lj If you had a loss of voltage on the ES buses it would have effected the way 2!
the backup pemp starts and I have to go back and review the paper anymore.
i 3j It was sometime early in the year or the latter part of 1978 that that 4;
occurred.
I don't think that it's really had anything to do with the...you c;
know what you referring to though.
It sounded like a separate difficulty.
6 That was correct that it was prior to the incident by th'e way.
I 71 8l MARTIN:
Has there been any research in determining what was the cause of gj the makeuo pump problems during he event?
101 KUNDER:
I just remember...well I remember hearing people like I guess Bill f
Zewe or some of the other people in there... subsequent testimony or analysis 13l of the sequence of events that...I know I heard on one occasion that the i
operator had a difficulty in starting it because he didn't hold the switch 14:
long enough.
The pump started... then let go of the switch, I guess the 15:
timing sequence and the oil pump interlocks and so forth whatever is involved didn't catch up and when he left the switch go it tripped right away and he turned the switch again and it started and I guess that each one of those may have entered on the sequence of events printout plus I'm aware that there's some reported...I won't call them problems but I guess the best word is a... inconsistencies in the way you would interprete the sequence of 21!
events printout information relative to the makeup pumps and it's merely a 22 l
function of the way the alarms are wired in to the logic and I know Dick 2 31 Bensel, my lead engineer was concerned about how people interpreted sequence 24!
of events printout based on that because it didn't reflect accurately what 25i
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may not start and stop nearly as frequently as the sequence of events 3
printout would have suggested but if you ask me for'any specifics in 4j detail I...I'm not in position to really give it to you cause I don't know.
5 MARTIN:
Si Far ycyir information the operator not holding the switch over long j
enough to satisfy some loop wall pressure switch that doesn't actually fit
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8 e circuitm and the relay that he picks up by operating that switch hat no condition associated with loop wall pressure or less.
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KUNDER:
Is it voltage or something?
I don' t know.
That's... is that type of thing that I thought... that mace the difficulty with it?
I 131 p
MRTIN:
If I remember correctly you arrived at Unit 2 approximately 4:50 in the morning.
16i KUNDER:
That's about rig':.t.
17l 1Sr MARTIN:
Sometime during your first hour there an operator was dispatched 19t to shut' the breakers for the core flood tank isolation valves.
Subsequent 20!
21,l to that the core flood tank isolating valves were reportedly shut.
Were c
.you aware of this?
22; 23; i
KUNDER:
No.
I don't recall that at the time.
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l gj MARTIN:
GPU sequence indicates at a subsequent period of time and I'll try 2
to quote... core flood tank isolation valves open...no indication that the 3{
valve had been prsvicusly shut that morning but certainly no need to make 4l that comment unlets they had that open at that period.
Are you aware of g
them being reopened or do you know who we might speak to who might have g
that knowledge?
7!
KUNDER:
No. Well, they had to be openec because we were...later in the morning we were trying to get the core flood tanks empty into the RCS by g
reducing pressure.
I would surmise that the best person to talk to would 10!
be the operators that would have been in the position to do 50, okay? They were there that morning.
But I was not aware of trie status of the c::re flood tanks.
131 14!
MARTIN:
At 4:02 in the morning we had our first ES actuation.
As a result of that actuation to two diesels start.
When you arrived in the control room with the diesels running?
18i KUNDER:
I don't think they were running.
I don't have any knowledge of 19!
them running. When I came into the plant I wouldn't have necessarily heard 20I them running so I'm not aware that they were running, no.
21; 22l MARTIN:
At about 4:30 the computer would indicate the diesels were in fact 231 shut down.
There is some question about the computer indication because 24i appa:ently indication for cne of these little will shut down.
There's 25-T G t-s
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some computer problems there which your people by the way have done the 2:
research on.
So we believe that around 4:30 they were manually shut down 3
by an operator to satisfy procedural requirements not to run diesels unloaded 4!
for long periods of time in fact the precaution statement indicates that 30 l
minutes is alright but even that should be followed by a full load operation g
Si r something for some period of time.
The procedure is ~olid though on s
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requiring the operator to place the machine back into emergency standby g{
although tech specs would require that we see no indication of returning to emergency stancby.
Can you give us a philosophy why they would not return g
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KUNDER:
No I can't.
I didn't know that that was the case or you know maybe they were I wouldn't have known either way.
I never really questionea what the status of the diesels were when I came into the control room.
14:
Plus I'm not...I don't know that it even...I don't even know the Unit 2 procedures yet in that area.
That's one of the areas that I haven't done any...up to that time I hadn't done any study on it so you know that detail necessarily.
19!
MARTIN:
Are you aware of a conversation around 9:00 between a shift 20:
.~oreman and an engineer relative to the diesels placing the diesel emergency 21:
standby maintenance exercise switch in the maintenance exercise position so 22j that the diesel fuel rads could be reset so that a manual start capability 23l was enabled?
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1 KUNDER:
No, I don't recall anything like that.
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MARTIN:
Were you aware that on the 8 subsequent ES's the diesels never 4
started?
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l Gi KUNDER:
No.
71 MARTIN:
Would that apply to you if you found that out? If the diesels g
gj were in fact inoperable? That they did not satisfy tech spec requirements?
10l XUNDER: Yeah.
The Unit i logic is certainly that the diesel starts and
!g the Unit 2 logic I would expect to be the same so yeah that would be...they would signal to me that we had that problem.
I don' t know that I was... I may not have been there for all, the actuations then again I may have.
I know the two actuations that I was in the control room for and then I remember specifically occurred that evening when we were trying to put the rad coolant pump on.
The first time they did it I wasn't standing in a
,7, position where I, you know, saw the actuation and you know was fully cogni: ant of it occurring.
The second one was one I came back to the control panel and in fact they asked me to go back to the rear panel and keep an eye on 21!.
some indications back there and a...when that actua*. ion occurred I didn't look over the diesel valves I just didn't know...I didn't pay attention to 22l that you know I just wouldn't have known.
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1l MARTIN:
In reviewing the alarm pressure and flow detector output it appears 2j that the alann status printout from 5:13 to 6:48 was lost.
In a discussion 3j with Scb Raders it appears that no one seems to remember actuating the
[j alarm suppress function or computer initialization which would have given 5
the indications we see. We are attempting to put fact or information with 6;
this to indicate why this information was Icst.
Are you~ aware of anyone f
who was working around the typewriter in the time period of 6:48 in the 8l
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KUNDER:
No, no.
Somebody asked me that before it might have been you at 10i ig the last interview but I don't remember seeing anybcdy or being aware of anyone working on a typewriter specifically.
131 MARTIN: Were you getting information off the typewriter early in the morning?
16 KUNDER: Well, I might have, I can't remember specifically looking at it
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but I'm sure I may have.
I wouldn't say I'm sure I would have assumed that I had gone over to the typewriter to look at bits and pieces of information but I can't remember really doing it you know so...
21; MARTIN:
How useful is the alarm status printout to the operators during a transient like this?
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1l KUNDER:
How do you answer a question like that?
It will give a guy as 2!
long as 'it's not backed up some real time information on various alarms.
3j I've seen situations where the alarms were repetitive alarms due to an 4
instrument being on the verge of the alarm points, it bounces in and out 5l and that tends to tie the typewriter up.
I've seen it being used very 6
effectively in Unit 1 that is to tell the operator, you know, conditions that his overhead annunciator system didn't specifically alert him to.
But 7l gj it is more of a secondary' kind of a alarm indication becau.se it tends to g;
pick up all the alarms that are not up in the overheads.
The overheads are 10 generally engineered to give you the more important indications of piamater out of spec conditions.
So there are some things you can get off the alarm g
j typewriter that's good but in general it's not,the type of thing that a guy can use as his prime indication of alarm conditions.
It's a supplementary f
kind of...
15:
CRESWELL:
George, you mentioned overheads.
Can you briefly describe where the overheads are? Where they art located?
ISI KUNDER: Well, tne overhead annunciators in Unit 2 are located on the back panels and generally the...each panel has its own annunciator board and the annunciator board may have 21 to perhaps 36 alarm windows on it and the 21:.
alarms on each board generally relate to sit the systems that particular i
control board has controls on it for.
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1 CRESWELL:
George, I've been reviewing some technical support participation i
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during the event and it's my understanding that the lead mechanical, lead 3,
electrical, and nuclear instrumentation personnel report to you.
4i KUNDER:
That's correct.
g 6i 7j CRESWELL:
I'd like to go through some of the items that I have records of g
that...where technical analyses were done or activities conducted by both g
personnel relating to the instrumentation engineer having over here that he 10 verified RCS temperatures and pressures by comparing meter indications in the RPS cabinets for two or more instrumentation channels and then he
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reported that information back to you.
Do you recollect that?
131 KUNDER:
Yeah.
In the morning Ivan Porter had been looking at temperature ir.
indications who happens to be a wide range indicator which I really became aware of sometime during the morning and also he had taken I think it was digital voltmeter and hooked up to the RTV's in the RTS cabinet and was able to extrapolate from the voltage information the temperature that they were seeing and he had indicated that they were high.
Now this was...I can't really give you a time anymore.
It was well into the event when we 20j knew temperatures were high you know we were probably you know we were 21!
boiling in the cooler and then we knew that we had we think we had uncovered 22l the core.
This was after the radiation levels had been pretty well received in the form of high alarms in just about every area of the plant.
So that 24!
instrumentation was being looked at by him to try and get a feel for what 25i
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pegged you Know right after we turned off the pumps.
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4 CRESWELL:
Did he tell you that he could find no reason not to believe the Si instruments or what is your recollection of what was said?
4 Si 7j KUNDER: My recollection is kind of vague but I think we all...I can't
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that we did indeed have high temperatures in there and the. temperatures 10:
that I was impressed with were in the order of 700 or 800 F and that we g
were cooling the core pretty much by boiling water and in super heating g
that steam in the core and of course at that point in time we were still injecting high pressure infection from the time we said make sure we had 13 j
full high pressure injection going and it was just after we stopped the pumps we wanted high pressure infection so that we could make sure we had g
water in the core built up and so it seemed consistent with what I expected g
was taking place in the system.
1Si CRESWELL: What was your interpretation of the super heated temperatures?
Did that indicate the core was not covered or covered to you?
21!
KUNDER:
Well, it indicated that the core had been uncovered and that we thought that we were getting at least cooling to the core such that effec-23l tively it was covered.
It probably had alot of voids in the thing but it 24) was being cooled and cooled through the super heating mechanism cause I 25i
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12 lj knew it was sometime in the middle of the morning when we were meeting with f
Gary and Lee Rodgers and so forth.
The thing that was scaring me was the 2
3 thought that we were putting water in the core from high pressure injection 4:
'-4 it was boiling off and concentrating boric acid and I was really scared 5
that we would end up blocking flow lanes ad stuff you know with the boric Gi acid unless we'd get enough cooling water near to really get some sort of eficulation and the only circulation that we could conceive of getting was g{
to blow fluid out the electromatic relief valve which was the only place that we could find any kind of venting path and hopefully carry over whatever g
- #"Y 10 boric acid and... but...I know the feeling that I had was that we were cooling the core but at a elevated temperature in through the steaming process because we I don't think I thought in terms of the supercritical steam point I don't think that thought went through my mind but at that point I'm not sure I was prepared to think of that sort of thing but I knew that we probably had a bubble in there, a steam bubble, so to avoid and I couldn't define it in my own mind or really get a feel for what it was like 1,/ ;
but as long as we were pumping in the high pressure injection that was the only thing we could do other than try and start a pump and that had been 196 tried by others and it was apparently unsuccessful at that point.
201 21!
CRESWELL:
George the implementation you had some technicians hook up a thermocouple reader and digital volt meters to the thermoccuples. Were you 23l aware of the evolution?
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13 1l KUNDER:
I was aware of that evolution, the extent of that evolution I gj believe, that's quite a few weeks after the incident, but I was aware that 3
he had gotten thermocouple data that morning and he had reported his findings 41 to Gary and I also discussed it with him briefly that the data was irratic gj and he didn't know what kind of reliability to place on it cause he had 6
numbers that ranged all over the place. You see up to that time I was 7j unaware that Unit 2 had their thermocouples tied into the computer.
Unit 1 gj doesn't they don't use them so I didn't even...I wasn't even aware of the g;
ability to get that kind of information and the data since it was so scattered 10I there was some questions marks there was temperature...I think he had converted... I learned this after the fact...he had converted the DVM data from all 52 thermocouples he took four of those or five of them, something like that it was a very small number, and he converted the data to temoera-13 tures just to see what kind of a range he was getting there was some I guess a couple of points that weren't giving him any information at all.
One temperature was down around...either under 100 or just over 100,
17::
another one 20... around 2300 or somewhere in that range, another one high question, another question mark they get four data points that I had learned 1St whe r was down at the presidential hearings that he had actually converted at that time and given to Gary and me- 'oned to me and they you know kind of going along here at 90 miles an hour and that just... he wasn't sure what kind of rel1 ability to derive from the information so that was pretty much the extent of you know any kind of involvement analysis that I can 23 recall.
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CRESWELL: What did the information mean to you?
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3j KUNDER: Well, since I wasn't that familiar with the Unit 2 instrumentation 4
particularly in the area of the thermocouples, he said he wacn't sure if Sj there's anything that could be derived from it or anything reliable that we cou?
6 7at from it at that point I guess I just dismissed it.
71 ER:
Discounted t.5e infomation.
8 9I KUNDER: Well, yeah I guess discounted might be one word.
I didn't place f
any concrete faith in that information you know I wasn't sure what it was telling me and I think we were all looking for something that we could identify with really pretty clearly in terms of meaningful instrumentation 13l to tell us what the conditions were in the core and since that was...you know you can only speculate on what it was telling you at least that's what we thought it was telling us at that point I didn't put a whole lot of meaningful restored at that point.
ISI SHACKLETON:
Jim we are almost ready to run off our cassette and we'll 196 change the tape at this time.
The time is 2:03 p.m. and we'll discontinue 20:
until we c::me back on tape again.
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SHACKLETON:
The time is now 2:06 p.m. eastern daylight and this is a 23!
continuation of the interview of Mr. George A. Kunder.
Please continue Mr.
t 2 41' Creswell.
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l 15 lj CRESWELL: George, the instrumentation engineer who was involved with the 2
reactor coolant pump starting specifically manipulations of the K relay 31 jumpering of interlocks and so forth, did you direct that he be involved in 4j that activity?
5l Gi KUNDER:
I don't think I directed any of those guys during that first day 7
except maybe for some specific things.
I don't think that was one of them, g
No.
They... I tell you the atmosphere that existed in the control room gj throughout most of the day was that they made themselves available to the 101 senior people, myself, but particularly Zewe and North and when there was a i
g job to do I wanted to get some additional instrumentation installed or jury i
rigged to give us information in the control room where the pump didn't g
13l start.
Dick Bensel and I had been right there in the control rocm and he said well I think I'll go down and take a look at it.
He communicated g
directly with the shift supervisor.
It was pretty mucn a spontaneous kind of a cooperative environment except we're not the structured kind of thing
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that what I think it is after having many months to reflect upon it but they did what they thought had to be done at that point that was generally our procedures you know any of the formality that we normally do in our business because we were very well caught up in an emergency situation.
21:
l CRESWELL:
Did Dick Bensel go down to the breaker area?
22' 23 KUNDER:
I think either Dick or it might have even been the I&C engineers, they' re equally qualified.
I know Dick was involved in the pumps.
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lj Loughton who works for Dick might have been involved.
I can't remember...
2 Ivan may have been involved in that to some extent too.
I can't remember 3
specifically who went down cause I didn't go down with him.
There was more 4l than one time when they had difficulties with the pumps in their checkout.
Sj I think it was the same day that they were trying to get the...they had 6
difficulty with oil pumps, they were trying to resolve t' hat.
Either that day or some other day... I can' t remember anymore.
I sj CRESWELL:
0,id Ivan or anyoody else who worked on the pumps report to you g
10l that they had drawn a small amount of current they thought that there might j,
be voids in the pump 12l KUNDER:
It seems to me when we started one pump it just...we had a starting current and dropped off to some nominal number like 100 amps and that was I guess the first or second time we tried to start the pump after we initially tripped them.
Is that the time you are referring to?
, e, 4 17!
CRESWELL:
Yes.
18r 19!
KUNDER:
In my own mind I believe and in the minds almost everybody there
<.0 we thought we were pumping steam and we weren't getting anything.
I mean 21, that was the kind of...
22j 231 CRESWELL:
you didn't have anybody 24) 25-( '
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KUNDER:
Yeah. After we stopped the pumps temperatures sored and tried to 2
start, you know we started... intuitively putting the stuff together and it was my impression that yea cid have steam in there and that it was a 3l little bit later in the morn ng too that...like I said before it was John 4:
Sj Flint...made the cbservation. The reason that our ir.strumentation...uur 6
nuclear instrumentation had increased was because we actually uncovering the core. We were pretty well aware...we had at least hour and maybe a p
g; lot scon than that hay we really blew it we indeed had lost coolant.
9t 10i ay. Were you aware t.5at a nuclear engineer came over from Unit 1 shortly after the trip and performed the shutdown margin?
12l KUNDER: Yeah.
It was Scott Wilkerson.
131 14-CRESkELL: What were his findings when he performed the shutdown margin?
1.
]P2 you review it?
17!
KUNDER:
I didn't review the calculations.
If he told me I don't rememcer 181 but it was about that same time that I was there and I was requesting boron samples.
I was caught up in that part of the activity you know and from y 20!
previo'.s testimony...
21:
22l CRESWELL:
Did you request the boron samples or did he?
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KUNDER:
I did.
I specifically requested borons and I believe it was Bubba 2
Marshall that I'd asked to go get the lab to analyze for borons and they i
3l may have already been doing it at Scott's request, I don't know.
Scott was 4!
working near the computer and I was still trying to get... understand what 5
the heck was going on with the plant.
6i CRESWELL:
There was a shutdown margin calculation performed based on a 7
8l boron concentration of 404.5 dpm which shows the reactor was shutdown at -
2.445% decay.
g 101 KUNDER: Okay.
I don't think I was aware of the specific numbers.
I knew the boron concentration number you were referring to that was the second one I got back over the phone that was the one that through me into little bit of a panic there because about the same time I had got that number that same time nuclear instrumentation was coming up you know I was putting 2 15' and 2 together there and I was figuring we were going critical.
17!
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CRESWELL:
Alright.
Let me see if I understand this.
You requested the 18r boron concentration, the baron analysis prior to the anomaly on the source 19!
range in the intermediate range.
They had already began shutdown margin 20!
calculation performed based on a certain baron concentration.
21!
22 KUNDER:
Yeah, if that shutdown margin calculation was done I can only 231 cresume that might have used the existing boron concentration that we were 2 41 l
running at.
That number was somewhere around 1000 a little bit above 1000 25i l
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ppm cause I learn that when I had gotten that second number back and I said 2j wait a minute and I walked over to the status board on the shift foreman 31 desk and looked and I saw the 1000 ppm and that's when I became very alarmed.
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Maybe it was after I got that 700 ppm number.
It was the first number I Si g t.
The way I see...let me try to clarify that again as best I can I l.
think my earlier types were probably a little clear or on this but I don't 6
7j remember what the time was anymore but I'd asked Bubba Marshall to get a l
8l boron and mainly to' support the nuc engineer's efforts but they may have gj independently asked that I don't L.ow who they would have asked it of but I was interested in getting that information.
And one of the things that 101 if prompted me to do that was the apparent ancmaly in the primary system cause I didn't understand what was going on.
I couldn't put two and two together there and I was wondering if perhaps, you know, this water that we were bringing into the system which I thought was causing it to be solid was you 141 know...was wondering what it was doing to me.
That was at the back of my mind I believe.
16i 17!
CRESWELL:
Did you felt like there was another source of water coming into the system?
20r KUNDER:
I thought that somehow we got alot of extra water in the system 21l and I wasn't sure what it was doing to me in terms of the baron concentration.
22!
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I don't think that was at the forefront of my mind but I think it was one 23!
of the things that crossed my mind while I was trying to understand the 24!
behavior of the plant.
A little later on Dick Dubiel had arrived at the 25!
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d control room and just about as a matter of course I asked him to go down 2
there and help coordinate some of the things down in the lab and also to f
you know look at you know getting all the administrative procedures all the 3
4j analyses performed that we had to in order to be able to go into the reactor Si.
building eventually which again is another sort of a routine thing after a 6
trip you initiate that as HP gets through with all their~ checks and every-7 thing's safe and your hot shutdown condition is stable you go in and inspect 8
to see if you have any leaks and make sure she's safe to take the plant back up again. At any rate Dick went down to the lab and he was the guy g,
10 that called up to me specifically and informed me that he had gotten the initial sample or one of the initial samples showed 700 ppm boron and he I
said the analyses... things look kind of screwy to him and their getting another sample.
I believe he may have been reporting one of the sample amounts that was performed before he got there.
14!
I seem to recall that they told me that somebody had already been working on the boron analysis.
At any rate, I think it was either at that notification that I went over and looked at the board and noted that the normal baron concentration for that 17; time would have been 1000 and some ppm baron.
But at any rate a little later on Dick got another sample and the results showed 400 and some ppm.
He called that up to me and that's when he said " Hey, this is really screwy.
20t It doesn't make sense at all."
He may have been suspecting a some sort of 21 s analysis problem or that they were doing it too quickly.
That's his specu-22l i
lation on my part.
But at any rate he went back and it was a little while 2 31 i
later meanwhile we had secured pumps and so forth when he called back he 24!
indicated that he had high radiation levels so that's sort of how that 25i evolution went.
That thought process went.
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lj CRESWELL:
Getting back to Mr. Wilkerson's calculation, were you aware that 2
his calculation based on approximately 400 ppm for the reactor to be subcri-i f
tical?
3 4!
gj KUNDER:
I can't remember specifically.
He may have asked the question, he i
6i may have said that, I really can't remember it right now.
i 71 CRESWELL:
8 Let me see if I can understand how you evaluated the anomaly on the source range in intermediate range.
You saw them responding.
g 101 KUN6ER:
Uh, huh.
12:
CRESWELL:
What went through your mind at that point, about what was causing 13l
...?
15:
KUNDER:
I thought that scmehow we had pumped into the system a significant amount of demineralized water and I thought that perhaps...I thougnt we were critical I mean that was what I thcught we were at.
We were definitely critical when the reactor in the counts were increasing and I wanted to 196 turn that around.
The rods were in and I said holy cow we not only blew 20l our...the zenon contribution, boron contribution, the rod contribution and 21!
a significant deborating system and of course the 100 ppm boron concentration 22t j
that I got from the lab just about confirmed in my own mind...there was no 23!
doubt in my mind we had seriously debarated the system and you know it was 24j quickly flashing through my mind all the other indications you know that 25i ey
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pressurizer level just said holy cow you fill the system with some deminer-2j alized water and I specifically asked Subba Marshall who had been in the 3j control room at that point to go back to the drawings and review those 4;
things as fast as they can and determine where if any place we could be gj getting demineralized water into the exhaust system. To me the most likely 6
place would have been for instance into the makeup purification system and 7f not know maybe one of the makeup valves was failed open and we didn't Id gj have any indications of it in the control rocm and we were just keeping the RCS inventory full.
But concurrent with that we..., Bill had started the g,
g boric acid pumps pumping baric acid into the system and with Mike Ross at g
my one side I had yelled over to Bill we got a high pressure injection g;
going. At that time I wasn't sure what the status was or I indicated in the past but my intent was to make sure that we had all the injection water going into the system that we could SWST.
15 16' CRESWELL: I'm trying to understand, you were expecting or you believed that there was a return to criticality, would it be a reasonable thing to 18!
look at what the baran concentration was in the system and see what the shut down margin was based on the numbers?
20:
21!
KUNDER:
Yeah.
That probably what Scott Wilkerson did and he may have 22' j
used a thousand ppm concentration for one of his initial shut down margin.
231 If he did it that way, I don't know what Scott did.
I never saw the paper 24l work.
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23 lj CRESWELL: The results of the shut down margin calculation was not reviewed 2!
by you and you aren't aware of it.
l 3:
4 KUNDER:
No.And then again if he told me it was shut down, my indications 5l told me we weren't.
Ok. Since we're in a transient situation, his calcula-i 6i tions behind, so I wouldn't of, I don't think, intuitively, I would've put 7j a whole lot of confidence in his calculations saying I got to be shut down 8
but yet my instrumentation was telling me I'm going critical and I had g
never had any kind of specific training which focused on the fr.ct that, 10 y, if y u uncover the core you can expect these things to go up or if you had even to the point of if you had some sort of upset in the core which, you know, maybe some internals were damaged such that you reduced the amount of moderation of the neutrons, that that could significantly effect yl your indication.
I just wasn't prepared mentally for that kind of a concept at that point.
So my thought was that hey, we're going critical that's just how, how that impacted me at that time.
17!
CRESWELL:
George, the lead nuclear engineer, I believe, looked at the SPM 18q and records, did he concur with you about what he found?
19l 201 KUNDER:
I don't remember any conference or discussions 21l 22l l
CRESWELL:
He also looked at the self powdered...
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KUNDER:
When you said the lead...you mean Habich?
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3l CRESWELL:
The lead nuclear...
41 5
KUNDER:
Oh, the lead nuclear...Benson.
No. I don't remember any conver-6 sation.
7l 1
g; CRESWELL: He also looked at the incore neutron detector responses as indicated gj by the back up recorders, did he tell you anything about what he seen there?
101 11:
KUNDER:
I don't remember any... saems to me that I did have a discussion with him about something like that.
I can't remember if that was that day or if it was days later or..I just can't remember.
g 15 CRESWELL: I believe he looked at also at the T-hot instrumentation and said g
it was rather high.
Did you have any discussion about T-hot instrumentation?
18:
KUNDER:
I don't remember, of course, I could see that for myself, I was aware of that... after everything went off scale.
,01 4
21,'
CRESWELL:
To your knowledge did any nuclear engineers, when I say nuclear 22 engineers that's stuff evaluated the incore thermocouple readings that were 23l obtained?
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25 ilj KUNDER:
No. Not to my knowledge.
l 2:
CRESWEL L:
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, There were a couple B&W people in the office which you were well 4j aware of site operation's manager and the physicts test coordinator...
Si 6i KUNDER:
Yes. Well, Lee Rogers was in rather early, I don't know exactly 7j what time but I imagine somewhere around 7:30, 8:00 o' clock, and then f
Johnson came in a little...I think he came in after Lee and...I don't g
gj remember exactly what time.
They were both there for the majority of the time.
101 ni g
CRESWELL:
A request was made to B&W for radio-chemical expertise during the day, do recollect whether you or do you know of anybody that made that recommendation on Met Ed's part?
g 15; KUNDER:
Not specifically.
I can' t remember.
175 CRESWELL: It is my understanding that the site operation's manager partici-g pated in the decision to increase pressure to collapse the steam void.
201 KUNDER:
Yes 21!
22 CRESWELL: It's also my understanding that he evidenced some concern about 23[
increasing the pressure to the point relief valves would lift on the pressu-i 2 41
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ri::er.
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l 26 If KUNDER:
He may have.
I don't. remember.
2l 3
CRESWELL: He also participated in the. decision to decrease the RCS pressure 4
and core flood tank on the core.
5!
KUNDER:
Yeah Si I
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71 1
8l CRESWELL: Did he raise any objection to doing these type of things or did he...
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101 KUNDER:
I don't really recall.
There was a lot of discussion that g
centered around each one of these evolutions, you know.
I can't remember a specific discussion anymore, but we all did have input.
I had input, I think, in most everyone of those moves, I say, almost everyone, I think some of the decisions were made.. many when I was out of the room talking 15i with Don Haverkamp or something like that, but for the most part, myself 16i and Ross and Selinger and Miller and Lee Rogers discussed the moves.
We 171 I
tried to discuss cur, not only the immediate move, but really looked, tried 18t to look ahead and decide upon a course e
.at we all felt was the safest and would bring us closer to our goal getting core cooling that we could prove that core cool not only intuitively feel that we were cooling the core and actually having it covered.
I'm sure that we disagreed and we i
22l gave reasons for one option or another but in the final analysis, prior to 23l making the move, everyone agreed with the move. We may not have liked it, 24j or maybe something one or two of the individuals weren't really certain, 25i v9 g\\i i
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but that individual didn't have any better ideas to what to do.
So, it was 1
gj generally a very good consensus of opinion.
I thought that part of it went i
l real well.
3 4!
3 CRESWELL: Excuse me, George, did the site operations manager, at any point 6i suggest that high pressure injection flow be established or increased?
7!
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g KUNDER:
I can't remember if he made any recommendations like that or not.
9!
CRE5WELL: You've also mentioned, I believe, that John Plant stated that he 10l g
thought the SRA anomoly was caused by changing in radiation leakage to the detector.
g, I
131 KUNDER:
Yeah.
I remember John telling me 15' CRESWELL: Do you recall Mr. Flint saying that the high T-hot temperatures indicated superheatad steam in the hot legs and advising that that super-heated steam could not be condensed by increasing the system pressure?
18; 19' KUNDER:
I don't recall him saying that. He may have said it to other 21l ceople, but I just don't recall that.
The only reason I recall the discus-sion on the source range and intermediate range indication is because I had 22l i
asked John, or I personally discussed that with him, but I know that he had 231 discussed that with other individuals in the control rcom prior to me, because I just over heard it.
I went over, I was interested and then it 25i all started to make sense after my discussion with him.
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lj CRESWELL: Do you recall Mr. Flint recommending that steam generator levels 2j be increased to increase the steam generator heat removal capability?
31 i
.gl KUNDER:
No. Not with me.
Si Gi CRESWELL: Do you recollect Mr. Flint making a recommendation that the 7j incore thermocouples should be monitored to indicate what the core conditions were?
g 91 KUNDER':
No.
I can't remember a recommendation to me.
10 i
11!
CRESWELL: OK, George, thanks very much i
SHACXLETON:
Gentlemen, any further questions, any further comments you'd like to make Mr. Kunder?
16, XUNDER:
No. I don't really have any other comments 18i' SHACXLETON:
Alright, fine, we thank you very much, again, for your appearance here with us in trying to help us to attain the necessary information for this investigation. We'll close the interview at 2:2SPM Eastern Daylight Time.
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