ML19256B770
| ML19256B770 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 08/01/1979 |
| From: | Budnitz R, Helfman S, Sidell G NRC OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REGULATORY RESEARCH (RES), PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON THE ACCIDENT AT THREE MILE |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19256B766 | List: |
| References | |
| TASK-TF, TASK-TMR NUDOCS 7908290026 | |
| Download: ML19256B770 (71) | |
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o Transcript of Proceedings o
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o UNITED STATES OF AMERICA g
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if PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON THE ACCIDENT AT THREE MILE ISLAND o
a o
o o
o if Il DEPOSITION OF:
ROBERT JAY BUDNITZ o
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o di 1) iI ik o
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Bethesda, Maryland 0
0 August 1, 1979 o
o is11 335 o
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o Acme Reporting Company Oficial Reporter:
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o 1411 K Street. N.W.
Wasnmgton. C. O. 20CCS o
(202) 623 4888
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
PRESIDENT'S cot 0!ISSION ON THE ACCIDENT AT THREE MILE ISLAND 3
4 5
6 DEPOSITION OF:
ROBERT JAY BUDNIT:
7 8
9 10 11 Room 6211 12 Maryland National Bank 7735 Old Georgetown Road 13 Bethesda, Maryland 14 August 1, 1979 2:00 o' clock p.m.
15 '
16 APPEARANCEE:
17 On Behalf of the Cenmission:
is l
STAN M.
HELFMAN, ESQ.
19l GARY SIDELL, ESO.
Associate Chief Counsels 20 2100 M Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
20037 21!
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3 On Behalf of NRC:
20l i
TRIP ROTHSCHILD, ESO.
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23 Office of General Counsel 2100 M Street 24 Washington, D.C.
20037 i
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1 PR0CEED I NGS 2
Whereuocn, I D 3
RCdERT JAY SUDNITZ 4
having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified 5
as follows:
6 DiaECT EXAMINATION 7
BY MR. HELFMAN:
8 0.
For the record, would you clease state your na e' 9
Robert Jay Budnitz, 6-U-D-N-l-T-Z.
s.
10 C.
Have you ever had your deoosition taken before?
11 A.
On this suoject?
No.
12 Q.
On any other subject?
13 A.
Yes, sir, in an accident case.I once gave one.
14 C.
Let me investigate some of the characteristics ;f a 15 deoosition.
Since your testimony that you are giving today 16 is sworn, it will have the same force and effect as if you 17 were giving your testimony in a court of law before a judge or 13 Jery.
l 19I At the conclusion of the deoosition, the court reocrter 20 will reduce the testimony to transcriot form and sometime 21 thereafter you will be orovided with a cooy of the transcriot 22 and oe afforded an occortunity to make any changes in it that i
23l you deem are necessary.
However, if you make substantial 24 changes we wou!d have the right to comment on'that and' 25 sucstantial cnanges could acversely affect your c ed'bi g,
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Therefore, it is imoortant for you to try to be as accurate 2
and orecise today--
3 A.
Fair enough (laughter).
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4 0.
Also--
5 A,
is everything I say on the record?
6 0
Including the laughter.
7 A.
Okay.
Never mind.
S 0.
For the same reason, it is also imoortant that you 9
ask for clarification of any c uestion that you don't to understand before you attemot an answer, 11 For the benefit of the court recorter, it is necessary 12 that you give audible resoonses. since it is difficul t for 13 her to take down gestures ano f;r the same reason that y;u 14 all w me :: ::mciete my cuestion before you a n rc.'e r, even if 15 you anticioate where my questi:n is going.
I will allow you 16 to try to finish your answer to the question, because it is 17 difficult for the recorter to take on two oe rsons talking at IS,
- nce.
l 19 1
is Our oractice at the conclusion of the deo:siti:n 20 to recess it rather than terminate it in the event we 21 discover odditional information from you we reconvene the
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22 deoosition and continue.
23f Do you have any cuest 'ns aoout any of the foregoing' 24 A.
,:ne.
1911 338 25l C.
I uncerstanc tnat you cid not o ring a re sume w i th Acme Reporting Company 2 e 2,
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I you to the deoosition, is that correct?
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A.
Right.
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0.
But you will be able to orovide us with a resume 4
within a day or so?
5 A.
It will be mailed today or tomorrow.
6
- 0..
Can we have a sticulation from counsel for the 7
NRC that the resume may be. ore-marked as Exhibit I and then 3
included as Exhibit I when it is received?
9 A.
That's fine.
Who is the woman on my left' 10 MS MOUSHEY:
I am Leslie Moushey, a cara-legal 11 assistant, 12 THE WITNESS:
Okay.
Leslie?
13 MS. MOUSHEY :
Moushey.
14 THE WITNESS:
Moushey.
15 MS. MCUSHEY :
Yes.
16 THE WITNESS:
And you are with the President's 17 Commission?
Okay.
1 18!
BY uo. "EleMAN:
I 19 l 0.
Could you begin by describing what your title is i
20 with the NRC and briefly what your resconsibilities are?
21 A.
I am the Deputy Director, Office of Nucleer 22,
Regulatory Research, and I have held that 00st'.since T u s_: a
!9ii 339 23 year ago, the first week of August, 1970 24 I came to NRC on a two-year sabbatical leave of aosence 25 from the University of California, and the #irst year 's
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I uo this week and I have one more year to go.
I am one of the 2
only 0 ecole in any senior o0sition in the Agency who has that 3
temocracy status.
4 in addition to the Decuty Director's oosition, I am now 5
on detail to the NRC Soecial Inquiry, where I have one of the 6
three or four managerial 00siti:ns there as the Technica' 7
Coordinator of that incuiry.
3 0,
is that the incuiry that is being run by Mr. Rogovin' 9
A.
Yes, and so I am now discharging two resconsibilities.
10 I am the Technical Coordinator for the Incuiry and I am the 11 Deputy Director of Research.
12 In the Research cacacity, I am resoonsible with Saul 13 Levine, who is the office director in Research, for the 14 management of NRC's research crogram, which has most of tne Agency and is resconsible for most of the 15 money i AftTV 16 re ctor ces rch that 90es On in the country.
17 That general resconsibility as Levine's deouty means that l'
! a res:Onsib'e with hi-for ' rmu'ating tha eselr:S 19 orogram and seeing that it is effectively carried out, 20 assuring that the cuality of the work and of the staff within 21,
the Agency is uo to the Agency standards, interacting with l
22 !
the Congress and with the Commissioner's and with other I
i 23 offices, and with the technical community and so-kinds ;f 1
24 things that the NRC d es in research.
yb 25 in tie Soecial Incuiry role, I am one Of :
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from the NRC staff.who are assuring that the technical 2
cuality of the Soecial Inquiry's investigation is accrocriate.
3 That is, that the technical work we are doing on under-4 standing the way the reactor behaved, or the way equioment 5
failed, or not, is procerly done.
6 The Soecial Inquiry is organized into a bunch of task 7
forces with seoarate areas of investigation.
There is an 8
awful lot of coordination to assure that a coherent thing is 9
out together, and I am involved in that coordination.
I have to been working on the Soecial incuiry since the end of May.
11 Nominally, full-time but, in fact, I scend only about 40 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> a week over there.
I scend about another 20 or 30 13 in research and I am about to collaose from over-work.
14' O.
At the time of the March, 1979 incident at Three 15!
Mile Island, what was your title at that time?
16,
A.
I was the Deputy Girector of Research.
I still 17 am, okay?
IS '
n When was the first time you were infor ed that a l
19 t-ansient was occurring at Three Mile Island?
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l 20 A.
P:00 or 8:30 on that morning.
I came to work in 21 this building for a meeting with Kevin Cornell and was 22 informed of the event just at that t i ne.
3i 0.
That was on Wednesday, the--
l 24 A.
Yes.
1911 341 25 0
--the 'irst day?
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It might have been 0: 30 or so.
I can't recall 2
exactly because I was in Mr. Gossick's office.
I may have 3
been One of the first people to have found it out in the 4
Washington area.
5 C.
Did you become officialy involved in handling the 6
transient on beha!# Of the NRC
gg 7
A.
Yes, but not until Friday, the 30th 3 -
From 8
the 29,th until the 30th neither I nor anybody from the 9
Office of Research was involved substantively that I kn:w of.
10 0
How were yor.lotified on Friday that your 11 assistance was required?
12 A.
Mr. i.evine and I were in this building eating 13 lunch with Dr. Herb Kouts, from Brookhaven, when a calI came 14 in from Vic Stello to Levine and me informing us that the 15 Office of Research was urgently needed to assist Vic Stello 16 in understanding the orablems that might arise if the M core
'17 were to mel t within the next day or so.
19 He was not sure that :t wc g:ing ::
eit, but he said 19 it might and if that were to haocen he wanted the Office of 20 Research to orovide advise to him on what the environTenta 21 consecuences would be of that.
22 N0w, for that kind Of~inf7rmation he turned to exact 1y i
23lI the right clace, because the_ Office of Research.had 24I considerable exocrtise in that issue develaced over the 25 years because LF im00rtsat research or grams in'that area.
1911 342 Acme Reporting Company
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i became mobolized, we got on the chone to talk to oecole in 2
in the incident Resoonse Center and we 1-
.nem of several N6LA.O 3
other oroblems, not only the one that Vio p F d told us 4
about, and we became involved with them, too.
Certainly by 5
the end of Friday afternoon, we were involved with several 6
different technical issues that were of urgent concern or, 7
in one or two cases, some interest at 1 east uo at the site.
O.
You referred a moment ago to an NRC Commission 9
meeting on Wednesday, 10 A.
On Thursday, 11 0
On Thursday?
12 A.
Yes.
13 0.
What tyoe of a meeting was that?
A briefing' 14 A.
Yes.
15 0.
By whom?
16 A.
Darryl Eisenhut, from NRC, briefed the five 17 Commissioners about the status of the Three Mile Island event is uo to that time.
It was in the morning of Thursday, and.I 19 attended as did Saul Levine.
20 C.
Did Bryan Grimes attend as well? } 9ll )h 21 A.
- Yes, I can't remember who else carticioated in 3
22 the briefing.
Bryan was certainly among the oe:cie uho 23 carticioated, but I recall that Eisenhut led that briefing ancl 24 1 don't rememoer who else was there.
Somebody in ! E.ias tnere.
l 25 O.
Were you aware at the time of that briefing that Acme Reporting Company m,
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there was indication th at the core had become uncovered' 2
A.
No.
3 0.
Had you been briefed by anyone crior to this 4
occasion on the condition of the core?
5 A.
No.
6 0.
Where cic you and the cecole you asseroled to deal 7
with the orablems you faced work?
Did you go to the 8
Incident Resconse Center' 9
A.
No.
We assembled on the third floor of this 10 bu~1 ding, the Maryland National Sank Suilding, in Tony Suhl's 11 office, which is part of the Office of Research.
Our main 12 offices are in Silver Soring and we have an autoost Office of 13 Research in this building anc we assemoled there.
We worked 14 here beginning Friday morning, essentia!1y arounc the clock 15 until the weekend was comoleted.
We worked here.
16 We dealt with the Incident Response Center by telechone.
17 We were told that going over there with a whole crew of ceco.e would just cause T, ore confasion.
So, we estaoiis.nec e
i 19 an Office of Research cutoost right here, and I don't know 20 how many oecole we had involved here at the ceak, but i t must 1911 345 21 have been 15, maybe, or 20. here.
10 C.
Initia: 1y you were recuestec to co some cal:uiations 23 +
concerning the environmental imoact of a cotential Te? tdown.
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'lh a t other cuestions were you confronted with nhen you 04 25 finally began working on the oroject?
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Well, within a very short time we learned that 2
measurements being taken at the reactor imolied a very large 3
volume of non-condensible gas in the reactor system.
We took 4
some care to try to figure out what measurements were being 5
made in the reactor and how they were being made.
6 To determine its size?
7 A.
So that we could indeoendently work out what the 5
imolications were of those Teasurements and that took an 9
awfu' lot of time that ef ternoon.
We were told that the 10 oressurizer level was being watched, changes in the cressurizer 11 ieve's were being aatched as a function of the primary S'f9ff 12 cen'_r oressure, and this was being used to infer tne 13l l
voiume of gas, if any, within the reactor system.
24 We tracked down how those Teasurements were made and 15 what their significance was.
Then we indecendently receated 16 those calculations here to determine if we could, what the gas 'ubble might be, how large it might ce and what it might 17 o
15 oe camcosed or.
i 19 0.
Were you at any time in direct communication with 20 the control room at tne site?
1911,346
21 A.
Personally 7 No.
i 22 0
Did anyone on your staff or team?
i 23 A.
I don't know.
We were certainly in direct control, j i
24 direct communication with the lacident Resoonse Center at most 1
25 '
constantly.
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site directly on Friday.
By the middle of that weekend we 2
were in communication with the site frecuently cecause--
3 C.
Directly?
4 A.
Yes.
On Friday afternoon, late, one of our key 5
cecole Taylor, went to che site in a helic cter ce ause 6
Steil fe't he needed his excertise urgent'y,
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got 7
uo to the site, our Office nf Research had someone there and S
we had communication by that route.
9 0.
You have mentioned now two orablems :
tne catential 10 environmental imoact of a meitdown and concern over the 11 bycrogen ouoble.
12 A.
There were others.
We immediately became c:qcerned 13 about wnether the integrity of the crimary pressure vessel 14 wou'd remain if there were to ce an exolosion, anc we--
15 0
This is related to the second question?
16 A.
Yes, and we undertook to examine that issue.
Then 17 we were also concerned about the question of the generation is of nycr: gen in tne crimary system tnrougr tne reta! nater 19 reacti n.
20 0.
1911 347 21 A.
Hydrogen, and calculati:ns were done to tFy to 22 figure out h:w much hycrogen there might be #r:T 5:w much 23 core cladcing oxidation.
Let me see, we were concerned about 24 calculating'how much gas there -ignt ce, comoaring that with I
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h:w much core damage there -ignt ce and therefore determining Acme Reporting Company n a.
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1 whether or not that was consistent with the kind of measure-2 ments that i said were being made in the reactor with the 3
oressurizer and oressure changes.
4 We immediately deduced that the statemer.c that all of 5
that gas might be hydrogen, might be hydrogen was at least 6
not inconsistent witn what we knew hac hacoenec to tre core.
7 All right?
Tnat was imoortant because had it been 8
o the rwi se, you know, had it been just kind of inconsistent
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9 with the thing, i t woul d have been--we woul d have done 10 different things, but it seemed clear to us from a'i we knew 11 then, the f ol l owi ng statemen t was a t least cossible if not 12 likely, and that was that there had been substantial 13 uncovery of the core.
There was a lot of hydrogen in tnat 14 vessei and it was at very high oressure.
15 The next issue that we became concerned with was the 16 cossible generation of oxygen in the crimary system, which to 17 be generated, would oresent a possibility of a fire or an Mj exolosion in tne crimary system.
19l Finally, we were concernec about the oroblems of 20 circulation in the crimary system fluid, water.
We were 21 carticularly worried about whether or not natural circulat:an 22 could be set uo or sustainec in the event of the loss of a!1 23 oumos.
We.did cuite a bit of thinking and c !
1 ti gVer 24 the weekend about that issue.
25 Then finally--there may be more oesides nis one, okay?
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Anyway, finally, we undertook a whole series of things, hich S
2 I will discuss if you would like, aimed at removing the 3
hydrogen from the crimary system by different techniques, and 4
thereby eliminating the exolosion orablem, 5
I will list the several ideas that arose and what each 6
one was about.
First, one cou?d imagine cutting a chemical 7
into the crimary system which could combine chemically with 8
the hydrogen.
9 The second one would, I imagine, cutting a sqa e like 10 devise through a cenetratirn into the cenetration and sucking 11 the hydrogen out through the snake-iike devise.
12 The third one coula, I imagine, relieve tne hydrogen 13 from the crimary system by the relief valve system at tne too 14 of the cressurizer.
Okay?
15 We exolored all tnree of those over the weekend.
I am 16 trying to think if there were any others.
We explored all 17 those to a greater or lesser extent of that weekend of 16l Saturcay anc Suncay.
I was resconsic'e for mucn of tnat.
I 19 I okay?
l 20 Q.
You indicated that you had areoared two memorandums 21 which discussed some of the calculations and events over t"e 22 course of that weekend.
We would 'ike to have these two 23 documents marked as Exhibits.
24 A.
Without oojection.
25 O.
The first--
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I wi11 describe what they are.
2 0.
Let's do one at a time.
The first one is dated 3
June 5, 1979, directed to Saul Levine from Robert J.
- Eudnitz, 4
Could you describe what this document is?
5 A.
Kevin Cornell sent a memorandum the orevious week 6
asking everybody in the Agency to describe things that they 7
had done involved in contacting outside individuals outside 3
of NRC during the Incident Response and my
.w was in 9
resoonse to that.
I think that was because your oresidential 10 Commission wanted that, but I am not really sure.
That is 11 what I kind of remember, maybe it says so here.
12 Anyway, this memorandum talks about seven individuals 13 with whom I had substantive contact during that weekend and 14 what hacoened to them.
15 MR. HELFMAN:
Let's have this marked as Exhibit 2 16 to the deDosition.
17 (The document referred to was IAl marked for identificati:n as 19l Exhibi: 2) 20 SY MR. HELFMAN:
21 Q.
The second Temorandum is dated June 7..
1979.
22 directed to Mitchell Rogovin, Director of "he NRC_.
in 23 Soecial incuiry grouc from R.J.
Budnitz.
Could you describe 1911 350
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1 Incuiry grouo to wri te a statement concerning r ossib!e 2
conflicts of interest that would imoede that oersons 3
effectiveness af a member of that grouo.
This describes 4
what I did during the resconse, briefly emohasizing areas 5
where I might have a conflict in being objective in oerforming 6
the functions of the Inquiry.
7 MR. HELFMAN:
Let's have this marked as Exhibit 3.
3 (The document referred to was marked for identification as to Exhibit 3) 11 BY MR. HELFMAN:
12 0
Do you hacoen to know who notified Mr. Gossick by 13 telephone of the Three Mile Island incident when you were 14 with him?
15 A.
No.
I was no t wi th him, I was with Mr. Cornel'.
16 Q.
I see.
17 ;
A.
His deouty.
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Was Mr. Cornell notified by Mr. Gossick?
I 19 i A.
I don't know.
By the time I got here Gossi ck was l
20 not here.
He had gone to the incicent Resconse Center.
21 Q.
And Mr. Cornell already knew?
22,
A.
Yes.
i911 351 23 0.
And informed you uoan your arrival' 24 A.
es.
That was on the very fi rs t morning.
v 25 !
Q.
Yes.
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However, neither Cornell nor i did anything about 2
that information.
We croceeded with another meeting that 3
lasted most of that morning.
4 Q.
And you were then briefed on Wednesday?
5 A.
On Thursday.
6 0,
n Thursday, and became actively involved on
^
7 Friday?
8 A.
Right.
9 Q.
On Exhibit 2, the list of cersons with whom you 10 had direct contact, are there any oecole on this list with 11 whom you directly communicated concerning the calculations 12 of hydrogen, oxygen reaction?
13 A.
Yes.
14 0.
Who are those?
15 A.
Garwin, Lewis, Schwarz and Heinemann.
16 0
Did you discuss with any of the oecole on this list 17 the oossibility of removing the hydrogen bubble via the PCRV?
IS A.
No.
19 Q.
When I referrea to removal of the hydrogen bucble 20 via the PCRV, is that another way of exoressing the notion 21 of decressurization?
i91l'35-2 02 A.
Yes.
23 Q.
In considering the oossibility of removing :he 24 bubble through the PCRV, did you contact any outside sources 25 that are not iisted on Exhibit 2?
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No.
The problem of oossible removal of the bubble 2
through the PCRV was coced with by Dr. Tom Murley, the 3
Director of the Division of Reactor Safety Research, who 4
recorts immediately to Levine and me, and under whom is all of 5
the reactor safecy research in our Agency.
Tom Murley became 6
substantively involved in that very issue and scent most of 7
his time on it for the next couole of days, as far as I can 8
remember.
9 However, Murley has a caper similar to mine saying just to what he did, which you can get.
I carticipated in that cart 11 of the thing by active consultation with Murley and Levine.
12 You may not know that an exoeriTent was cerformed in 13 Idaho, Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, over that 14 weekend on a facility called Semiscale.
This interced to 15 assist us in understanding how you would go about relieving 16 oressure through the PCRV and how much hydrogen would go out 17 of it, and heloii.3 as to understand what the system behavior is woul d ce.
That exoeriment was carried out out tnere uncer 19 Murley's direct recuest here.
20 Q.
Am I correct in concluding that there were two 21 concerns regarding the hydrogen bubble in the core: one ceing 22 cossible disclacement of core coolant and the other being f~911 353 23 the oossibility of a hydrogen oxygen reaction?
24 A.
I can't tnink of any other concerns that were as 25 imcortant as those.
s Acme Reporting Company n. n.....
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Those two were the crimary concerns?
2 A.
They were the most imoortant concerns.
There was 3
also the critical concern that a large gas bubble woulc 4
imoede the circulation of water and removal of heat from the 5
system.
Okay?
6 0.
With resoect to the concern that there could be a 7
hydrogen oxygen reaction within the vessel, at the time that 8
those calculations were initiated were you aware that there 9
had been a pressure soike in the containment building?
10 A.
No.
11 0.
Did you subsequently become aware of that during 12 the course of the weekend?
13 A.
I learned of it first orobably on Sunday, but i 14 can't recal' when I learned of it f~rst.
15 0.
Did that bit of information effect your camoutations "
16 A.
No, although it clearly showed us that there had 17 been an awful lot of hydrogen in that system, something we.
13 only knew indirectly until then, you know, but that told us 19 that there had been a lot of hydrogen.
Uo unti' that time 20 we had only inferred it.
21 C.
What conclusion was reached, at least initialf y, 22 concerning the liklihood of a hydrogen oxygen reaction 23 within the vessel?
j gj j'f 24 A. We weren't sure whether the liklihood was'high 25 l or low, and we croceeded to try to do the calculations to Acme Reporting Company l, m u......
21 b Ib S. Y f fD ~3' D * %D A I sort it out. a dun
- 2 2
0 What was the reason #or the uncertainity' 3 A. Well, it is fairly easy to calculate how much 4 oxygen is oroduced within a system like the one that we were 5 facing through the crocess called radiolysis, f airly easy 6 to ce!culate that. 7 The calculation is straight f o rw a r d. It reauires a 8 little bit of manioulation from standard references, but that 9 calculation was cerformed by several oecole and the numbers 10 agreed with each other: fairly easy, 11 Q. Now, radiolysis is basica!!y a crocess Of what' 12 A. Radiation strikes water molecules and disassociates 13 them ints hydrogen and oxygen. That is a mechanism for 14 oroducing free oxygen atoms, which then might combine to 15 make oxygen molecules, and that is a way of ortducing 16 oxygen. 17 The hard cart of the issue is to calculate how much 13l 0xygen, if any, would remain free oxygen, you kn:w, after 19 it has been oroduced by radiolysis. The mechanism for 20 removing it is a very comolex chemical reaction. 21 Q. Is it a natural removal or something that must be 22 initiated? 23 ' A. No. No, it is not, it is not some thing tha t had ~ 24 had to be initiated by oeocle, who would do s:Tething then. 25 The reactor coolant, water, had a lot f chemicais in that. Acme Reporting Company m..a.a...
22 D
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} D' T T s' AA mm1 2 = 1 water, a lot of fission oroducts and other tnings. 2 The chemi stry that was involved in the oxygen reactions 3 was very comolex. There were different kincs of ions in 4 the solution, or cerhaos not the solution, in a susoension 5 and all of them behaved differently with resoect to oxygen. 6 SoTe enemicals in that solution imoede the oxygen removal and 7 others could enhance it, and which set of reactions 3 dominated was not clear. 9 it was not a trivial calculation like the first one 10 was trivial. in fact, it took a day or two of very hard 11 work by the most comoetent pecole around to show conclusively 12 that one cart of the reaction dominated: namely, the cart 13 of the reaction which removes oxygen from the solution quite 14 raoidly rather than allowing it to accumulate as a gas, okay?, 15 but i t was a very dif ficul t calculation and one that recuirec 16 a great deal of exoertise and was not something that you 17 could just do in a few minutes on the back of an enveloce. 15 Q. Was the ultimate conclusion reached by yoar grouc 19 that a hydrogen oxygen reaction within the vessel was 20 unlikely? 21 A. Yes. It was reached sometime Sunday, March 31, and 22 the reason it was unlikely was that any oxygen oroduced by 1 23 radiolysis would be scavenged by the reaction, namely. 24 oxygen recombination. gjj }}g 25j N :w, that conclusion was tentatively reached a little, Acme Reporting Company n a w .a......
23 D**]O P D f'Yh ~ o w Ju 6 J . d..kfru m 1 a little earlier, but it was still tentative but we u l timately 2 all firmly reached it by sometime Sunday. 3 0. Was there some coint during the course of the 4 weekend when a conclusion was reached that a hydrogen oxygen 5 reaction was likely? 6, A. I don't think e ever concl uced that it was likely, AS to the orobability until we but we were uncertain w e 9 concluded that it was unlikely. It may sound like a subtle 9 distinction but I have to emphasi:e the dif ference. We never 10 said to ourselves it is likely. What ae said was we just 11 don't know and therefore we better work on the calculation. 12 Now, I was not involved in the hydrogen oxygen cal-13 culations myself. Saul Levine was involved in those and 14 s cher Temce rs of our grouo, and other memcers of the reactor 15 safety research community around the country to do cal-16 culations.Y$ l { g involved in different calculations. I was 17 is, invo'vec in trying to uncerstanc wnat a c u ! d ~ e t n e c r e s s,.:. e c i 19 culse inside the vessel were a fast nydrogen oxygen burn i i 20l or exolosion to occur. That is what I was involved in on l 21 I that issue. I was not involved in ca'culating or in assistinc { ~ _. 22 others in calculating the oxygen generation oroolem, exceot 23 as a consultant. ~ gjj 357 24l That is, several times during that weekenc ! was i 25 ! callec in to meetings or talk on :ne anone with ceocle wno i Acme Reporting Company 2 2,.a..... I
24 D""}D D ' 'D ]k o u _ 2. w w Ju a 1 bounced their ideas off of me to tee what I thought of them. 2 0. At some coint during the weekend n=3 there an 3 attemot to estimate c.so long it would take for sufficient 4 oxygen to come out of the solution for hydrogen oxygen 5 reation to occur? 6 A. Yes. T 0. When was that done? S A. Well, if there were no back reaction at all, we 9 calculated fairly early that the oxygen oroduction would to result in a combustible mixture of gas, you know, within a 11 few days after the event, which since that was Wednesday might 12 be Sunday or Monday or so. 13 That calculati0n was also easy to do, but it assurec 14 somethi,9 that we weren't sure of, it assumed that every bit 15 of gas in that gas bubble was hydrogen. We weren't sure of 16 that, but if you assume that, and then assume there was no 17 back reaction, one fairly easily might calculate that a 13 combus t i b l e mi x tu re was c_ o i nc_ to be reached cerhaas ;n toe 19 fourth or fifth day. 20 Q. Who was that finding ccT,municated to? 21 A. We communicated that finding r7 Roger Mattson and 22 to the Chairman and to Ed Case. i 1 23 0 Was that in a briefing in whicn all three of tnem 24
- e r, oresent at once?
}Q{j }}@ l 25 A. No, seoarately over tne onone, okay? ! om oretty3 1+ Acme Reporting Company 2:2,. 2
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25 D '3'Ih D *A D ~! A . A 1 about enat. i am sure about Mattson and Case and i am not 2 sure about the Chairman, but it is my imoression that the 3 Chairman was accuainted with that, too. 4 0. Was this finding reduced to some tyoe of a 5 Temorandum? 6 A. No, it was verbal. O. This was all verbal? 8 A. As far as I remember. 9 O. At the tite the information was communicated to 10 Mattson, Case and Chairman Hendrie, was the unknown factor of 11 recombination clearly made known-to them that it was an 12 unknown factor? 13 A. Yes, which was being calculated by our colleagues 14l and the resoletion of which wou ld be cassed to them as soon 15 as we knew. Yes, we were clear about that from the start. 16 However, we were also clear in telling them that it was 1-a difficult calculation, and i t was. 15 Do you recall when this information was commun oe:ed ^ 19 to Mattson, Case and Hendrie? Friday, Saturday, Suncay' 20 A. Saturday. 21 C. M:rning? 22 A. I can't remember. I can't rememcer. 23 C. Did you direct-- 1911 359 24 A. Acoroximately. 3l C. --communicate the information to any of tnese Acme Reporting Company 2:2,........
26 D**D
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I three oecole? o u.jg.. n S a we 2 A. I carticipated in a conversati:n with t1attson and 3 Levine. I also carticioated by listening c a conversation 4 with Case. At least, I am pretty sure of that. I remember 5 that. 6 S:tn Matts:n and Case were at tne incicent Resoonse 7 Center and we were over here at the Maryland National Sank 8 Sullding. 9 Q. And the information was relayed to them by chone? 10 A. Yes. 11 C. And you were on an extension, or someone else was 12 on an extension? 13 A.
- Yes, I am trying to remember that.
Yes. 14 0 At the time tre information.;3s ccTmun::cta: t 15 any of these three that you have named, did any cuestions 16 arise concerning danger to the community from the oossible 17 hydrogen oxygen reaction and the necessity or desirioitity of 15 evacuation? i 19 A. No. No, we didn't have those kinds of conversations 20 ' with those : ecole. We were acting in a suoJorting role and 21 they were cealing with other ceoole on th;se issues. 22 C. How did you discover the existence 0f :nis 23 non-condensible bubble in the vesse!' i (1 1 1 3 (3 0 - 24 A. On Friday in the midc!e of the aftern::n we were 25 ' informed by teleonone fem the incident Reso:nse Center that Acme Reporting Company . m.......
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27 Df' D D ~ 'D M S o LIL S => 1 measurements revealed the cresence of a lot of gas inside 2 the crimary system. 3 0. And that it was not condensible? 4 A. We then asked what the measurements were, how they 5 were made and what the numbers were and then did soTe 6 calculations on our ;un here to try to recroduce te ,I T calculations i We also confirTed at that ti~e that it seemed as if 9 there was a lot of non-concensib'e gas in the system. 10 C. Were you aware at that time that there was a 11 sufficient amount of. ion-condensible gas in the vessel to nave 12 cartially uncovered the core' 13 A. No, I can't rememoer that. 14 0 At any tite ahi'e you were working on this orablem, la did the size of the non-condensible bubole increase' 16 A. I don't remember. 17 0. Is it oossible for a non-condensible bubble in the i 14 vessel to uncover the core cartiall y oy cisclacing c:o' ant' I i 19 ! A. Yes. 2'3 0 Do you recall now -he size at the hydrogen bucole 21 ; that was in the vessel? 22l A. k' were cealing with so-e nominal numbers #;r the i I 23 sake of calculations, which we were told bv others were 24 roughly right, and that is it was crughly c 1,30C cubic 25 feet at a 1,0^O oJunds cer scuare inch, o.s.i., roughly. I I Acme Reporting Company.. 912 001 i. l u v .a..... i
2: Q3 1 Whether it might be 10 'oercent more or less, or even 20 2 cercent more or less, didn't matter much for the curcoses of 3 our calculations because then we would ul timately correct 4 them to whatever the actual numbers were. 5 Q. Were you concerned with oossible cartial core I 6; une: veri,9 because of the cresence :# this? i 7 A. Yes, we were. 9 0 Did y:u do calculations in this regarc? 9 A. Yes, we did. 10 0. What did you conclude? 11 A. We concluded that if the bubble was the size that 12 was stated that the core was not unco"ered in that situation 13 at that time. That if the bubble was one bubble at the too 14,
- the or t mary system that the water !evel wou!d be ab ve i
1 15 ! the core. It is not a hard calcu lation, by the way. I 16 0 And it seems apoarent that if the bubble were It discersed through the crimary system there would bc even less i i M; likeh: d of care unc:very because Of the creser.ca :f I i 19 l the oubbie? i l 1 Lal A. Yes, of the core being uncoverec. i 21li 0. In your calculations, did you consider what damage I 22 the hydrogen oxygen reaction or exclosian or det; nation 23l w uld cause to the vessel? I 24! A. Yes. Tom Murley cerfor ec and consul ted with l I 25 athers wh: cerformed ~5:se ca'cula: sons over the weekend anc l 1 Acme Reporting Company 1912 002 l f l aca eas.4aes
9 D U 1 he concluded that the yield coint of the vessel was in the 2 range of about 6,000 c.s.i, counds oer scuare inch, and those 3 conclusions were conveyed :o me and to the Other meToers of 4 our Office of Research sometire on Saturcay, in my rec 11ec:i:1, 5 but my recollecti:n on that is not comolete. 4 I was tryimc :; ca'cu' ate and have :.,ers ca'c;' ate.<m:0
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the cressure ' # would be during an exolosion or a fast 4 burn. I succeeded in coing those calculations and nav:qg t v 9 cone oy other Oeocle around the country s;metime Saturday 10 and even Sunday. 11 In my mer: of June 5 there is a discussion
- an 12l interaction with Dr. Harry Petschek, fr:m AVC0 Everett l
13l Research Laboratcry, Everett, Massachute;ts, and with Or i 15 Eernar d Lewi s, from oi::sburgh: b :h :f..n: ..cre ex er:c i l I 15 ! in this area. In consultation with them and with Dr. Garwin, 16 Dick Garwin from 1.B.M., I assembled some information which 17 i told us that if there was to be a fast burn, not an exclosi:n I i u; but a fas burn ;f the hyce: gen and oxyga. :he acess re l u LS Poud U 19 : p nas going :3 be of the Order of 5,:00 cer scuare 'nch, I A 20l oerhaos a litt!e more. 21.i At about the same time Murley was saying the: :e 22 - yield strength Of :ne vessel was in the area of so:ut 4.."'. l 23! o.s.i and that seemed too close for comf:r: anc we conveyec i i i i 24
- nat information to ::her cecole.
I 25 1 '.le conveyec it :: tne Chairman on Suncay, I recal in i912 003'1 Acme Reporting Company a n <>.....
kJ Q J sout 1 midcay, and then I conveyed it ersonally to the other four 2 Commissioners Sunday around m'dday, in fact, those conver-QLLY 3 sations were then receated by Lee in the cress because the 4 other four Commissioners were being recorded :n a transcriot, 5 At that time we weren't comoletely sure that the 6 xygen or:bleT was as sma ti as it turned ;ut :: be, a'tboug, 7 we had lots of information to tell us that it was orobab ly hAL 8 some ut we weren't ccToletely sure. So, I was continuing E 9 to calculate what the cressur ou11s ere there to be a 10 fast burn and Murley was c0ntinuing ca!culate wnat the 11 yield strength of the vessel was to be sure we had done that 12 right. We finished that sometime in the aftern on of Suncay, 13 0, Why did you conclude, or did you conclude that it 14 wou' d be more likely that there would be a f as t burn as 15 cocosed to an exolosion? 16 A. Ch, the threshold for burning of nydrogen with a 17 small oxygen imourity occurs at about 5 oercent of oxygen IS li in cure nycragen. The actual number turned :ut, as I r e ver.ce r y 19l i to be 4.0 cercent, i l 20l The threshold for a true c:herent exo!:sion was ab;ut l i 21l 12 cercent, So, if you imagine oxygen building uo, why, you. ! I I I 22l would cross the burning threshold far bef:re you w0uld cross l l l 23 the exclosion threshold, i912 004 t 24 O. H:w would such a #ast burn or exo t:sion be ignited' ; f i i 25! We nad no icea wnat Techinism a0uld ignite. .' e i Acme Reporting Company a nsaese
3i thought very, very hard whether any electrical leads within I 2 the crimary system would have a short that would ignite it. 3 We couldn't think of anything, but then we coulco't 4 think of anyway to assure that it wasn't so either. 5 0. Did you do calculations on the challenge to the 6 vessel in the event the burning stage was cast anc you went 7 off into a cercentage which was sufficient to cause an 3 exolosion? 9 A. Yes, we did. The calculations showed, the initial 10 calculation showed that an exolosive situation would lead 11 to about 13,000 counds cer square inch, which was far in 12 excess of the caoacity of the vessel 30 withstand. 13 However, nobacy thougn that that amount of oxygen was 14 going to be there in a kind of an emergency situation. 15 C. What would the danger to the vessel have been had 16 its 1imit been exceeded or accroached? 17 A. Well, the first Wine that hacoens with a vessel INELAJfl( 9[$6$HA11M ts ; is that i-is goes into inalatic cefermation Tnen, #inal:y, udE 19 if th oulle is high enough you will have a break in some, in 20 a oice or in the vessel wall itself, or in a neld or in a 21 olace where there might be some imoerfections or something, 22, okay? And then you would just ructure the crimary sys te-23lj and you would be in real trouble. 1912 005-24 0. Would such an explosion or burn be con aJ ed by l O 25 the c:ntainment buiiding? O l Acme Reporting Company l n .a.....
32 1 A. Yes. I am not sure about that but I am oretty 9 2 sure. I don't remevbe 'r having calculated that but it 3 aught to have been. 4 0 Was there a concern that the effect of an exo1 0sion 5 or a fast burn would get outside the containment building e and into the environment? 7 A. Yes. We were concerned that if the oriTary S system integrity were violated that the situation wou'c 9 degenerate very raoidly because then you would have radio-10 active activity having violated the most important 11 barrier between the fuel and the containment: naT.ely, the 12 orimary system itself, and we were very concerned about that. 13 0. Was there a possibility Of an explosive intrusion 14 into the environment as cocosed
- 'eaks ;f radiati:n fr:m the 15 containment building?
16 A, I don't remember worrying about that myself. Cthers 17 may have worried about th 't. I don't remember that. j Let me ask you again-were you talking acout an 18 19 exolosion in the crimary system croducing a missile that i 20 might harm the containmen 21 C.
- Wel1, concern was whether the exolosion itseif 1912 006 22 cou'd cause some ructure of the containment?
23l' ULSE A. Either th rough a cressure cuils or a missite. l 24 don't remember that we ca'culated either of those, it was 25 clear to everyo:dy that an exolosi:n of that kinc, or a fire D**D-TD hk b I oeJ L .AA Acme Reporting Company o 2 n. 4 2 o...
33 l 9 1 of that kind was devoutly to be avoided. That is the 2 cocasite of devout ly to be wished. 3 I t was something one could avoid if one oossibly could 4 because the reactor cressure vessel was the main container, 5 of course. I don't remember hearing any of our oecole 6 worry ab:ut that. 7 Q. Between the time tnat the initial information was 3 transmitted to Mr. Mattson and Mr. Case and Chairman 9 Hendrie, and the tite it was ultimately concluded that the 10 likelihood of a reaction was small, if not nil, had this 11 c;Toutati:n been evaluated at the site by :eocie and 12 information transmitted back to you conce rn i ng concl us i on s 13 reached? 14 A. Not as far as I know one way or the other. 15 O. You have indicated that the main unknown varient 16 at the tite the information was transmitted to Mattso Case q 17 and Hendrie was recombination? j 15 A. Yes, for sure, i 19 Q. Was the cuesti:n whether recombination wou?c 20l occur, whether the rate of recombination discussed' l 21 A. I t was the rate of recombination. We knew that it i 22l Occurred at some rate and the cuestion was whether thic_ _ 23l FRA CTIO rate was creater than the oroduction rate or infraction of ?f 0 OU C110 i9l'2 UO7 24 , {ecuctiaj rate or s:Te very small rate. l 25; 0 Is cressure within tne containment vessel a factor l l Acme Reporting Company l 1 n.,....
34 1 in determining how much oxygen is going to come out of the 2 solution? l l 3' A. You mean cressure within the crimary system, within 4 the crimary reactor system? 5 0. Yes. 6 A. Yes. I 7 0. Was that factor taken into account in the initial s camoutations? 9 A. Yes. 10l Q. Do you recall what the cressure was inside the 11 orimary system at that time? 12 A. We were told it was about 1,000 counds cer square 13 i r.ch. We were given some exact numbers which somebody 14 wrote down, but that was the rough oressure regime, aoout i 15 i 1,000 ocunds oer scuare inch, i 1 Q. You drew a distinction between the crimary system 16l: 17 and the vessel itself. Would there have been a different 19 crescure within the vessei' i 19! A. No. You used the word containment, i 1 20l Q. Excuse me. l l 21 j A. Which means something dFferent to me. l l 20 ; Q. Is the cressure in the containment building 1 I I 03l certinent to a camoutation of the likelihood of such a i ~ 24l detonation in the vessel? g, g ry l J Jk e uv ev J dd j 25 : A. No, no. 1 l912 00s l Acme Reporting Company I
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35 1 Q. Is i t true that oxygen which is or^duced in the 9 N10 2 vessel would ccT' cine to oroduce zirconium oxine 3 A. With the zirconium in the f;el' 4 0. Yes. 5 A. That reaction takes oface but not at imoortant 6 rates, not in the environment that we were in !n the 7 situation that was conf ronting the Of fice of Research on 5 Friday and Saturday, the temoeratures we re very much too 9 low for that reaction to be important. 10 0. For a reaction such as this to be imoortant, would 11 core uncovery be required? 12 A. For zirconium oxygen reactions' 13 Q. To orovide the temperatures that are necessary? 14 A. Darned if I know. I just don't know the chemistry 15 of that deve1 30 ment. The cues ti on you asked was whethc - M zirconium oxygen reactions were an imoortant issue at that "}O 3~l / 17 ! time-- D D oJu;e[_. / 22 uJ li C. 3asically. 4 I i 19 ' A. --and whe the r or not core uncovery would affect i l 1 20j that? I'll be darned if I know. 21 The basic reation of zirconium, zirconium with water I 22 ' oroducing zirconium dioxide and hydrogen, that is different, i 23l 0. I was basically trying to find out if such a l l 24l reaction could_have an imcact on reducing the amount of \\ VAriftL l viab e for the hycragen oxygen action, f hat 25 ' oxyge l A c rne Reporting Company l l \\ n2.>.....
.,:c 1 the thrust of your cuestion, no, that is not an imocrtant 2 affect. That is not tne kind of thing you would ever VS8J 3 every consider imoortant. 4 0. Because of the temoeratures orevelant at the time? 5 A. Yes. 6 C. Would it be a mucn more imcortant effect i' the 7 temoeratures were higher? 8 A. Might be, but if the temoeratures were higher you 9 are talking about metal water reactions producing hydrogen 10 as being so much more imoortant than this. 11 1 just don't know the zirconium oxygen chemistry very 12 well. 13 Q. Was this factor taken into account in the 14 c0 ot ations? 15 A. I don't know. I assume--wait, I assume that it 16 was and it was judged to be cuite small. D b 17 C. But you don't kn:w? D i ~ M' i don't know, i 19l When you referred to rec 0mbination what chemical i l 20 crocess are you referring to? 21 A. Oxygen olus hycr: gen makes water. ~ 22 O. This naturally :ccurs if the two gases are in I I U'8
- roximity?
o 24 ' A. At very, very 'w rates it naturally ccur., 0r 2 25 exam le, i, tne air it naturally :ccurs. l l Acme Reporting Company l a w su... i
27 si 9 1 C. Is the natural solubility of oxygen in water a 2 factor to be considered in such a comoutation? 3 A. The solubility was imoortant. Solubility taoles 4 were generated for oxygen and hydrogen and we used them, as 5 cart of the calculation. 6 0 Was that a ajor fact:r' 7 A. It is one of tne most important factors in the 9 ca!culation of the solubtl~ty of axygen and various 9 hydrogen camcounds such as CH radical and HC2 rad ca' and 10 various other comoounds. Those solubilities are a critical 11 cart of the issue. 12 0. was that factor taken into account in reacning 13 the initial inf:rmation that aas re!ated to Mattsor,. Case 14 and Wendrie' 15 A. Yes. 16 0. Were there any factors that you became aware of 17 or that we re taken i n * 's account in the sucsecuent calculations l P e r :b iac :: the ::nc'us - :n :n s_nday that t'e 'ud.:;e-l 1 to ^xygen reaction was unlikely' g g g- [ l B 53 d* l '1 " A da 20l A.
- Yes, 21 0.
That had not been taken into account in the eari.ier ' c:moutati:n? i912 011 i 23l A, it wasn't. They weren'.t taken into acc:unt. It 24 was that we had more infor ation and we did -ore refined 3 caicu'ations. For exam::c, a':ng about Saturday s: et ~e, I l Acme Reporting Company m,.n
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D @ % $ P h._h __a t, mu c uv 1 I think, we Obtained~ informati n about the analysis of a 2 orimary c00 1an t water sample, chemical analysis and #r3m that 3 we inferred certain amount of damage to the care and from tha t 4 we inferred a certain cmount of chemical solution in the 5 oritary coola
- various fission or: ducts, and from that we 6
then worxed out tne cremistry. 7 N;w, by ve I mean oecole, our colleages around the 8 country. These calculations were cerformed by Dr. Schwarz, 9 from Br: khaven National La'c o r a t o ry, asIreferred to in my 10 memo, and Dr. Ri tzman, who works f;r Science A Olications Palo Alto, California, both of whom did these calculations l' l in '2 ver the weekend, and s ome o the r Oeco ' e, t:3, in Idah0, if 13 I remember right. 14 0 Let me see if I follow you. Are you saying it 15 wasn't antil the c re samole was taken on Saturday that you 16 became aware of core damage? 17 A. No. The water samcle he! ed us assess the amount M! Of ?issi:n er:cact re'easec anc tnerefore tne cnemica' I l 19 situation in the water, which chemical situation is involvec 20 in this calculation. 1 21 C. H w was this certinent to the comoutat.icn yu 1912 012 l 02 ; were doing? i 23l A. The back reaction, the rec:mcination reaction : c i I 24 I enhanced or retacced by various enemica' scecies in t"e i l 25l nater, some Of wnich ake the back reacti:ns faster, and s: e ' l Acme Reporting Company m u .u.
39 D D D ~3' o a .I ob_S. a 1 of which can delay it or eliminate it, and therefore the 2 actual chemicals in the water. sere of some imoortance. it 3 is a very comolex system. 4 There were dozens of fission oroducts that might have 5 effect in working out this comolex chemistry in a big system 6 like that under nigh oressure. This was not a trivic' 7 thing. S 0 As far as you know, is this tne f i r s.t core sarole 9 that was taken? 10 A. I can't remet.b e r. 11 0 It is the first one that was taken into account 10 in the calculations that you and your staff cid? 13 A. That is what I remeTber. IVEh) 14 0. Were there any other factors that oere knew in 15 the calculation after the informati3n was relayed to Matts n. 16 Case and Hendrie? 17 i A. No. I I i i M j 0. Witn res:ect to the c:ncern for rem;v;ng the i 1 19 ! hydrogen from the system and the al ternate of removing it i 20 ' through the PORV, how would removing the hycragen through the 21 3RV be accomo'isned? i912 013 22 A. The icea was that if hydrogen were cresent in the 23 in *" ...e ac0s the too of the crimary vessel, that if you THE P&tSJURE i 24 acrease the hy,~.0 gen gas wou!c ex and until the gas exoandec' 25 I and reacned the t00 Of tne oice, wnicn goes Out ::warcs the Acme Reporting Company j i 2:2 .2...... i
LO J 1 cressurizer, then the gas bubble would run out the too of 0 that oice, uo the line through the cressurizer to the DORV 3 where it would be excelled from the crimary system into the 4 co n t a i nT.e n t. 5 The problem there is that you could imagine the gas 6 running rignt cy tne cressurizer oice end going into the 7 steam generator because the crimary oice is mucn bigger than 9 the oice that goes to the cressurizer. So, maybe the gas 9 wouldn't run uo the cressurizer, it would go in the steam 10 generator. 11 in order to figure out whether that would hacaen, the 12 Office of Research cerformed some exoeriments on Semiscale in 13 Idaho over that weekend at the Idaho National Engineering 14 Laboratory and those experiments sha. sed that at ! east in the 15 Semiscale the gas would substantially byoass the cressurizer. 16 However, they were not easily interoreted in terms of 17l Three Mile Island because the geometries were different. l l 13 G. were these results ccTmunicated to you cy eans l I I 19 t of a memorandum or a reoort or was this an oral communication?f 29 A. It was crai. We sooke to the ;daho ceoole by n chone. i912 014 1 22 : C. Was it ultimately your conclusion that removing 4 l 23 hydrogen through the POP' is a reasonaole alternative at i 'I I I 24l this time' i i 25 i A. In tne rechinism i just rentioned we decidec it nas l i Acme Reporting Company ua,.a.....
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bringing substantial gas into the steam generator where it 3 v,0ul d imcede c i rcul a t i on. 4 C. And that decision that it was not a good idea, 5 who was that communicated to? 6 A. That nas not a decisi n, it was a c:nc'ss :n. 7 0 Was that conclusion communicatec to anyone' 5l A. It was communicated to the oeocle in the incident 9 Resoonse Center by Tom Murley. 10 D. Do you know who he communicated it tot 11 A. No. I think i t was Mattson, but it might have 12 been Eisenhut or Case. Tom could tell y:u. 13 C. You indicated initia!!y that removai of the 14 4 "vdrogen through the PORV was cae of seve-a? a':e-natives l 15l that were considered. Where did these a!!ernatives come i 16I from? Were they ceveloced on your staff and then considee7d i l t 17 and rejected or did they come outside? 9! A. The afternative of r: ;'.ing the "yde: gen ':, 19 oressure decrease and running it Out tne DCRV was cevelooed l l 20l by several oecole to whom it occurred all at once, I think. i 1 21 1 The idea of a snake-like device was, first came :: t y attenti:n from a teiechone cal' On Saturday ~crning' !912 Oi5 .,3 rrom vic< Garw.in. 24 The i dea of cr., mi cal removal by out:ing a che-ica' in l 25
- nat wacid scavenge :ne hyce: gen a's:, I :nink, cccurred t:
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L2 3 0f b Jh,0DhJLC D t 1 several oe cle early. The snake-like oevice eyed 9 2 to me by Dick arwin on Saturday morr.ing on a ,i:ne caII, 3 He is an old friend of mine who called me uo and said he 4 had an idea. Actually he had several ideas. 5 I scent a sizable part of Saturday our;uing that. We 6 scent a 'Ong time trying :: #igure out en; i tne :i-7 business, cetroleum business who had this. D i ck Ga rw i n told S us there were ceaole who did this rautine'y, They sent 9 snakes into svstems, for exaTole, down shafts and stuff like 10 that and I contacted a wh;ie long list of ce::'e in tne 11 cetroleum ousiness who were deadends. 12 1 made considerable orogress through Mobil ^!i 13 contacted J:e Penick from Mooil Oil Corocration in New York. 14 I contactec him at home soTewhere in New Yor< S t a r. e, 15 C. He is listed-- 16 A. On Saturday, and he is On the mem; of June 5. He 17 mocitized s:Te oecole at M0' oil and they got cack somewhat is i l ater anc t:i c us tnere j us t wasn' : an yw ay nat tney '<new to 19 do it effectively. 20 Saul Levine contacted Ed Mason, wno was a C:--issioner 21 of NRC n'y just two or three years ago, wno n:w a:rksfor 22 another ci' comoany and he got his oe::le working :n the 23 or:blem. We didn't ccTe uo with anythi,g that was going 24 t:.., : r k. 1?12 n16 25 The or:b'em is tnat in order to se,d a snake ' ike dev ice Acme Reporting Company I 2:2..n 4...
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. g o W Ju 9Ju 1 into a system as comolex as a reactor, you have to be aole 2 to steer it around at the end. It has to be steered in a 3 kind of articulated way and nobody knew of any device like 4 that that existed already. The faorication of one would 5 take a few days, okay? 6 C. You incicated that this catential decressurizati:n or releasing the hydrogen through the PORV came from severa' 9 ceoole. 9 When you say that do you mean several different 10 cecole on your staff or was the suggest ion communicated to 11 you from outside sources? 12 A. I can't remember, 13 0. Well, do you recall if the Utility suggested that? 14 A. ! can't remember. I can't remembe r..; hen it.. a s 15 first suggested, but by the time I heard about it everybody 16 had been thinking about it that I was talking to. 1~ i So, I just can't tell you where that first came from. l 3 Q. Wnat is wrong witn sencing nycragen out tnrauge i 19l the steam generator? i 20 A. It doesn't go out. It collects at the too where it 21 imoedes the flow of water around the steam generator and i l I l 22 i makes heat removal difficult, t 03[ 0, is that a greater evil then the exis.tence of the i912 017 24 non-comDusribte bubble in the vesse?' 25l If all the nycrogen were in one soot in :ne vesse' s. Acme Reporting Company l i m,.a..... i
n 44 '{ [y D Di{} 1 and none were in the steam generator,it is oreferaole not to 2 let some of the hydrogen into the too of the steam generator 3 in that scenario where circulation would be i.moeded because 4 oresuTably water was being ci rculated around through the 5 steam generator and you wouldn't want to have a bubble in 6 the stear generatar. 7 Q. On the basis of information that you may become S aware of subsecuent to the decision that deoressurization 9 wouldn't be attemoted because the hydroger. cau'd go out into 10 the steam generator, did you bec Te aware of any inf rmation 11 that a decision to ce resst ize could jecoarcize tne 12 integrity of the vessel or cause exacerbated
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13 A. You will have to ask that over again. I didn't ~ 14 f ' low it. 15 Q. Let Te try it again. Am I c0rrect in that the 16 decision to decressurize-- 17l A. Or not to. I 19 ; Q. Or not to ce ressarize was rejecte: ori ari'y l 10 because there was a likelihood that the nycr gen wou'd 90 l 20l Into the steam generator rather than out tnrough the :ORV? 21, A. I can't remember. I can't reTeToer kn: wing any l i i 22 i tnat decisi:n was made, cecause we weren't car- - a:- I I Ob 23; cecision. That decision was race at the site. i l All I recall is that we cr:vicec advise where we agreed 24 25l this cycass onenomanan woulc be imcortant. I ::n't <n:w ah: l Acme Reporting Company 202# 629 4985
~5 D D P D R[j,{( f l hJ 2[ e); 1 made that deci si on or didn' t make it. 2 0. Were there any other alternatives tnat were 3 oresentec to the oecole at the site? 4 s. Yes. There was an alternative of adding some sort 5 of chemical to the crimary system in order to scavenge 6 nycrogen. 7 0. As far as you know that alternative was not 3 emolayed? 9 A. Yes, I am sure that it was never e olayed.
- However, 10 it was oursued very seriously be me and others through 11 Saturday and Sunday.
12 We enlisted the assistance of a whole grouc of 13 electro-chemists to tnink about ways of removing hydrogen 14 from the system cnem.ically and to exciare the advantages and 15 disadvantages of each. i 16 ' For examole, there is a very easy way of doing it by 17 adding clatinum, Platinum is very excensive, of course, c.t i 18 you could imagine accing olatinum. 31atinum in water c;ui, l 19l in minute cuantities, escace into the gas where the catalytic i 20 effect might. set off the very detonation you were trying, l 21l or exofosion or tire that you were trying to avoid. So, that 1 22l vas rejected ear y. jgl} gjg l t I 23 ' There was tne idea of adding suionite co cound, wnicn l 24 wou:d remove oxygen, anc there were certain chemi cal reasons i l l I 25l wny tnet wasn't going to work, and I can't remercer.vnet I i Acme Reporting Company m u.....
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. ]. 1 they were. G a 2' There aere numer:us :ther ccToouncs Or substances that 3 were suggested and none seemed to be able to achieve the 4 needed goal. My recollection is that after much work by a 5 lot of chemists around the country, the problem somehow went 6 away long before the enemists had come uo with any viaole 7 alternatives. 8 i don't think they ever have come uo with viable 9 alternatives to today. 10 C. When you relayed your c:nclusi:ns or findings to 11 the incident Resoonse Center in Bethesca, was deoressurization 12 ! the only cossible alternative included in your adviseTent' I i 13 A. No. I rememoer that we told tnem that we were 14 working on the snake-like cevice icea and tnat we were j i 15 working On the chemical idea and that we hadn't anything that '
- 16l, would work yet and we would let them know if we did.
17 0. Including depressuriza-ion' 9i2 020 A. Yes l t 19l 0 As far as you knew at that time that wouldn't l 26 work either and you would let them know further? l i 21 i A. Early on we weren't sure whetner it woulc work. i r i 22 Arter ne cerrormed tne ex e rimen t in Icah, we : nveyec :: j i i I 23 i them the findings, but we told them that the finding on i 24 Semiscale were not necessarily transferacie t: p.i i because i i i 25 i the scales were very different and therefore tnere was some i i I l Acme Reporting Company 2:2 u ,4...
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} c cJu,2.. o o Ju .= G 1 intercretation and ue would think about that and let them 2 know and we did think about that. 3 0. And you communicated with them again aoout 4 decressurization, I assume, orior to Sunday? 5 A. I guess we communicated with them fairly often 6 OOcut tnat. 7 0. At any coint did your assessment of the decressur-e ization al ternative change? Did you conclude it was a 9 cossible alternative? 10 A. I guess we were coerating under the as s umot i on 11 right along tnat it was a oossible alternative and we were 12 trying to figure out whether it was sensible or risky. 13 0 Well, what I am getting at is you began working 14 witn a nemoer of alternatives ano during tne course of your 15 investigation they were rejected for various reasons: no 16 way of controlling the front of the snake, no discovery of 17 a chemical that could oe used to leech out oxygen. H a. Or nycrocen. i ~ 1912 021 19 C. Or hydrogen. 20 A. That didn't have other risks or problems? 21 0 Did you ever reach the coint where cearessurization 22l was the only alternative left desoite cros and cons' t 23 A. I can't answer that question as chrased. 24 We came to the coint where we hadn't found a che-ical 25 ' .me re the snake like dev ice di dn ' t seem to be crocable, that l Acme Reporting Company an.
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40 D 9 D D A i od u es 1 we just weren't going to find figures like that and where the 9 2 Other alternative was still under consiceration. 3 Then, by the time we got to the stage of understanding 4 what the or0blems woaid be, I rememoer that the hydrogen bubble issue seemed to be less imoortant. Somehow the 1 6 bubble went away in the eyes :f ce:sie with wnam.ve were 7 dealing. S Q. Was decressurization used to get rid Of tne 9 bubble or Cart of it Or do y u kn:w' 10 A. Not the kind of decressurization that we are 11 talking of here in which it w;ulo ce bled out of the 12 cressurizer valve. 13 There was the ut lization of a letcown valve anc a 14 sma!' fi w of water Ou. ;f the 'etdown valve, ..h ; ch. :. 3 the 15 orimary thing that at that time we were told was circu lating 16 water around and out the sys. tem, that we were told at that t' time. 1912 022 l b r. If I refer to recic cecressurizat;;n, 's tnat ar 19 accurate way to describe getting the hydrogen Over : wards 20j the hole of the PORV oice and letting it out? i I 21l A. I wruldn't have to be racid. You c:u'd wer l 22 tne cressure as slow!y as you cared. l l 23 " Q. Is there such a thing as racic ceoressurizati:n. a j i 24 I distinct method of decressurizing l l 25 A. How raoid? It is very hard to ceoressurize l l f Acme Reporting Company u,,........ i
4: D c 0 e' e 1 raoidly in the sense of, you know, a second or a few seconds. 2 You could decressurize over minutes and cerhaos fractions 3
- f an hour through control of the cressurizer leve; itself 4
uo at the too of the system, but decressurization oser a 5 second or a few second time scale is very hard to do. 6 T. A-i c:rrec: in gathering 'r;m y:ur reso:nses :na 7 at n; paint cio you recommenc or suggest to the ce:o'e a: 8 the Incident Reso:nse Center or tne : ecole at the site nat 9 decressurization was an al ternative to ce consicered in 10 removing the hydrogen bubble' 11 A. At no time did we recom-end it in my meTory. 12 a n. Was it your understanding tnct your reso:nsibi'.' v 13l. was at that inctaded recorrending or not recommending a 14 s:1uti3n' l 15 i A. Yes. We were asked to think about that orablem i i 16 I and give our views to the incident Resoonse Center oeco'e. 17 G. So, essentia!!'y before y:u would make a rec: men-14 d2 :. ;. c3 :: ', _., :; des! .t'r
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19 or:blem cisacoeared, the bubbfe cisaoceared? !9i2 023 I i 20l A. We never found a recommendation that we fe' was 1 21l sure enough to work, to be w rth consi dering doing. l 22! 0. 50, thase a'ternatives did,2: ce: ;u t :# y :._ r i 23 gr:uo. They were a t transmit:ec to Bethesca at t r. e i 24 facident Reso nse Center, not transmitted :: the s;;e' I 25l A. What we th;cgn: coau; eacn alternative nas I l Acme Reporting Company m n.-...
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1 transmitted to those cecole often, o G. They were aware that the use of a snake was not a 3 viable al ternative? 4 A. They were aware that it was considerec and that 5 it bombed out. They were also aware of our work on the 6 cnemical scne es. 7 0 And that no chemical nas yet oeen founc. hac at S yet been found? 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. That would do the job? 11 A. Yes. 50, i t wasn' t in ;ur grauo. 'le we re in 12 constant co.munication aoout the bubble and they knew what I i 13 we were coing. 12 O. S!i t h res0ect to decressurization, y;ur Odvice t: 15 them was that a test had been run and the test had shown that 16 the hyde: gen might migrate to the-- t i 17 ! A. Steam cenerztor, ,9,12 024, j i M' u. dream generator. i i 19, A. Rather than go outside the cressurizer, i 20 C. Did you make any recommendations or simoty convey I i 21 i that information? l 22 A. Tom Murley discossec tre imotications of that in i l 23 ' great detail uith the oe:cie at tre Incident Res :nse Center. l 4 i 24l G. Were y:u orivy to that c:nversation' 25 A. Yes, but I can't reme oer wn: was :n tne tner i i i Acme Reporting Company I a,<a.a,..
$1 _m I end. I just can't remember whether it was Eisenhut or Case 2 or Mattson. 3 Q. Do you recall the substance of that conversation? 4 A. Yes. 5 O. Could you relate it for us, clease' 6 A. The exoeriTent was described, the outcoTe of tne I exoeriment was describec and Tom discussed with tnem how the 3 exoeriment might be interoreted in terms of the scale of 9 Three Mi'e Islanc rather than the scale of the smaller li' device in Idaho Falls. 11 0. Did that scale militate in favor of decressurization 12 or against? 13 A. When ne first conveyed the information we just 14 d i d r. ' t kn :., end ! can't rere-ber "thet"er any #urther 15 considerations changed that. 16 I think it would be a very hard thing to figure out now 17 what that exoeriTent really told us, but at the tite it CR~fil 15 scered like 3:Tething vork doing. ^kay' i i 19l 0. The exoeriment or the-- l 20,! A. The exoeriment. 19i 025 1 8 i 21 ' O. 2r the cearessurication' I 22 l A. No, the exoeriment. We did the exoeriTent, it l I i 23l turnec out to be not so easily interoretable. Welt. y;u .v i n l i 24 ; some, you lose some. 05 ' C. Were the other two alternatives, tne use Of a I e i Acme Reporting Company m.......
o,- II L:3 1 chemical to leecn :ot hydrogen or oxygen or the use of a 2 snake-like cevice, discuss =d in the same conversation' 3 A. No. I think they were discussed in different 4 conversations. 5 O. Previous to the conversation concerning the 6 decressurization' 7 A. And after. 8 0. Was the conclusion c:ncerning the use of a sna<e like 9 cevice that was not an s! tarnative viable ' actor hacoen 10 before the conversati:n concerning decressurization? 11 A. I think that there several times when the guys over 12 at the Resoonse Center called uo and said, "Have y0u # 0und a 13 snake that would work yet?" and we said, "Not yet." Ckay? 14 So, this was a <ina of a continuing issue anc we seic, 15 "Not yet." And, they w:uld say rather or something and a 16 coucle hours later they would say, "Did you hear from the 17 guys from Mobil yet?" and we would say, "Yes, we Just heard is! from them anc there is some cuy in nouston t at is c:ing s: c 1 i 19 thinking about it." g j } g"j} g 20l 1 got a call fr0m some guy i n Nev. York anc he said he f I 21 had just socken with s:Te guy from F';rica, and a 1:t ;? i 22. Oeco'e in "Obil Ci' Corocration scent a 1t :# t~e weekend I i i 23 i tninking aoout that. So, it was a kind of continuing thi g. l 24 l C. I am gsing to ask your coinion :n all the i l 25 atternatives. In y:ur acinion, was tne :: int ever reacne: 4 I Acme Reporting Company 202' 529 4969
..33 D ' T l @b 07~0 A hb AJ e 1 in that weekend where the snake al ternative was discarded, 2 the use of a chmeical to leecn out either of the gases didn't 3 seem to be canning out at all and deoressurization, witn its 4 oros and cons and unknowaoles, acceared to be the only 5 remaining catentially viable al ternative? 6 A. Y:u askea tnat cuesti:n : e# 0re and 1 just can't ~ answer it. I don't know, s C. A!1 right. 9 A. All of them continued to seer viabl e right to tne 10 end and then the bubble went away somehom. You kn:w. at least 11 at the tire it seemec s: en;<. "e later understa:d more 12 out they were all, you kn:w, at various stages of being 13 thought aoout. "=ve to te yo_ t ct " t"e 2ffice f Re s e a r c'r ;e it. 15 didn't make those decisions. We were just o rov i d i r.g s ome 16 backuo and so we weren't Orivy to soTe other things they 17 might have known about or thcaght_abr>t SC REGNINC
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!:.9 a s r ' t becc 2 thsy .r 3:::ning.:. I . c e; ' ri ng, i 19 to do s ~ething s I will be darned if I kr w. 09 By the time the bubb!e cisacceared you hac rade ^ 21 no rec mendati:ns as :: the use :f any of those al ternatives 22 to remove tre hydr: gen' 9 2 027 23 A. We had certain'y recommended that they not ce used. I i 24 Q. A righ.. i 05 s. A1' rignt? 2nica is xinc of a cefau't out cecause t 1 Acme Reporting Company I m..,.....
54 m ,\\ LI u3 I we thought ab:ut it a lot i. Obs c ear what we were thinking, 2 I guess. 3 0 Let me ask you a cuestion that is on a s'ight ly 4 different subject. 5 A. Okay. 6 n. Acoroxi etely three haurs a.d five -inutes int tne transient at TMI, the HP t was turnej to full bare, 00en s throttle for acoroximately an nour. 9 What would be the ourocse Of turning on the HPi fu:1 10 be, 0 en throttle for an h:ur? What conditi:ns acu!d be 11 existent in the crimary system that acuid give rise for a 12 need to take that tyoe of an action? 13 A. Are you asking me wha t tne acerators tnaugnt tney 14 were Osing? 15 c. First I am asking you what y0u think. 16 A. You will have to ask the question again. You said 1-what conditions would lead to that ? Are you asking what-- li ; wnat a reasonacle icerat:r usu ic ce tninxing. 19 ' A. I think the coerators or:bably were worriec that 20 the invent:ry of co0lant in the system was 1:wer than they 21 I oanted so they turned the water an. Why else w uld they j i 22 do it' I I 23 ' O. 0:<ay. Now, when I have neard :his maniou!ation i l 24 described the cam 05 were turned :n fJ I! b;re-- 25 A. This is the HPl cumos? lfjj}. i l Acme Reporting Company l l l 2:2i sae 4ess
55 m 1 0 Yes. Turned on full core, Ocen throttle. tnase e 2 descriative terms to me Tean a tremendous amour Of water. 3 is that correct' 4 A. It is not really tretendous. No, it is not real'y 5 treTendous. The amount of water in the system is much, much 6 m;re tnan tnat, Okay' 7 C. Is there any como system or any eans of getting a 5 greater am:unt of water int: the core than :nrough : hat 9 system and that maniculation? 10 A. Yes. There is a system called the Iw Oressure 11 injection system, which can not function until the crassur-12 falls to a level of a few hundred counds cer scuare inch. 13 If the pressure were to falI tnat low of value tne low 14 oressure system ::u!d inject very much iarger voimres ;? 15 water and much more racidly than the high cressure syste-16 could, okay? 17 That 1:w oressure system is designed to functi:n in a I i 15
- arce loss ;f coolant accicent, oxey ~
j f t 19l Q. Assuming sufficiently low oressure. 20 A.
- Rignt, it can not function at the cressures Of i
21l 1,000 c.s.i. that were cresent.
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0 At the ti~e the HDI was turned on? l 23l A. Or whatever the cressure was. I don't remero.e r 24 the cressure. )h i i 25j 0, At the time th,s anicu>ation was cer cr ec, \\ l 1 l Acme Reporting Company 1 a n,..
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56 D "" #" D D) ' 'D T{ o N 2. v _a 1 accroximately three hours and five minutes into the transient, 2 was that the only alternative, the only means of getting a 3 great cuantity of water into the crimary system in view of 4 the cressure that existed at that tim?' 5 A. I guess so. 6 0 W:uld tne use of sucn a syste-at thct ti e incicate to an observer that the reasonable coerator had concluded ~ 9 that he had either a major break down in a cice anc was 3 loosing a great cuantity of coolant or that he had his care 10 uncoverad? 11 A. No. He might have concluced that he had a small 12 break s:Tewhere and that finally enough had leaked out thct 13 he had better reolace it. That is a cerfectly reasonable 14 conclusion. 15 Q. If a small amount of water had leaked out, is there 16 a sys te-a other than the manipulation that I have cessribed 1-which would provide sufficient make-uo to replace water foss I i is, tnrougn a s-all-- 19 li A. Not at those cressures, in my view. 20 C. F0cusing again On the #act that the HP! was turned I 21 i on fuit bore. Ocen throttle at that time, it is cossibl e t: l 22 thr:tt le the Ho! t: some extent, is it not, t: : nte:' t*e 1912 030 23 amount of flow? '4 A. I am not sure, I am not sure wnether the tnr tt ie i 5I is to decrease tne am:unt of ft:w whi!e it is fl: wing :r t: l Acme Reporting Company i m.. m... I
57 I turn it on and off. I just don't know h:w that really 2 works. Okay? 3 0 So, in your view this maniculation that I have 4 described couId indicate either a small break, a large 5 break or core uncovering in the mind of a reasonable 6
- erator to turn Hol fuit care, coen tnrott le' 7
A. If he turned on HPI he must have been thinking i l 3' that he needec inventary of water in tne syster. 9 0. Of substantial cuantity? 10 A. As much as he was putting in. He T.ay hcve thought 11 ne needed more even but that was all he had so he ran it 12 in there. It had been Off for some time at that ti e, right' 13 -Q. HPl? I 14 >; A. Yes. j 16 A. I don't-- l 17 Q. As far as I kn0w. I 14 A. I can't remember the secuence, you know, in that 19 i Tuch detai', but I know it had been Off for s:~e time. i 20 t Q. If we assume that the acerator knew that he did i 21 not have a guillotine break in a oice or a Tajor 1:ss of 3 1 22[ a coolant-- i i i lo1 031 23l A. If he assumed that he knew tnat-- i 24 Q. What tyce Of a s-all creak ;r .v n e t scenari; do v:u I 25! envisi:n regarding involving a small breck wou' 'eac tre j i i l Acme Reporting Company l 2 w.......
50 t D{] j g, 1 00erator to turn on H31 full bare, full thr0:tle to reolace 2 tne loss of coolant? 3 A. The coerator may have realized at that time that 4 hi s PORV was leaking. He may have thought s:Te otner valves 5 were ocen, he may have thought there was an actual. io tu re 6
- f a oice, 7
He may have worried about seals leaking and gradually 9 accumulating. I can't think of anything else that he wou ld 9 have thought Of, but something like that. 10 0 I don't know if I am being clear with my cuesti:n. 11 A. He didn't know what he had there. He orcoaoly 12 thought he was running 1:w on water so he turned it On again, 13 Now, whetner he thought that the inventory 1Oss was due 14 t; a valve Or a leak :r a break, I c uldn't steculate On .t. i 1 15 It is just too hard, 16 Q. Let me try to get more soecific with my cuestion, 17 What I am trying to do is find some corre?ati:n between the l i i 13 i amount or water tnat :nis c:otant, tnat :nis tyoe or a I l 19 i raniculation would out int the system, and tne 'evel or l 20 cc lant which the reasonab'e Ocerator wou d be aware of in l 21 l the crimary sys tem. For examole-- 1(112 f)32 l l l 22 A, I understand y:ur cuestion exactly. I jus haven't l i 23 ' any idea wnat he was thinking or what a reasonacle acerato-1 I 24 I would have thought, because I concluded long ago that had the 1 25 nigh cressure injection system be left on rign: at ng :ne Acme Reporting Company ,:,.u.4...
59 ]d' dtd 3 'O$l$ D** D owJ 3' O I core uncovery would not have occurred, okay? 2 When it occurred to him I don't know, and I am not sure 3 that he concluded at that time that the core was uncovered. 4 You have to interview him and see what he said. 5 O. I am not so much concerned with what the coerator 6 actually tnougnt. A. A= to what a reasonable coerator might think? ~ 8 C. As to what this maniculation would indicate? 9 A. As far as I can tell what it indicated is he felt 10 he wanted to get some water in there and he wanted to get it 11 in fast, right? S0, he sent it in full throttle. 12 0. Were you aware-- 13 A. I'll be darnec if 1 know what else he was thinking 14 acaut. 15 0. Were you aware on Friday when you first cecame 16 involved in actual work on the oroj ect, or on Thursday when 1-you were involved in the briefing, that there was the t, l oresence or suoer-neatec steam in :ne vesse 19 A. I can't remeToer what I was tninking. 20 0, You don't recall if you were aware of that? 21 ; A. I just can't recall. 22 ! Q. Would the cresence of suoer-heated steam in the i k 23 vessel indicate core uncoverv?
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i/Ic UJJ 24 l A. Not necessarily to the extent that they had'. Okay? t 25 0 But some core uncovery? Could you have suoer-heated Acme Reporting Company I au, ,a.....
D 0 1 steam in the vessel without some cartial uncovery of the 2 core? 3 A. I don't know. I just don't know. 4 0. Are you aware that accroximately 7 1/2 hours into 5 the transient at TMI 2 that a decision was made to racidly 6 deoressurize? A.
- Yes, I don't remember exactly wnen i t was, out I l
t 8! am aware of that. 9 Q. Are you aware that i t was a decision made by the 10 utility oecote? 11 A. I think so, yes. 12 0 Do you know if anyone at the NRC had any inout 13 in that cecision? 14 A. I don't k n o..'. 15 O. Was your grouo involved? 16 A. No. 1-Q. Were you involved? 13 i A. No. l l l i 19i Q. Had that decision been imolemented, wnat in your 20 mind would have been the consecuences? i912 034 21 A. There might have been a substar. tic'ly grea:er j i 20 re! ease of radiaactivity
- com the system into the c:qtai-ec,.!
Uhk 23, and ultimately into the oxygen building which might have I 24l oroduced, re ed. croduced more radioactivity in the 25 outside environ e.t. l Acme Reporting Company l. .w.4...
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D w a a 1 My understanding is they never got down to a cressure 2 1:w enough to start the residual heat removal system. In 3 fact, they re-oressurized some hours later. 4 0. Had the decision been imolemented, would there 5 have been any adverse effect on core condi tions, or would 6 it nave exacerbated care uncovery Or caused care anc:very' 7 A. I don't kn0w. S Q. Since we don't have a cooy of your resume here, 9 would it be fair to describe you as a c:ientist? 10 A. A chysicist. 11 0. A chysicist? 12 A. Yes. I oractice the orofession of Ohysics on l y 13 occasionaly n:w because I have been involved in reactor 14 safety for the 'rst year. 15 4 0. When you return to Berkeley will you be back in-- 16 A. Dhysics? 17 Q. Phys ~cs. 13 i A. Procaciy not. I will crocaciy work in instru ent-l 19 ation f:r measuring collutants in amoient air, air ::'1ution I 20 research. 21 C. Environmental' i 1912,033 A. Yes. l 23 l P. And then as tne final cuestion, I am sure that the 24 l4ichaelson memorandum, the Novak memorandum and the Cresswe!' i 25 ! material are fairiv well known a::und NRC since TMI' l i Acme Reporting Company an, .2.....
E2 D**D D T %)L we o, . d). be 1 A. By n:w they are. 2 0. Were you aware of any of those materials ori r ta 3 TMI 2? 4 A. No. 5 0. Were you aware of any orior transient, such as 6 Davis-Sesse =2 in Sectevoer, 1977, anicn involved a stuck 7 ocen PORV? 3 A. No. I was aware of the transient at Rancno Secco, J also th:ught to be the orecurser to this event in s:Te ways. 10 Q. Which transient is that? 11 A. At Ranch Sccco. At Rancho Secco in California, 12 a transient Occurred sometime criar to the accicent at Three 13 Mile Island wnicn involved parts of the accident secuence 14 i that Occurred at Three M'le Island, but it was terminated 15. racidly and effectively and I was aware of that event. I I-16 Q. Do you recall how long before the TMl 2 transient 17l the Rancho Secco transient occurred? 3 ca6't remercer is s. No, out it was a year or tw;. 19l e::a c t l y. ! 912 036 00 Q. Which carticular oarts of the TMI 2 transient were, 21 I use tne worc sicacify, credicted in the Ranch: Secco l ~ 22 transient of accr:ximately a ye r bef:re. - 23 i A. I d:n't remeTber it now but you can find it, it I i 24! is on the record and what I was answerinc was whether or not ~ l 25i i was aware of the Rancho Secco event. I #:end here that Acme Reporting Company 2:,,........
63 1 I was aware at the time of TMI-- D D Ly 2 Q. Yes. 3 A. I was aware that it had hacoened and it had been 4 terminated without hazard to the reactor. 5 Q. By coerator action? 6 A. I can't re ember whether it was coerator action ~ or automatic systems. I just can't reTember. I was aware S of that event. I didn't tie it together with the Three 9, Mile island accident until several days after the Three Mile 10 accident occurred. 11 C. Was there anything in the Rancho Secco transient 12 that involved a non-comoressible gas-- 13 A. No. 14 C. --in the vessel? I 15 i A. No. 16 Q. Or raoid dearessurization? A. No, b So, it wasn't direct!y involvec :n the comoutations i 19 I that you were doing? I 20 A. That is correct. i 21 ' O. At the TMI 2? 19f2 037' / l 22 i A. It was comoletely different, i i i l 23l Q. Dit it involve a malfunctioning FORV? l I 24l A. It involved the failure of some control circuitry l 1 1 I 25l in the control room anc the control circuity governed, i# I 3 I t j Acme Reporting Company 2,..4...
64 l' I 0hGg' L in h hj\\\\j b D su. 1 remember, that valve, 2 Q. Is this the tran ' that involved an coerator 3 drocoing a non-safet,.iece o.' eq u i omen t into the circuity 4 for the safety equiom' 5 A.
- Yes, I thought he was changing a little bulb on 6
the control canel and it fell down behind the Danel and it 7 caused a short. 8 Q. Do you recall which were shorted? 9 A. No, I don't because my interest in it nas in control 10 room design, and not what haocened to the reactor, I read 11 it in great detail to try to figure out what i might learn 12 about the way control rooms are designed and oenets were 13 fixed and recaired. 14, I was thinking ab:ct control rooms and not the reactor i 15 at that time. This was crior to the event, 16 Q. Were you aware, or are you now aware Of any 17l transient that occurrea et olants outside the United States Ilil which 'ac naracteristics si-!'ar to tne hit 2 t ansient :# n l 19ll March Of this year? i912[,038! 2o A, so. i 21 Q, You indicated that you somewhat c0ncernec about 1 22; contr:1 design, or ::nte:1 rc:- !ayout, wre, v:u.re e ':: king 5 f 23 ' at the Rancno Secc transient. Are you aware of where at 24 TMt 2 the cuench tank indicators are 1:cated in t"e conte:1 i i 25 roomi j t. Acme Reporting Company an,a...
65 1 A. No. b 2 c. Do you know where they were located at the Rancho 3 Secco olant? 4 A. No. Yes. 5 Q. As to which? i 6!, A. The Rancho Secco, but that knowledge is on'y a 7 f ev> d vs old. Last week I was in Lynchburg where 1 observed 8+ s a BM simulator, which is very similar to the Rancho Secco 9 control room, but that was last Thursday and so that is a 10 very recent knowledge. 11 Q. Where is the indicator located on that? 12 A. It is on the front. Il Q. You emphasize the front. 14 A. Well, the way you chrase the question, I seem to 15! reTember there was something on the cack at TMI, but I will i 16 1 be darned if I can remember if that i s what it was. 17 Q. Cur information is that the quench tanks indicators M' nere located on the back. ]9l2 Q}} ' i 19j A. That might be, it is easy to find out. I Just 20 can't remember. I don't have, on my own knowledge, that but 21 at Rancho Secco all the stuff was on the front. 22 I Q. Let Te ask you an excert ooinion. Do you th!nk that, i 23 ! the quench tank indicators are iTeortant indicators cnd that i i 24j the coerator be able to look at while he is trying to controi I t 25 a transient? l Acme Reporting Company l 2:2, .2......
66 'D y D 9 '] , f,du i da D 1 A.
- Yes, G
g 2 Q. Is it your understanding that the coerator is 3 required to maintain his posi tion in the front of the control 4l canel where he can oerform manioulations during the course 6 of a transient? 6, A. Not necessarily. The coerator ought to be able 7 to have the freedom to go in, for examole, look at gauges 8 or fix them or walk around or wratever he feels, 9 Vihy don ' t you ask me the direct recuest about what my 10 coinion is of contici room design and I will answer it. 11 C, What is your coinion of control room design? 12 A.
- Okay, I will oreface it by telling you that I have, 13 in my own experience, designec a oretty complicated control 14 room like arrangement on two occas i on s, to cerform exoeriments 15 at the large accelerators and in each case I scent a sizacle 16 fraction of a years time to that kind of thing while cer-17 forming other things, too, 16 So, I have cirect exoerience in cesigninc control 19l tyce arrangements for coerators, in mv cersonal.coinion, the i
00 I control at Three Mile Island 2, which I visitec a few weeks l I 21 aco, is ocorly designed, i ~ 1912 040 l Poorly designed f-o what standocint? i 22 ^ 23 ' A. From tne standocint of enabling the o::erator to 24 graso cuickly and effectively dif#erent kincs of relevant 1 25l information and tnen ass,milate that inrormation. l Acme Reporting Company i u2 .2..,..
h O 1 Q. Is the TMt 2 carticularly poorly designed contro' 8 2 room in comoarison to control ro0ms of other reactors that 3 you may have seen? 4 A. I have seen a half dozen reactor control rooms in 5 detail and it may be poorer than the ones I have seen but ! 6 thin'. t' a t t' e re isn't any reactor control r:Om that I have 7 seen that is well designed by modern human engineering 3 standards. 9 That is an ooinion that I have based on my Own orofession-10 al exoerience in this area. The fact that the TMI 2 control 11 room might be a little worse than same of the others does 12 not imoly that the others are better. All right? 13 Q. All right. 14 A. At ' east much better. 15 C. Have you had tne cocortunity to tour the control 16 room of Eurocean reactors? 17. A. No, I have never seen a Eurocean reactor contr0'
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l enderstand there is a c:ntr;! rc: at the Haiden ) i i 19 reactor in Norway whose cresentati0n Tethods are very 20I advanced and I have had read cacers and studied articles i I i 21! about that control room but I have never been there. I l l 22 ' r. Are you familiar with the cresent TV1 2 etnod o' l 23{ ECCS action and, vesting ~ouse olants in this country? l n i l 24 A. Yes, I think sc. j 1912'041 1 25, Q. C:uic you describe it? I l l i i Acme Reporting Company l l vv n.~ e..
I D D D 1 A. There is automatic actuation uoon pressure drocoing 2 below a certain set ooint. That is also true of the SMI ( 3 reactor. Of i 4 Q. The SMI reactor? 5 A. Yes. 6l C. Are vou aware : hat orior to TMI 2 : bat a nemoer 7 Westinghouse olants in this country had coincidental i i actuation of ECCS, that is, pressure and level rising or 9l falling in tandem and that if there was a divergent there was
- o n: effectuation?
11 A. No, I was not awa: of that. 12 0 You indicated some surorise. 13 A. No, I dicn't indicate surorise. I think I jus: 14 said I never heard of that before one way or tile other, i i 15 ' Q. Does that sound like an accrooriate Teans of ECCS 16 accuation to you? '7 A. Describe it again? '912 042-l' : C. In arter for ECCS to be actuated oressure cac !a.e1 l i 19i o-essure l must move in tandem, in other words, a croo in both l 20 i and level would actuate ECCS, but a divergence 3etween the i I 21 i two would not. I t 22 A. I a not aware that that was so arc ! a-no: s_re 23I what design consicerations would make them design it. Until 24! I understand what :neir design criteria was I ;us wouldn't 25l care to come,: on whether it is a go:c icea cr not. l \\ + l Acme Reporting Company l l . 22.,.....
D 1 0. Let's assume hycothetically that what I have told 2 y:u is true. 3 A. That I took that as given? 4 0. There are 20-some odd plants in inis country in whic; 5 ECCS would actuate 2nly if oressure and level moved in 6
- tandem, 7
Now, we know from the exoerience at TM! 2 that oressurizer 8 level and oressure needs not always move in tandem and yet 9 ECCS may be necessary, 10 Can you think of any reason why coincidental actuation 11 would be an acorooriate way of actuating ECCS? 12 A. Well, this is the 'irst I have ever heard of this 13
- thing, it surprises me, but I just have to insist that 14 somebody orabably designed that and i sure would want to kn;w, i
15 l what they were thinking of before I made a judgment as to 16 whether it was right or wrong. It There may be other accidents for which it is the richt 1, thing to do. You may oe anscussing automatic actuation and, i 19 of course, there is human actuation. 1912 041 l 20 l Q. Yes. This is limited to automatic act.. tion. l I I 21 l4 A. I don't know wnether to be suror' sed or just. yet, I 22l kind of ouzzled. I just never heard of that before, j 23 ; MR. HELFMAN: Unless there are any cuestions from i l i the crearesentative of the NRC-- l 24ll 25 ' MR. ROTHSCHILD: No. l Acme Reporting Company l l i m,.......
h0 D 70 1 MR. HELFMAN: We will recess the decosition at 2 this point. As I mentioned earlier, if we have additional 3 questions we will reconvene it. Thank you very much. 4 (The deposition was recessed at 4: 30 c.m.) 5 6 I have read the foregoing pages, 7 1 through 70, and they are a true 5 accurate record of my testimony 9 therein recorded AI NOIMlIO IA slack 91N $N MY 04Al to
- Add W Af flAl f.
ROBERT JAY BUDNITZ 11 L Subscribed and sworn to before me 13 this day of 1979 14 13 Notary Public 16 '4y Commission Expires : 17 1s ! 19 .'O 1912 044 n l 02 ' 23 1 24 25 4 Acme Reporting Company I m........
77 -nn AD 9 1 REPORTER'S CERT!?!CATE b D gh I nD ( o ge 3 4 OCCKET NUMBER: 5 CASE TITLE: DEPOSITION OF ROBERT JAY BUDNITZ 6l HEARING DATE: August 1, 1979 i I 7i LCCATICN: Bethesda, Maryland i I f 3I l l 9 I hereby certify that the preceedings and evidence 10 herein are centained fully and accurately in the notes i 11 taken by me at the hearing in the above case before the 1., PRE 3IDENT'S COMMISSION ON THE ACCIDENT AT THREE MILE i ISLAND 13I' and that this is a true and correct transcript Of the 14 same. i l '5 : 16 l 1 l 17! Cate: August 3, lo-t 13
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[/ ~ i Cfficial Re0erter 29 Acre Reporting Company, :nc. I 1411 K Street, N.N. Suite 600 21! Washington, D.C. 20005 i! .m. I 23 : u; 1912 045' 25 i I Acme Reporting Company il 1:,, u.4..
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