ML19261D951
| ML19261D951 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/24/1979 |
| From: | Gossick L NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS (EDO) |
| To: | Yatron G HOUSE OF REP. |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19261D952 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7906290605 | |
| Download: ML19261D951 (16) | |
Text
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- pn Rtcoq"k UNITED STATFS 8'
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION g
.: p WASHINGTON, D. C. 20555 MAY 2 41979 The Honorable Gus Yatron United Stater House of Representatives Washington, D. C.
20515
Dear Congressman Yatron:
I am pleased to respond to your May 8,1979 referral of the letter from your constituent, Bernard R. Serina. Mr. Serina is seeking information for his tenn paper on safety features in nuclear power plants and how we assure the safety of these plants.
Under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (as amended) and the Energy Re-organization Act of 1974, the NRC has the responsibility, among other things, for protecting the health and safety of the public when licensing nuclear power plants. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (as amended) requires that the NRC evaluate the potential environmental impact of proposed plants and balance the benefits derived against the risk to the environment.
In discharging its health and safety responsibilities, the area of specific interest to Mr. Serina, the NRC staff conducts extensive and in-depth re-views and evaluations of proposed nuclear power plant designs and sites to assure that our stringent safety criteria have been adopted and met by the applicant prior to our granting authority to proceed with construction and operation.
During this process, public participation is encouraged so that all views can be heard and considered.
I am enclosing four papars which address directly Mr. Serina's inquiry and which should provide useful information for his paper. These are:
"The Reactor Licensing Process" (Enclosure 1), " Insuring $afe Design of Nuclear Power Plants" (Enclosure 2), " Design and Construction Criteria For Nuclear Power Plants" (Enclosure 3), and " Quality Assurance" (Enclosure 4).
N I hope that this information will assist you in responding to Mr. Serina.
Sincerely, l6l$<?, N-2209 133 Lc Enclosures :
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7906290(9$h TW m 4Wm
Congressman Yatron.
Enclosures:
1.
The Reactor Licensing Process 2.
Insuring Safe Design of Nuclear Power Plants 3.
Design and Construction Criteria For Nuclear Power Plants 4.
Quality Assurance 2207 134
THE REACTOR LICENSING PROCESS The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for, anong o qer things, the licensing and regulation of nuclear power plants. Before a nuclear power plant can be built at a particular site, the applicant must obtain a construction permit from the NRC. As a major part of the application for a construction permit, an applicant must file a Preliminary Safety Analysis Report (PSAR). This document presents tqe design criteria and preliminary design information for the pro;'osed reactor and comprehensive data on the proposed site.
The report also discusses various hypothetical accident situations and the safety features which will be provided to prevent accidents or, if they shculd occur, to mitigate their effects on both the public and the facility's employees.
In addition, the applicant must submit a comprehensive Environmental Report providing a basis for the evaluation of the environmental impact of the proposed plant.
Further, infonnation m.st be submitted by the applicant for use by the Attorney Ger.eral and tFs NRC staff in their reviews of the antitrust aspects of the proposed plant.
An applicant for a construction permit for a nuclear power plant may tender the required information in three parts.
One part is accompanied by the Environmental Report (ER) and site suitability information ar.d another part by the PSAR. Tendering of the first part may precede the tendering of the other by no longer than six (6) months. Whichever of the above parts is tendered first must also include the fee and other general and financial information. The third part, consistir.g of antitrust information, is tendered 9-36 months prior to the other information in order for the Attorney General and the NRC staff to begin the antitrust review.
Some time during the per.iod that the applicant is preparing its application for a construction permit, usually about 6-12 months prior to tendering, the NRC staff holds a general intrnductory meeting in the area of the proposed site in order to familiarize the public with the safety and environrental aspects of the proposed application, including the planned location and type of plant, the regulatory process, and the provisions for public participation in the licensing process. Additional public meetings of this kind, that is, those which are conducted specifically for the convenience of public observation and participation, are held durine the course of the reactor licensing prccess.
When an application is submitted, it is first subjected to an acceptance review by the NRC staff to determine whether it contains sufficient infor-mation to satisfy the Commission requirements for a detailed review If the application is npt sufficiently complete, the staff rakes srecific 2207 135
, Jmi 25 requests for additional information. The application is formally accepted by NRC only if it meets certain minimum acceptance criteria.
In addition, when the PSAR is submitted, a substantive review and inspection of the applicant's quality assurance program, covering design and procurement, is conducted. Guides for the preparation of the documents have been developed by the NRC Staff to aid applicants in preparing acceptable applications.
As soon as an application for a construction permit is received by NRC, copies are placed in the NRC Public Document Room. As soon as the ER or PSAR or early site information is received, copies are also placed in Public Document Rooms local to the proposed site.
Copies of all future correspondence and documents relating to the application are placed in these locations and are available to every member of the public. Al so, a press release announcing receipt of the application is issued by the NRC.
Upon docketing (acceptance) of the applicant's application for a con-struction permit, copies are sent to Federal, State, and local officials and a notice of its receipt is published in the Federal Register.
The application is reviewed to determine that the plant design is consistent with NRC requirements.
Design methods and procedures of calculations are examined to establish their validity.
Checks of actual calculations and other procedures of design and analysis are made by the staff to establish the validity of the applicant's design and to determine that the applicant has conducted his analysis and evaluation in sufficient depth and breadth to support required findings with respect to safety.
During the staff's review, the applicant is required to provide such additional information as is needed to complete the evaluation. The principal features of the staff's review can be summarized as follows:
1.
A review is made of the population density and use characteristics of the site environs, and the physical characteristics of the site, including seismology, meteorology, geology and hydrology, to determine that these characteristics have been evaluated adequately and have been given appropriate consideration in the plant design, and that the site characteristics are in accordance with the siting criteria (10 CFR Part 100), taking into consideration the design of the facility including the engineered safety features provided.
2.
A review is performed of the preliminary facility design, and of proposed programs for fabrication, construction and testing of the plant structures, systems, and components important to safety to determine that they are in accord with NRC requirements and that any departures from these requirements have been identifiec and justified.
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gg 3.
Evaluations are made of the anticipated response of t e reactor to various postualted operating transients and to a broad spectrum of hypothetical accidents. The potential consequences of these hypothetical accidents are then evaluated conservatively to deterrine that the calculated potential offsite doses that might result, in the very unlikely event of their occurrence, would not exceed the NRC guidelines for site acceptability.
4.
A review is made of the applicant's proposed plans for the conduct of plant operations including the organizational structure, the technical qualifications of operating and technical support personnel, the measures taken for industrial security, and the planning for emergency actions to be taken in the unlikely event of an accident that might affect the general public. An important aspect of this review includes an assessment of the applicant's proposed programs for quality assurance and quality control to assure comaliance with the Commission's requirements.
These reviews form the basis for determining whether the applicant is technically qualified to operate the plant and whether it has established effective organizations and plans for safe operation of the plant.
5.
Evaluations are made of the design of tne proposed systems provided for control of the radiological effluents from the plant to determine that these systems can control the release of radioactive wastes from the plant within the limits specified by NRC requirements and that the applicant will operate the plant in such a manner as to reduce radioactive releases to levels that are as low as is reasonably achievable.
This review is conducted by members of the NRC staff and its consultants over a period of about one to two years.
The staff and applicant interact frequently during the course of the review in working type meetings. At these meetings information is exchanged, problems are discussed and resolved and staff positions are clarified.
Intervenors and other interested members of the public are generally invited to staff-applicant meetings as observers.
The review process includes the consideration of programs proposed by an applicant for a construction permit to verify plant design features and to confirm design margins. The review process includes consideration of basic research and development programs necessary to assure the resolution of safety questions associated with safety features or ccaponents. The applicant must identify any research and development work that will be conducted to confirm the adequacy or to resolve any safety questions associated with the design of a particular facility, alor.g with a schedule for completion of that research and development work.
Ali such safety questions must be re. solved prior to operation of the facility.
After completion of consturction, nuclear power plants are subject to operating license procedures and requirements.
Data'obtained fr r esearch and development programs on particular facilities and fror tFe Comission's safety research program are factored into these licensing reviews'.
?00R ORGlNM 22m u7
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When the review and evaluation of the application progresses to the point that the staff concludes that acceptable criteria, prelininary design information and financial information are documented adequately.in the application, a Safety Evaluation Report is prepared. 'This report represents a summary of the review and evaluation of the application by the staff relative to the anticipated effect of the proposed facility on the public health and safety.
The Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), an independent statutory committee established to provide advice to the NRC on reactor safety, reviews each application for a construction permit for a nuclear power plant.
The ACRS is composed of a maximum of fifteen nenbers who, though not NRC employees, are appointed by the NRC for terms of four years each.
The members are experienced, technically trained individuals selected from various technical disciplines, having ap:licable experience in industry, research activities, and in the academic area.
The ACRS also makes use of consultants in specialized technical disciplines.
As soon as an application for a construction permit is docketed, copies of the PSAR are provided to the ACRS.
Each application is assigned to an ACRS subcommittee, usually made up of four to five ACRS members.
During the course of the review by the staff, the ACRS is kept informed of the staff's requests for additional information from the applicant and of meetings held, so that the subcommittee is aware of any developments that may warrant a change in the plant.
In those cases where the plant is a " standard design" and the site appears generally acceptable, the subcommittee review does not begin until the staff has nearly completed its detailed review of all the safety-related features of the pl an t.
Where new or modified concepts or special site consideraticns are involved, the ACRS subcommittee begins its formal review earlier in tFa process, selecting appropriate stages in the staff review to begin a series of meetings with the applicant and staff.
Normally, before the full Committee considers a project, the staff provides its Safety Evaluation Report (SER) for the Committee's-information.
This staff report and the report of the ACRS subcommittee form the basis for Committee consideration of a project.
Special attention is given to those items which are of particular safety significance for the reactor involved and any new or advanced features proposed by the applicant. The full Committee meets at least once with the staff and with the applicant to discuss the application. These meetings are open to the public. When the Committee has completed its review, its report is submitted to the NRC in the form of a letter to the Chairman, which is made public.
The staff prepares one or more supplements to the Safety Evaluatio-Report to address the safety issues raised by the ACRS in its report and to include any other information made 'available since issuance of the original Safety Evaluation Report.
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Either concurrently with or separately from the radiological safety review, an environmental review is performed by the staff and its coasultants to evaluate the potential environmental impact of the proposed plant, as well as to provide comparisons between the benefits to be derived and the possible risk to the environment.
After completion of this aview, a Draft Environmental Statement (DES), containing conclusions on environmental matters, is issued.
The DES is circulated for review and comments by the appropriate Federal, State and local agencies as well as by private individuals and organizations.
After receipt of all comments and resolution of any outstanding issues, a Final Environmental Statement (FES) is issued and also is made public. The SER and its supplements and the FES constitute the staff's primary evidence at the subsequent public hearings.
The law requires that a public hearing be held before a construction permit may be issued for a nuclear power plant.
Soon af ter an application is docketed the NRC issues a notice of the hearing which will be held after completion of the NRC staff safety and environmental reviews.
In addition, the hearing is noticed in several newspapers in the vicinity of the proposed plant and a public announcement is issued by the NRC.
Opportunity is afforded for members of the public to participate in the hearing.
Members of the public may submit written statements to the licensing board to be entered into the hearing record, they may appear to give direct statements at the hearing, or they may petition for leave to intervene as full parties in the hearing. At an early stage in the review process, potential intervenors are invited to meet informally and discuss with the staff their concerns with respect to the proposed facility.
Jhe pub'.ic hearing is conducted by a three-member Atomic Safety and Licensing Board appointed from the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel. The board is composed of one lawyer, who acts as chair-person, and two technically qualified persons. The hearing may be a combined safety and environmental hearing or, in the case of a split application, separate hearings. The board considers all the evidence which has been presented, together with findings of fact and conclusions of law filed by the parties and issues an initial decision.
If the initial decision regarding NEPA and safety matters is favorable, a con-struction permit is issued to the applicant by the Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. The board's initial decision is subject to review by an Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board and the Comission.
NRC regulations provide that the Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation may authorize limited construction work to be carried cut prior to the issuance of the construction permit. This authorization is known as a Limited Work Authorization (LWA). The regulations provide for the authorization of two types of work.
One type may authorize site preparation work, installation of tenporary construction support #acil ities, excavaticn,
construction of service facilities and certain other ccr.struction not subject to the quality assurance requirements.
The seccnd tpe of LWA may authorize the installation of structural foundations.
An LWA may be granted only after the licensing board has rade all of the
?00R ORGlNAL 22c9 339
2 p
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) findings required by the Comission's regulations for the issuance of a construction permit and has determined that there is reasonable assurance that the proposed site is a suitable location for a nuclear power reactor of the general size and type proposed from a raaiological health and safety standpoint.
The second type may be granted if, in addition to the findings described above, the hearing board determines that there are no unresolved safety issues relating to the work to be authori::ed.
The law requires that antitrust aspects of a nuclear power plant license application must be considered in the licensing process. The antitrust information submitted by the applicant is sent to the Attorney General for advice on whether activities under the proposed license would create or maintain a situation inconsistent with the antitrust laws.
Upon receipt, the Attorney General's advice is promptly publisned and opportunity is prcvided for members of the public to raise antitrust issues.
An antitrust hearing may be held based on the reconcendaticn cf the Attorney General or on the petition of an interested party.
In any event, the NRC must make a finding on antitrust matters.
Antitrust hearings are held separately from hearings on environmental and safety natters.
When the construction of the nuclear plant has progressed to the point where final design information and plans for operation are ready, the applicant submits the Final Safety Analysis Report in support of an application for an operating license.
The FSAR sets forth the pertinent details on the final design of the facility, including final containment design, design of the nuclear core, ano waste handling systen. The FSAR also provides plans for operation and procedures for coping with emergencies.
Again the staff makes a detailed review of the information.
A endments to the. application and reports may be submitted from time to time.
The staff again prepares a Safety Evaluation Report (re the operating license) and, as during the construction permit stage, the ACRS makes an independent evaluation and presents its advice to the Conmission.
A public hearing is not mandatory with respect to an operating license
- application. However, soon after acceptance for review of the operating license application, the Comission publishes notice that it is considering issuance of the license.
The notice provides that any person whose interest might be affected by the proceeding may petition the NRC for a hearing.
If a public hearing is held, the same decision process described for the construction permit hearing is applicable.
Each license for operation of a nuclear reactor contains Technical Specifications, which set forth the particular safety and envi-onmental protection neasures to be imposed upon the plant, and the concitions of its operation that are to be met in order to assure protectior. of the health and safety of the public and of the surrounding environment.
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Through its inspection and enforcement program, the !!RC raintains surveillance over construction and ooeration of a plant throughout its lifetime to assure compliance with Conmission regulations for the protection of public health and safety and the environment.
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JM 2 51979 INSURING SAFE DESIGN OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS The Nuclear Regulatory Conmission (NRC) conducts a detailed review of all nuclear power plant applications to insure that components, systems and structures important to safety are designed, fabricated, erected, and tested to quality standards commensurate with the importance of the safety functions to be perfonned. These reviews are conducted by some 50 different technical disciplines organized into 30 sections in 17 functional branches within the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
The safety portion of the application for a nuclear power plant is organized in accordance with a Regulatory Guide, the Standard Format and Content of Safety Analysis Reports, which describes the infonnational needs of the NRC staff in reviewing these applications. The conduct of the safety review is in accordance with the Standard Review Plan which describes in some detail how the safety review of Light Water Reactor (LWR) applications is accomplished and which criteria are applied in the acceptance of systems, components and structures important to safety.
The criteria used in the review process include NRC Regulations and Regulatory Guides, and industry standards developed in conjunction with the NRC.
When a nuclear power plant application is submitted, it is first subjected to a preliminary review to determine whether it contains sufficient infor-mation to satisfy the Commission requirements for a detailed review.
If the application is not sufficiently complete, the staff makes specific requests for additional information. The application is formally docketed only if it meets certain minimum acceptance criteria.
In addition, when the Preliminary Safety Analysis Report (PSAR) is submitted, a substantive review and inspertion of the applicant's quality assurance program covering design and procurement is conducted. Guides for the preparation of the documents, detailing the kind of information needed, have been developed by the staff to aid applicants in preparing acceptable applications.
The staff reviews a construction permit application to determine among other things, if the public health and safety will be fully protected.
If any portion of the application is considered to be inadequate, the staff requests the applicant to make appropriate modifications or provide needed additional information.
The application is reviewed to determine that the plant design is con-sistent with NRC rules and regulations. Design methods and procedures of calculations are examined to establish their validity.
Checks of actual calculations and other procedures of design and analysis are made by the staff to establish the validity of the applicant's design and to determine that the applicant has conducted his analysis and evaluation in sufficient depth and breadth to support required findings in respect to safety.
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. JAN 2 51979 With regard to accident evaluation, there are specific design features which must be an integral part of nuclear power plants and whose design basis assumes that there is a release from the reactor pressure vessel of the fission products contained in the nuclear core. This assumption is made on a deterministic basis (i.e., no rational mechanism is assumed to be required to obtain this release) so as to impose extremely con-servative design conditions on the engineered safety measures which are physically incorporated in the power plant to mitigate the consequences of any postulated accident. However, this assumption implies that there is a complete failure of the safety systems which are specifically de-signed to prevent this release of fission products from the reactor core.
This method of designing safety systems to withstand postulated worst case accidents, then assuming a failure of these systems and designing physically separate backup systems, which are diverse in principal, is known as " defense-in-depth."
Some of the engineered safety systems which are typically incorporated into the plant design and which mitigate the consequences of the postu-lated accident are the primary containment, the secondary containment, containment sprays, and charcoal filters.
Prior to licensing a nuclear power plant, the NRC staff must be satisfied that the individual doses received by the public at specified distances from the facility following the design basis accident (i.e., the fission product release from the reactor pressure vessel) are within the guideline values contained in 10 CFR Part 100. These specified distances are identified as the radius of the exclusion area and the radius of the low population zone.
Typical values of these distances are about 1/2 mile for the exclusion area and about 3 to 5 miles for the low population zone. These distances vary with plant site and are dependent on the power level of a facility, the engineered safety features, and the pertinent meteorological conditions of the plant site.
In addition to the safety review of nuclear power plant applications, the NRC technical staff conducts evaluations of potential safety problems that may apply to many reactors of a given design type. The detailed review and independent analyses of emergency core cooling system (ECCS) per-fonnance, anticipated transients without scram (ATWS), and containment pressure are examples of this type of generic study. The staff also conducts engineering audits of reactor vendors and architect-engineer design calculations and procedures to assure confonnance with safety de-sign practice. The safety review of problems of operating reactors are another means of insuring safe design by applying the findings reached in these reviews to the licensing process.
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uri 2 51979 The licensing process includes the consideration of programs proposed by an applicant for a construction permit to verify plant design fea-tures and to confirm design margins.
Data cbtained from research and development programs on particular facilities and from the Commission's safety research program are factored into these licensing reviews.
When the revisw and evaluation of the application progresses to the point that the staff concludes that acceptable criteria, preliminary design information and financial information are documented in the application, a Safety Evaluation Report is prepared. This report represents a summa ~y of the review and evaluation of the application by the staff rel. ve to the anticipated effect of the proposed facility on the public her.1 and safety.
When the construction of the nuclear facility has progressed to the point where final design information and plans for operation are ready, the applicar.t submits the Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR) in support of an application for an operating license. The FSAR sets forth the pertinent details on the final design of the facility, including final containment design, design of the nuclear core, and waste handling system. The FSAR also supplies plans for operation and procedures for coping with emergencies. Again, the staff makes a detailed review of the information. Amendments to the application and reports may be submitted from time to time. The staff again prepares a Safety Eval-uation Report (re the operating license) as in the construction permit stage.
Each license for operation of a nuclear reactor contains Technical Specifications, which set forth the particular safety and environmental protection measures to be imposed upon the facility and the conditions of its operation that are to be met in order to assure protection of the health and safety of the public and of the surrounding environment.
Through its inspection and enforcement program, the NRC maintains sur-vtillance over construction and operation of a plant throughout its lifetime to assure compliance with Commission regulations for the pro-tection of public health and safety and the environment.
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JAN 2 51979 DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION CRITERIA FOR NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS In the two-stage licensing process for a nuclear power plant, the review conducted by the NRC staff at the construction permit stage is directly concerned with the acceptability of the "... proposed design of the facility, including, but not limited to, the principal archi-tectural and engineering criteria for the design..."
The minimum requirements for the principal design criteria for water-cooled nuclear power plants are contained in Appendix A, " General Design Criteria for Nuclear Power Plants", of 10 CFR Part 50.
Some of the more important and essential elements of the principal design criteria for a nuclear power plant are the proposed construc-tion procedures. Many of these procedures are contained and codified in well-known design and construction codes which have been published and adopted by national societies and institutes.
A few examples of these codes are:
(1) the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code publish-ed by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; (2) the ACI codes published by the American Concrete Institute; (3) the AISC Code for Steel Structures published by the American Institute for Steel Construc-tion; and (4) the codes and standards of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
This listing illustrates that there are widely used standards and codes which can be adopted to provide assurances that acceptable construction procedures are followed during the construc-tion phase of nuclear power plants. These national standards have been used in many different types of construction projects for many years and have provided acceptable protection of the public health and safety.
In addition to the national standards discussed above, the NRC has established guidance for applicants for licenses to construct and operate nuclear power plants. This guidance is contained in the NRC Regulatory Guides which are issued to either supplement the national standards or to provide guidance for acceptable design criteria when the national standards are not sufficiently conservative for certain aspects of the construction of nuclear power plants.
Where possible, the NRC staff issues design criteria for specific systems or components of nuclear power plants.
These specific design criteria are contained in Branch Technical Positions and reflect the knowledge obtained from the review of previous applications for licenses and from the operating experience of licensed nuclear power plants.
Finally, the staff establishes ad hoc design criteria for the construction of nuclear power plants when the existing national standards, regulatory guides and Branch Technical Positions do not address unique design features of a proposed facility.
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JAN 2 51979 QUALITY ASSURANCE Because of the need for protection of public health, safety and the environment, it is necessary to assure that disciplined engineering and responsible management practices are applied to the design, fabrication, construction and operation of nuclear power plants. This is the essence of a good quality assurance (QA) program.
The NRC's quality assurance requirements are contained in Appendix B to Part 50 of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, " Quality Assurance Criteria for Nuclear Power Plants and Fuel Reprocessing Plants." These criteria provide a basis upon which the NRC judges the acceptability of QA programs. The criteria of Appendix B apply to all activities affecting safety-related functions of nuclear power plant structures, systems, and components.
NRC has several specific QA responsibilities.
First, it has a respon-sibility for developing the criteria and guides for judging the acceptability of nuclear power plant QA programs.
Second, it has a responsibility for reviewing the descriptions of QA programs of the licensee and his principal contractors to assure that sufficient management and program controls are provided.
Finally, NRC inspects selected activities to determine that the QA programs are being implemented effectively.
Each NRC licensee is responsible for assuring that his nuclear power plants are built and operated safely and in confonnance with the NRC regulations.
Licensees also are required to assure that their suppliers meet the applicable NRC criteria.
In this respect, the licensee is responsible for functions such as product inspection and nondestructive testing of reactor components, structures, and systems even though he may, on occasion, delegate the actual performance of the activity to another organization.
The NRC QA program review process involves the following sequence:
Approximately 9 months before an applicant applies for a construction permit, NRC staff personnel meet with him to discuss NRC's QA re-quirements and the mechanics of NRC's review and inspection activities associated with a construction permit application.
Even prior to a construction permit application, a utility must demonstrate that it has developed and is implementing an effective QA program for any safety-related ongoing activity.
Immediately af ter receipt of the application for a construction permit, NRC conducts an accelerated review of the QA program description con-tained in the applicant's Preliminary Safety Analysis Report (PSAR).
This review determines if the applicant has established a satisfactory QA program in the areas of organization, program, design control, 2209 146
. JAN 2 5 gg
_2 procurement, and audits.
If the QA program description is found unacceptable during this review, the application is not docketed.
If the QA program description is acceptable, an inspection is made to evaluate QA program implementation.
Following docketing, the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation staff conducts a detailed review and evaluation of the description of the QA program of the applicant and his principal contractors, including the reactor vendor, the architect-engineer and the constructor.
A conclusion of program acceptability is based on defined acceptance criteria and the staff verifies that:
(1) the organizations and persons performing QA functions have the required independence and authority to effectively carry out the QA program without undue influence from those directly responsible for costs and schedules, and (2) the QA program descriptions contains requirements and controls which, when properly implemented, comply with the requirements of Appendix B.
The NRC's Office of Inspection and Enforcement (0IE) conducts periodic scheduled and unannounced field inspections of the applicant's QA pro-gram implementation as well as those of its contractors and suppliers.
These inspections start prior to docketing of the application and con-tinue throughout the construction phase, the preoperational test program and the operating lifetime of the facility.
These field inspections during the construction phase are extensive and cover:
(1) a review of the applicant's QA performance, including audits of the applicant's QA records and documentation; (2) a witnessing of the construction practices and an inspection of the facility at various stages of construction; and (3) a review of the qualifications and training of the construction personnel as well as those of the quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) personnel.
The review of the qualifications and training of the QA/QC personnel is conducted for all personnel at the site, including the specialized subcontractors, and at the manufacturing facilities of the vendors and suppliers.
During the operating license review phase, the staff reviews the description of the operational QA program in much the same manner as the QA program description for construction was reviewed earlier. The NRC maintains its QA responsibilities throughout the operational lifetime of a nuclear power plant.
These responsibilities are discharged through frequent and regular inspections of operations and records for compliance with NRC requirements.
Also, the NRC staff must review and approve any change to licensed operating conditions.
2209 147
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In the former case, the staff requires appropriate program upgrading.
In the latter case, NRC uses enforcement G
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if a general problem develops, improvements in QA programs are made on i
an industry-wide basis.
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the leadership role in assuring the quality of their plants and operations.
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specifications and QA procedures and practices for each task and their implementation by the workers on the job. And, most importantly, there 4
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involvement of top management in QA programs. The NRC evaluates those programs, the licensees execute them, and the NRC assesses performance.
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