ML20049H510
| ML20049H510 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 02/28/1982 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUREG-0864, NUREG-864, NUDOCS 8203030226 | |
| Download: ML20049H510 (78) | |
Text
NUREG-0864 Review and Evaluation of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Safety Research Program for Fiscal Year 1983 A Report to the Congress of the United States of America U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards
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- 0864 R PDR
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Review and Evaluation of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Safety Research Program for Fiscal Year 1983 A Report to the Congress of the United States of America Manuscript Completed: February 1982 Date Published: February 1982 Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 i
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UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION n
- E ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS WASHINGTON, D. C. 20555 0,
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February 12, 1982 The Honorable George H. W. Bush The President of the Senate The Honorable Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr.
The Speaker of the House Gentl emen:
I am pleased to transmit to the Congress the report of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards on the Nuclear Regulatory Commis-sion Safety Research Program for Fiscal Year 1983.
This report is required by Section 29 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 as amended by Section 5 of Public Law 95-209.
Part I of this report is intended to serve as the Executive Summary. Part II includes specific comments and recoamendations on the research involved in various Decision Units of the NRC research program.
A copy of this report is being sent to the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Respectfully submitted, Paul G. Shewmon Chairman
l TABLE OF CONTENTS l
l l
PAGE PREFACE......................................................... vii i
PART I
GENERAL COMMENT
S AND RECOMMENDATIONS....................
1 i
(
1.
I n t ro d uc t i o n........................................
3 2.
Ge neral Recommenda tio n s.............................
4 3.
Some Matters Warranting Higher Priori ty.............
5 4.
Budget Recommendations..............................
8 5.
Ge n e ral Commen ts...................................
11 6.
Specific Comments and Recommendations..............
12 Tabl e 1 - Proposed FY 1983 Budget......................
13 PART II SPECIFIC COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS.................
15 1.
LOCA AND TRANSIENT RESEARCH........................
17 2.
L0FT...............................................22 3.
ACCIDENT EVALVATION AND MITIGATION.................
23 4.
ADVANCED REACT 0RS..................................
27 5.
REACTOR TND FACILITY ENGINEERING...................
29 6.
FACILITY OPERATIONS AND SAFEGUARDS.................
36 7.
WASTE MANAGEMENT...................................
43 8.
SITING AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH..................
48 9.
SYSTEMS AND RELI ABILITY ANALYSIS...................
54 APPENDI X A - REFERENCES........................................
61 AP PE ND I X B - GL 0SS ARY..........................................
63 APPENDIX C - ACRS CHARTER AND MEMBERSHIP.......................
65 y
I l
l PREFACE This is the fifth report by the Advisory Committee on Reactor i
Safeguards (ACRS) that has been prepared in response to the I
Congressional requirement for an annual report on the Nuclear j
Regulatory Commission (NRC) Reactor Safety Research Program.
As previously requested by the Congress, the timing of this report has been adjusted to enable the ACRS to address the proposed i
budget for FY 1983 that has been submitted to the Congress by the President.
As in previous reports, we have interpreted the words " reactor safety research" to include safety-related research in all phases of the nuclear fuel cycle and power plant operations, excluding caly that having to do with nonsafety-related environmental Concerns.
Part I is a compilation of our general recommendations regarding the NRC Safety Research Program, and includes our budget recommen-dations and an identification of areas where higher priority of efforts should be directed. It is intended to serve as an Execu-tive Summary.
Part II is divided into nine chapters, each of which represents a Decision Unit of the NRC research program.
In each chapter, we have included specific comments on the research involved in the Decision Unit, an assessment of priorities, and recommendatiors regarding new directions and levels of funding.
All references to funding in this report relate to funds budgeted for program support.
Funds allocated for NRC personnel, adminis-trative support, and equipment have not been included.
vii
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-,e 1-a u-a
-w PART I l
GENERAL COMffENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS I
i 1
l l
GENERAL COMMENT
S AND REC 0rlMENDATIONS 1.
Introduction l
This report provides a review of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Safety Research Program for FY 1983. The Advisory Committee
(
on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) has reviewed this program annually at the request of the Congress since 1977. The program consists of a diverse set of activities, many of which were initiated by the Atomic Energy Commission many years before the NRC was assigned the national responsibili ty for regul ating commercial nucicar activities in the interest of public safety.
Hence, the program has many elements that have a long historical background and, in fact, many of the older programs consume the bulk of the funding provided for the Safety Research Program. The ACRS, in its review of the FY 1982 NRC Safety Research Program (Ref.1)*, made some suggestions for altering work and shifting funding.
The most significant change recommended at that time was an early phasing out of the loss of fluid test (LOFT) program and a redistribution of that funding to other work.
It was recognized that the phasing out of LOFT could not be done abruptly. Nevertheless, in a period of diminishing appropriations, i
further reduced by inflationary factors, it appeared essential to the ACRS that some parts of the program be reoriented in order to obtain more effective use of the research funds on problems of current interest. The safety issues associated with nuclear power plants have changed with time and many of the issues thought to be of great importance when the LOFT program was initiated have been resolved or are now recognized to be of secondary importance as the result of reappraisal of the important nuclear safety issues subsequent to the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) accident.
The NRC Safety Research Program support funding is $196.6 million in FY 1982, and the proposed budget for FY 1983 is $195.2 million.
The requested level of funding for FY 1982, recommended by the ACRS and partially accepted by the NRC, was reduced significantly by the Congress in response to the Administration's budget-reduction program.
At the same time, the Congress directed a
- References appear in Appendix A.
3
delay in the timing of the LOFT phaseout.
This review of the FY 1983 program again focuses on priorities in research and recommends certain reallocations of funds.
If the funding for LOFT is increased from that in the proposed budget, based on the current schedule for phaseout, many of the actions recommended in this review will need to be reexamined.
2.
General Recommendations In its report to the Congress on the NRC Safety Research Program for FY 1982 (Ref. 1), the ACRS commented on the need for policy guidance from the Commissioners on major open safety issues and the development by the NRC licensing staff of a broad framework and perspective within which they might better assign priorities for their user requests to the research office.
We believe that some progress has been made along these lines but that additional guidance is needed.
The approach to reactor safety includes efforts both to prevent accidents and to mitigate accident consequences. The NRC research program should address both of these objectives.
To accomplish this, both for plants in operation or under construction and for plants yet to be designed, the NRC needs to develop further the necessary information about causes and likelihood of accident initiators; to investigate the important phenomena involved in accidents; and to explore alternative design and operational features that may sharply reduce or limit consequences even if a serious accident occurs.
The NRC has had a research program dealing with some aspects of all of these matters.
But, it has not had a well-focused program in which, first, the major questions to be answered are defined, and then, specific analyses and experiments to be perfonned are identified on the basis that they provide the information needed for decision-making.
As a result, the NRC has made little progress in developing the information needed for decision-making in regard to the Severe Accident Rulemaking, nor has it developed a sound basis for promulgating the safety criteria that would be appropriate for a next generation of light-water reactors (LWRs) yet to be designed.
The response to the THI-2 accident has largcly been the implemen-tation of remedies to specific issues which were subject to early identification and resolution.
There has been a lagging, incoher-ent approach to the more general, and probably more important, safety issues which came to the fore as implications of the TMI-2 accident.
4
We believe that needed shif ts in emphasis in the NRC Safety Research Program have still not occurred.
As a prime example, although a large portion of the research budget is now allocated to the Decision Unit enti tled, " Accident Evaluation and Mitiga-tion," this program has not been laid out to answer specific questions that have been carefully defined as requiring answers and ascertained as being answerable.
In Section 3 which follows, specific recommendations are made concerning several issues that should receive higher priority in the NRC Safety Research Program.
This is followed in Section 4 by recommendations for a reallocation of funds among the various Decision Units.
3.
Some Matters Warranting Higher Priority 3.1 Human Factors The role of the human in reactor safety has received considerable emphasis since the TMI-2 accident.
The NRC Safety Research Program in this area has been focused in large part on improve-ments in control rooms, in the display and monitoring of safety parameters, and in operator training and precedures.
We believe that the NRC should take the initiative in defining a broadened research program on human factors, one which allows industry the lead role where industry has accepted and is meeting the responsi-bility of establishing an appropriate program.
Among the matters which this broadened program should include are the following:
e Improved bases for decision-making in the control room during complex transients, including more comprehensive plant proce-dures and development of a diagnostic adjunct to the Safety Parameter Display System (SPDS).
e Development of an improved approach for judging the effective-ness of licensee management.
e Improved understanding of the impact of maintenance and testing activities on plant safety.
3.2 Control Systems and Plant Operational Safety In our previous reports to the Congress and Commission (Ref. 1 and 2), we have recommended that higher priority and greater funding be given to the role of control systems in safety.
Related matters of plant operational safety, such as instrumentation systems for the detection of inadequate core cooling, also-deserve i
5
additional work. The NRC has initiated some effort on the more general issues involved, but we believe that higher priority and funding levels are warranted than those proposed by the NRC.
3.3 Sabotage In recent years, the NRC has imposed fairly extensive requirements on access control for nuclear power plants for purposes of secu-rity.
However, a thorough evaluation of possible design ap-proaches to help protect against sabotage by an insider has not been undertaken and the U.S. does not now include some protective measures which are required in several European countries.
We believe that study of further protective measures against sabotage warrants high priority and the research necessary to assist NRC decision-making should be expedited.
3.4 Aging As nuclear plant operating life advances, some degradation in its equipment and systems must be expected.
Pressure vessel embrit-tlement has been recognized for many years to increase with accumulated fast neutron fluence requiring adjustment of the operating temperature and pressure limits to assure rupture resistance.
The frequency of steam generator tube leakage also increases with operating life.
Organic coverings of electrical and control cabling, elastomer seals on equipment closures, and potting compounds for electrical connections are all known to deteriorate under extended exposure to humidity and temperature conditions and low level gamma and beta irradiation.
Cyclic operating conditions affect the performance reliability of valves, motor operators, ventilation machinery, and comparable equipment.
Emergency diesel power equipment and DC power sources also are subject to degradation with operating use.
The safety of nuclear power plants depends on making certain that such degradation with age is recognized and accommodated before it can cause significant reduction in safety.
There is inadequate knowledge regarding the effectiveness of the surveillance programs related to aging and the effects of operat-ing transients on equipment that has deteriorated with age.
As highlighted by the recent concern for thermal shock on some older pressure vessels, it appears important to apply some research effort to improve understanding of the safety significance of loss of capability through such aging.
The NRC should initiate a comprehensive, systematic investigation of safety-related effects of aging for LWRs.
6
3.5 Ouality in Design and Construction of Nuclear Facilities Construction and operating experience continue to highlight the need for added emphasis on improved quality in LWRs.
Studies should be initiated to examine the potential for reducing the incidence of design and construction errors. Inese studies should take account of the experience and practices in other high tech-nologies and in other countries.
In addition, studies are needed to determine the ability of operating plants to operate safely in spite of various kinds of design and construction fl aws.
l 3.6 Standardization There is a growing opinion in favor of standardization of LWRs as it affects both the safety and the reliability of nuclear power plants.
However, the term standardization is ill-defined and, if standardization is pursued, it should be done in a way that ensures improvements.
We reco'mmend that the NRC initiate the studies necessary to formulate a regulatory position on this matter, including the possibility of recommending changes in the antitrust laws, if necesssary.
3.7 Some Other Matters Warranting Increased Emphasis Other matters warranting increased emphasis, priority, and funding in the NRC Safety Research Program include the following:
e Improved approaches to more reliable shutdown heat-removal systems for both the reactor and the containment.
e Expanded knowledge about the likelihood and effects of severe water hammer during a wide range of possible transients and accidents.
3.8 University Grants The NRC previously supported a small program of grants to univer-sities for safety research.
The program has been essentially terminated by the NRC as part of the recent budget cuts.
We believe that it would be in the best interest of the Nation for the NRC to have a program of modest grants to universities for relevant safety research.
We believe that such a program would help to provide a much increased understanding, knowl. edge and background on reactor safety in the university community which would be advantageous to the national interest.
7
4.
Budget Recommendations 4.1 General We believe that an effective safety research program can be carried out within the proposed budget of $195.2 million for FY 1983, but recommend certain reallocations among Decision Units as indicated in Table 1 and discuesed below.
We ielieve that the proposed budget of $47.2 million for the Decision unit on Accident Evaluation and Mitigation is greater than appropriate or necessary in view of the reduced overall budget and the absence of a program that is focused to meet NRC needs.
We recommend that the research funding for this area be reduced and the effort redirected, as discussed in more detail in Section 4.2 below.
We recommend that fundinq for this Decision Unit be reduced by $6 million and that this amount be reallocated to the Decision Units on Advanced Reactors, Facility Operations and Safeguards, Siting and Environmental Research, and Systems and Reliability Analysis, as indicated in Table 1.
The $13 million proposed for Advanced Reactors Research will provide for a modest program on gas-cooled reactors, at a level of about $2.5 million, and will provide the research needed to support review of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor (CRBR) license application at a level of about $10.5 million.
These funds will permit little or no research on more general problems relating to large commercial liquid metal fast breeder reactors (LMFBRs).
However, of more immediate need is research to aid the development of a regulatory position, including design criteria, for post-CRBR LMFBRs.
We recommend an increase of $1 million in this Decision Unit for this purpose.
In contrast to our previous recommendation (Ref.1) that the LOFT test program be completed and the facility placed in a standby mode by the end of FY 1982, the Congress has directed a program that will not be completed until FY 1983.
Under these conditions, the proposed funding of $15 million for LOFT will be needed to complete the current program. We do not recommend a change in the proposed funding level for this item in FY 1983, even though it is still our opinion that there are more urgent research needs that could have been funded with this money.
Additional discussion on these matters follows.
8
4.2 Accident Evaluation and Mitigation in our previous report to the Congress (Ref.1) and in our report to the NRC on the planned FY 1983 budget (Ref. 2), we identified this Decision Unit as a high priority item.
However, we stated that the funding within this Decision Unit should be reallocated internally to provide the information needed for the Degraded Core Cooling Rulemaking, now called the Severe Accident Rul emaking.
We find that the NRC program, as proposed, is not responsive to these recommendations.
The proposed Severe Accident Research Plan is composed primarily of expensive, long-tenn experiments whose results we believe are not needed to resolve the major issues related to severe accidents.
The programs in this Decision Unit should be restructured so that the primary priority is to provide the information needed for decision-making concerning features to mitigate the consequences of accidents involving severe core damage or core melt, for reactors in operation or under construc-tion and for reactors yet to be designed.
This would allow the elimination of a substantial portion of the longer-term experimen-tal and code development work.
Although we continue to give high priority to research needed for regul atory decision-making with regard to severe accidents, we believe that the funcHng for this Decision Unit should be reduced enough to enable pursuit of the high priority work identified in the Decision Units on Advanced Reactors, Facility Operations and Safeguards, Siting and Environmental Research, and Systems and Reliability Analysis.
We recommend a reduction in funding of
$6 million.
4.3 LMFBR Safety Research The proposed budget includes $10.5 elllion for LMFBR safety research in FY 1983, and NRC intends to devote the sum exclusively to meeting CRBR licensing needs.
Although the NRC has not yet finalized a detailed research program, the proposed funding level appears reasonable for the intended purpose.
In our previous report to the Congress (Ref.1), we recommended funding of about $20 million for LMFBR research.
We continue to believe that such a level is appropriate if Congress continues to fund a large, long-range Department of Energy (DOE) LMFBR develop-ment program or if it expects the Nation to move forward with a demonstration unit larger than CRBR within a few years.
In our previous report to the NRC (Ref. 2), we urged that past generic work be continued, planned studies to meet CRBR licensing needs be 9
perfomed, new CRBR studies be initiated, and considerably in-creased attention be devoted to long-range planning of LMFBR research.
In recognition of current budget realities, we do not recommend a significant increase in the total research budget for FY 1983 to provide for LMFBR research, as we did in our previous report to Congress (Ref.1), but we do recommend an internal reallocation to provide an additional $1 million for this program, as shown in Table 1.
We believe that this reallocated sum should be earmarked specifically for research to aid the development of a regulatory position for post-CRBR LMFBRs. We believe that the NRC should provide safety advice at the design-initiation stage of an LMFBR as well as during the construction permit review stage; in the absence of an established position, the NRC was not prepared to provide such advice for either CRBR or for the Conceptual Design Study which was submitted to Congress in March 1981.
Further, without such a position, it is difficult to define needed research programs, their costs, their priorities, and their schedules.
We recommend that the NRC move promptly to initiate design criteria studies for post-CRBR LMFBRs, to define safety research needs for such units, and to define an appropriate safety research program.
The program should be coordinated with ongoing safety research being performed by DOE as well as by foreign groups and should include topics such as the following:
e What are the safety questions on which research is needed?
e On which questions should NRC perform the research and why?
e How can each question be resolved and what priority should the work receive?
e What is the estimated cost to resolve the questions?
4.4 LOFT In our report to the Congress on the NRC Safety Research Program for FY 1982 (Ref.1), we recognized the limitations on funding and proposed curtailment of the LOFT program in order to provide funds for other matters warranting higher priority.
Specifically, we recommended that the LOFT tests be completed by the end of FY 1982 and that expenditures he limited to about $30 million. This would have permitted the LOFT facility to be placed in a standby mode with only limited funding needed in FY 1983.
In its appropriation for FY 1982, the Congress directed the NRC to carry out a full complement of tests in LOFT.
As a result, in FY 1982, research programs have been reduced in other areas that we consider'to be of much greater importance and higher priority.
10
Because the larger test program will not be completed until January 1983, the proposed FY 1983 budget for LOFT is $15 million instead of about $5 million that would have been sufficient to maintain it in a standby mode if the test program had been cur-tailed and completed earlier.
With the reduced overall Safety Research Progran budget for FY 1983, this additional cost for the LOFT tests continues to reduce funds for other areas that we consider to be of higher priority.
5.
General Comments The following general comments were made in our previous report to j
the Congress (Ref. 1).
Although they are being implemented to some extent, they are even more important now because of the l
significant reductions in the safety research budget for FY 1983 l
and for the foreseeable future.
If those safety research areas which are judged to have the potential for greater impact in protecting the public health and safety are to receive the necessary priority, several steps will need to be taken, including the following:
The NRC Commissioners will have to provide prompt policy guid-e ance on the major open safety issues.
e The NRC Staff research user offices will have to reevaluate their approach to formulating requests for research and strive to consider these in some broad framework which takes into account the major issues confronting the agency.
e The Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research (RES) will have to reevaluate its current and proposed programs in terms of risk reduction potential and major regulatory needs.
The NRC will have to judge whether some research, particularly e
that which involves large scale components testing or the application of existing methodology, should be the responsi-bility of the industry or DOE rather than of the NRC.
e The NRC should reduce sharply that research which is merely confirmatory in nature where there is good reason to believe that current regulatory requirements provide adequate protec-tion to the public.
The research program should be designed to provide that infoma-e tion which is most important to NRC decision-making on degraded core and core melt accidents as expeditiously as possible.
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6.
Specific Comments and Recommendations Specific comments and recommendations regarding the scope, nature, and funding levels of the various elements of the research program are presented in Part II of this report.
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f TABLE 1 PROPOSED FY 1983 BUDGET (DOLLARS IN MILLIONS)
ACRS CHAPTER DECISION UNIT PROPOSED RECOMMENDATIONS 1.
LOCA AND TRANSIENT 30.0 30.0 RESEARCH 2.
LOFT 15.0 15.0 3.
ACCIDENT EVALUATION 47.2 41.2 AND MITIGATION 4.
ADVANCED REACTORS 13.0 14.0 5.
REACTOR AND FACILITY 38.0 38.0 ENGINEERING 6.
FACILITY OPERATIONS 13.5 14.5 AND SAFEGUARDS 7.
WASTE MANAGEMENT 13.6 13.6 8.
SITING AND ENVIRON. ENTAL 9.0 10.0 RESEARCH 9.
SYSTEMS AND RELIABILITY 15.9 18.9 ANALYSIS TOTAL PROGRAF 1 SUPPORT 195.2 195.2 13
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