ML20125D425
| ML20125D425 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/11/1992 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T-1944, NUDOCS 9212150189 | |
| Download: ML20125D425 (118) | |
Text
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OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS TR04 (ACRS)
RETURN ORIGINAL TO B.J. WHITE, ACRS-P-315 THANKS! BARBARA J0
- 27288 kOUG U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advirory Committee on Reactor Safeguards I 0' 392nd ACRS Meeting Docket No.
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Bethesda, Maryland l
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OFFICIALTRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS TR04 (ACRS)
RETURN ORIGINAL TO B.J. WHITE, ACRS-P-315 THANKS! BARBARA JO
- 27288 4
kOUG*
U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advirory Committee on Reactor Safeguards-O' 392nd ACRS Meeting Docket No..
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LOCATION:-
Bethesda,, Maryland M
Friday, December 11, 1992/
PAGES: 62 - 443 ACRS Cffich Cg-Reta..m JIGLOM/,*1;)0WU:,;,tu, tin;$nC36
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PUBLIC NOTICE BY THE UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION I
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 4
l 4
4 DATE:
Frlday, December 11, 199.2 e
}
l -
1 4
i The contents of this transcript of the proceedings i
of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission's i
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, (date)
Fridav. December 11. 1992
, as Reported herein, are_a record of the discussions recorded at the meeting. held.on the above date.
This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected-or edited, and.it may'contain inaccuracies.
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
i 4
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS j
5 6
392ND GENERAL MEETING i
7 i
l 8
Nuclear Regulatory Commission i
9 Room P-110 10 7920 Norfolk Avenue j
11 Bethesda, Maryland t
12 I
13 Friday, December-11, 1992 14 15 The above-entitled proceedings commenced at 8:30 16 o' clock a.m.,
pursuant to notice, Paul G. Shewmon,. Committee i
17 Chairman, presiding.
i 18 19 1
20 21 22 23 1
24 25 LO ANN RlLEY & ASSOCIATES, Ltd.
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363 1
PRESENT FOR THE ACRS COMMITTEE 2
3 James C.
Carroll, Vice Chairman l
4 Carlyle Michelson, Member 5
Charles J. Wylie, Member l
6
'Haisid W. Lewis, Member 7
Ivan Catton, Member 8
J. Ernest Wilkins, Jr., Member 9
Thomas S. Kress, Member I
10 William J.
Linblad, Member 11 Peter A. Davis, Member 12 Paul Boehnert, Designated Federal official 13 14 PARTIC' 7NTS :
15 E. Beckjord 16 G. Sege J. Kramer 17 B. Sheron J. Heltemes i
18 T. Speis-L. Shao 19 J. Muscara 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
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PROCEEDINGS 2
(8:30 a.m.]
3 MR. SHETMON:
Good morning.
This is the third day 4
of the 392nd meeting of the ACRS.
During today's meeting we 5
will hear from the Director of NRC Office of Nuclear 6
Regulatory Research, to discuss program and budget.
- Also, 7
the Committee will meet with the NRC Commissioners at One 8
White Flint North between 1:30 and 3:00 to discuss items of 9
mutual interest.
Actually, the list is in the handout 10 which you all have.
11 Portions of today's meeting will be closed to 12 discuss information, that premature disclosure of which 13 would be likely to significantli frustrate proposed Agency 14 action.
This meeting is to be conducted in accordance with 15 the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
Paul 16 Boehnert is the Designated Federal Official for the initial 17 portion of the meeting.
18 We have received no written statement or request 19 for time to make oral statements from members of the public 20 regarding today's session.
A transcript of portions of the 21 meeting is being kept.
It is requested that each speaker 22 use one of the microphones, identify himself or herself, and 23 speak with sufficient clarity and volume so that he or she 24 can be readily heard.
25 Are there any particular announcements today?
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(No response.)
i 2
MR. SHEWMoN If not, we will proceed directly to 1
l 3
Eric Beckjord.
Good morning, and thank you for coming down
]
4 to see us.
5 (Slides.)
6 MR. BECRTORD:
Good morning, gentlemen.
I am 7
going to talk about these topics in the research program, j
8 accomplishments and plans, priorities and so forth.
I think 9
this was what you had requested.
10 We are undergoing some changes, and I aanted to 11 comment on that first.
The background for these is several 12 things.
There are new items coming forth in the agenda 13 which we have discussed with you; advanced reactors, the f-14 light water reactors.
Also, the work on severe accidents, 15 some of tte work that has been underway is continuing.
We 16 expect to oring the current agenda to completion over the l
17 next couple _of years.
I see a scaling back of the work on-i l
18 severe accidents and aging over the next period _of perhaps 19 two to four years as we complete those projects.
l-20 Another_part of the background is the funding i
21 environment.
I_have talked about this with you before.
I 22 think what-I can say about~it,-looking ahead -- I am not 23 predicting _the future, I am just. projecting-what might 24 happen -- the background for research has been a level i
25 funding for about five years now, five or six years
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approximately level.
It has fluctuated a bit about that.
2 During that time the commission's budget has been i
3 increasing quite significantly, up to this year, $540-odd i
4 million.
During that period the committed expenditures have i
j 5
been increasing at the same time.
Those committed 6
expenditures for salaries and real estate and the new f
7 building and that type of thing, they have increased.
The i
8 margin which is left for the things like research and I
i 9
program support have, in fact, not increased.
10 I think that you can say a couple of things about I
11 the future.
I don't think-that the commission's budget will i
i 12 be increasing in the future as it has in the last five 13 years.
That's one point.
A second point is -- and I think l
14 I have discussed this with you.before -- that the-fees that l
15 are paid by the license holders to pay for the commissions j
16 activity have kind of changed the nature of the funding i
{
17 process.
There is a lot of-pressure.- I think they will be j
18 drawing pressure on the part.of the license holder community 19 to continue to try to reduce the cost.
l 20 There are many reasons for this.
The nuclear 21 plants as you know are having_ rising' costs anyway.
Another
,r 22 point is that there are units that'are going out of service, i
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_23 so the base for licenses is decreasing.
Thati means that the j_
24 per unit fee is going to go up, snd people will not be happy j
25 abaut..that.
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1 I think that there is going to be a continuing 2
pressure on the research budget.
I don't see any dramatic 3
changes over the next year.
I think that when all is said 4
and done, we will probably hold at about the same level.
I l
5 don't think there will be increases, and I think it's going i
6 to be difficult from here on out.
7 Against that background, that's how we are 8
planning our research.
The strategy for dealing with this j
9 is quite simple, I think.
It's completion and disposition l
10 of activities which have been underway, part of the i
11 activities on the current agenda.
We know we are going to 1
12 have to work on new things in the future, so we are going to 13 close out current activities as appropriate and move ahead.
I 14 MR. CARROLL:
Eric, for the benefit of our new 15 hembers who haven't heard your state of the research world 16 message before, you might --
17 MR. BECKJoRD:
It changes a bit from yeLr to year.
l 18 MR. CARROLL:
A little bit.
You might want to 19 explain something I didn't understand when I first arrived, 20 and that-is the situation with respect to user fees.
You 21 have to fight for your own budget.
It has nothing to do-l 22 with that.
I didn't understand that.
23 MR. BECKJoRD:
The user fees do not fund-the NRC 24 activities.
All of the funds are appropriated by. Congress.
25 The user fees that are collected by law now are required to
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1 be equal to the costs, and those fees are collected and sent 2
to the Treasury.
So, although you can say that the users 3
pay for the Commission that isn't quite the way it works.
4 All of the funds that we uno are appropriated.
5 Anyway, this summarizes how I see things, 6
completion in site on aging and severe accidents.
I am 7
talking about the current agenda for severe accidents.
I 8
certainly wouldn't predict that there will be no new severe i
9 accident activities in the future.
I am talking about the 4
10 current agendu, which is described -- I think you have seen 11 this in the recent revision of the severe accident research 12 plan.
13 The cont i. circ er Ttri licensing support,
(-)
14 regulatory standards
.a s ' a forth.
Controls here means the 15 prospect of digital instrumartation and control.
The more 16 we see of that, why the more formidable that agenda becomes.
17 Operations refers to man-machine interface, primarily, and 18 human factors.
I am going to be talking some more about 19 that later on.
20 The new emphasis on the advanced reactors, the 21 advanced light water reactors and growing cooperation with 22 Central and Eastern Europe and Russia and the Ukraine, the 23 Independent States.
In prospect, that's going to be a major 24 activity utilizing a lot of our human resources.
You will 25 see in the discussion on the international section, that p,,
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I this area of activity has been growing in the last couple of 2
years to a significant level now.
i j
3 I think that there is more in prospect.
I was at 4
the annual meeting of the Committee on the Safety of Nuclear 5
Installations last week and that dominated the discussion, 4
l 6
that whole subject of aid and assistance to these countries.
7 MR. SHEWMON:
Whose committee is that?
j 8
MR. BECKJORD:
That-is the Nuclear Energy Agency i
9 of the OECD.
10 EMR. SHERMON:
In Paris or in Austria?
1 11 MR. BECKJORD:
In Paris.
i
)
12 MR. WILKINS:
Eric, under the rubric of passive l
l 13 advanced reactors, do you include PIUS and PRISM 7 4
14 MR. BECKJORD:
Yes,,they would be included.
j 15 MR. WILKINS:
You mentioned only the ALWR.
I i
16 MR. DECKJORD:
Those are the ones -- we are doing-l l
17 research on the advanced light water reactors.
I don't i
l 18 think that the other -- we are doing a small amount of A
j 19 looking at these other designs, CANDU.
I don't see that we 20 are in a position to start a research program on them at
- 21 this stage.
{
22 I think the prospect for the advanced reactors, 23 particularly since summer is -- I don't know when'those are 24 going to be forthcoming.
We have-a schedule for 25 certification but I am talking about the real marketplace
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1 for those reactors.
The situation for new orders in this 2
country is certainly not a bright one at this stage.
3
[ Slides.)
4 MR. BECKJORD:
A couple of comments on the budget, 5
which I think what I would like to do is defer the more 6
detailed discussion on the budget until later.
I will just 7
tell you where we are now, in Fiscal Year 1993, at just over 8
$100 million.
This represented an $8 million reduction from 9
the request.
This came as a result of the final action on 10 the fiscal year 1993 budget.
It was reduced, from $550 to 11
$540 million.
It's clearly that 80 percent of that came 12 from the Research program.
J 13 I mention the Chief Financial Officer Act A) k-14 Requirements, because that is going to be affecting our 15 business in very significant ways.
In very broad outline 16 what the Chief Financial Officer Act does, it focuses a lot 17 of attention and puts new requirements on contract and 18 project management.
The affect on the commercial contracts 19 is not very great because by their nature and by the 20 process, commercial contracts today follow all of the 21 government procurement regulations.
22 So, the CFO Act doesn't really add very much to 23 that.
It has a big effect on the national laboratory work 24 that we do.
Because that's 70 percent of our activity in 25 round numbers, it's going to have a big effect on it.
What OV ANN RlLEY & ASSOCIATES, Ltd.
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the effect is, in effect as the Inspector General's people 2
have told us, we cannot rely on the -- the NRC cannot rely i
3 on the Department of Energy accounting system for assurance i
4 that the monies have been spent as indicated.
1 5
That means that we have to spend a lot more time 1
6 in the financial management of these projects.
We have to i
l 7
document it, so that it can pass a rather detailed audit.
8 MR. SHEWMON:
Could you tell me briefly what the 1
9 law says, the CFO Act?
10 MR. BECMORD:
The law says quite a lot, but I am 11 trying to summarize it.
There is a financial --
12 MR. SHEWMON:
It probably doesn't say you can't l
13 trust the DOE.
i 14 MR. BECMORD:
No, that's an interpretation.
15 That's an interpretation.
What is says is that the Chief 16 Financial Officer is responsible for all of the expenditures 17 under the Agency, and that he has to see that the
-18 expenditures are accounted for in a lot of detail.
19 The interpretation on that-is different from the l
20 past.
DOE has an accounting system and they do their own i.
21 audits and that type of thing.
In effect, my understanding 22 of what has happened is that the-Inspector' General'of the 23 Department of Energy has, in looking into a number of their 24 operations, has concluded that the audits-are not complete.
25 So, our Inspector General people are telling us that you O
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1 can't rely on the Department of Energy Financial System to 2
ascure -- for your assurance that the monies have been 3
properly spent.
4 As a result of that, we have to spend much more 5
attention and much more time on reviewing the work that has 6
taken place on a monthly basis, and to compare it with the 7
billings.
We have been going through a rather far reaching 8
exercise on that since June, in regard to the past couple of 9
years.
3 10 What is being done for the future is to obtain i
11 better monthly letter status reports on each project on each 12 FIN number from the laboratory, so that we can compare the 13 information in the monthly letter status reports with the i (-
(_/
14 billing.
Then, we can in effect verify that and say yes, 15 the billing to the best of our ability to judge, corresponds 16 to the work done.
There are a lot of complications in that.
17 I am sure you can appreciate that.
18 MR. SHEWMoN:
You have answered my question.
19 MR. BECKJORD:
What I am sayirg is that the 20 resources that we have to manage the program have not 21 increased and in fact have somewhat decreased over the last 22 several years.
We have a lot more administrative burden to 23 deal with.
24 The challenge for research at this point is to 25 find a way through efficiency and better methods, and also inU ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, Ltd.
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I through more assistance from the laboratories, in the 2
preparation of the monthly letter status reports so-the 3
bills in progress can be rationalized so that we can do the
]
4 job more efficiently and more effectively.
If we don't do l
5 that, we are going to be losing the technical focus that 1
6 this office has had.
I don't intend that that happen.
l 7
There are some more slides on this later.
As I l
8 said, this is a major activity.
We have research t
j 9
cooperation with Russia now, and we have a number of working groups in aging, pressure vessel integrity, systems 10 4
j 11 performance and severe accidents which are very active in 12 exchanging information.
The reactor vessel annealing comes 13 in to this as well.
The Russians have information and 14 experience which I think will be very helpful as the U.S.
j 15 goes into reactor vessel annealing program, which I assume 16 will happen.
17
[ Slides.)
l 18 MR. BECKJORD:
I wanted to go-through now, the --
l 19 by the way, the working groups on that last slide that I 1
20 mentioned, working group 12 on plant aging and life l
21 extension, working group six on severe accidents and the 22 working group three on the reactor vessel embrittlement and i
23 annealing questions.
24 This slide and the next several deal with 25 accomplishments and prospects in our program.
one thing I ANN RlLEY & ASSOCIATES, Ltd.
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neglected to say a few minutes ago when I was talking about 2
the budget is, if you have looked at our budget document 3
which is on the table there -- the blue book -- the budget 4
categories have changed, if you were recalling the budget S
last year.
6 The main categories are reactor licensing support b
7 under reactor licensing support.
What you have is the 8
activities on advanced reactor certification, evolutionary 9
reactor certification, and also license renewal would fall 10 under that budget category.
Reactor regulation support is 11 the second budget category, and that deals with everything, 12 all of the activities related to operating reactors.
13 The third category is nuclear materials safety and
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14 safeguards licensing and regulation support.
The final 15 category is the high level waste for the Yucca Mountain 16 project which continues to be under a separate budget.
In 17 other words, the first three items that I named are under 18 the research budget and the high level waste research is 19 separate budget item.
If you look at the budget documents 20 you will see it.
21 These are accomplishments in the past year on 22 reactor aging and license renewal.
The first there is the 23 Yankee pressure vessel integrity analysis.
There is kind of 24 two sides to that story.
As you know, Yankee Rowe 25 management decided not to continue their activities on C'1 v
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1 license renewal and, in fact, shut the plant down.
That's 2
the negative side of it.
I 3
But I think in the long run it's also clear that 4
the Agency learned a lot from that exercise.
There were 5
some very important differences between the Yankee Rowe i
6 pressure vessel and the later pressure vessels, both in l
7 materials, different material, a different temperature of l
8 operation.
Yankee Rowe pressure vessel was operated at i
9 about 50 degrees fahrenheit lower than the subsequent 10 reactors.
11 These differences, of which those are just a few, 12 made the review a very difficult one from a technical i
13 standpoint.
I think both research and the regulatory staff f
14 learned a lot from the exercise.
As a result of it, we have l
15 revised and improved the program relating to pressure vessel 16 aging.
We have now underway a working group with industry i
l 17 to coordinate the various programs of reactor vessel 18 research, both ours and theirs.
This group meets 19 periodically.
20 I think that's been a positive development out of 21 it.
I think that that development is going to-lead to a 22 better process for resolving the reactor vessel ~ aging 23 questions that will come up in the plants to come, that will 24 later come in for license renewal.
25 The second point, low upper shelf toughness of ANN -RILEY & ASSOCIATES, Ltd.
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reactor pressure vessel material.
The requirement.is a j
2 CHARPE specimen test, 50 foot pounds or better.
We know l
3 that there are a number of plants that expect values that 2
4 will be lower than that, as a result of irradiation.
We 5
have underway a program on generic analysis to cover all of i
f 6
the vessels now in operation, to establish a sound technical 7
basis for the minimum acceptable toughness which we think 8
will be lower, which we know can be lower than 50 foot 4
j 9
pounds.
It will require more detailed evaluations'and 10 fracture mechanics applications and that type of thing.
11 Under this program we have also had, as you know 12 from your reviews of the aging program, evaluation of a 13 large number of components and systems.
We had a public 1
1 14 workshop, and I think I saw several of you at the workshop l
15 in March of this year.
A lot of people from both industry i
16 and the research community and-people from overseas came.
i i
17 That meeting was well attended and successful.
i
]
18 Part of the meeting was a couple _of-notebooks I
19 which had kind of a compendium of the learning from the-l l
20 aging program over the past several years.
21 MR. SHEWMoN:
Eric, we have.seen a couple of-the l
[
22 staff technical positions out of here..What the staff has-23 done is to take the worst conditions one:mightl find in the l
24 lab-and presume-that plants operate under these conditions F
25-all the time,-and:then set up procedures that people have to ilO l
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1 meet which are much more severe than current codes.
2 What bothers me is, maybe we end up with 17 more 3
letters like this and we are going to be off in left field.
4 That's when did you stop beating your wife, so maybe you 5
shouldn't reply.
6 MR. BECKJORD:
Those reports don't establish 7
requirements.
They report on the findings of the work.
8 Since then --
9 MR. SHEWMON:
Of the research work done in 10 laboratory conditions?
11 MR. BECKJORD:
Of the research -- not all of it, I 12 think was under laboratcry conditions.
Some of it had to do 13 with observations of plant performance data.
Iarry was 14 going to come here.
George, maybe you can find out.
15 MR. SPEIS:
The majority of that work done in the 16 aging program -- the majority of those reports and the work 17 or the aging program deal with the evaluation of existing 18 operational data.
I would say about 70 percent of that.
19 MR. SHEWMON:
That sure wasn't the case in 20 fatigue.
21 MR. SPEIS:
You were talking about fatigue, where 22 there is large discussion.
23 MR. SHEWMON:
This is also environmental 24 qualifications, was rather well beyond what is currently 25 required for operating plants.
It's a separate discussion,
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which I guess the Agency is getting into, t
2 MR. SPEISt There are different views between us 3
and other offices, and we are trying to shift that.
i 4
MR. SilEWMON:
I think it's been a real disservice, 5
so far.
6 MR. BECKJORD:
The aging program, m
j 7
MR. SPEISt No, fatigue.
l 8
MR. BECKJORD:
The fatigue.
)
9 MR. SilEWMON It's been a disservice, yes.
What I i
10 have seen of it has been a disservice, yes, by going to i
11 extremes.
I 12 MR. SPEISt You.are talking about the fatigue position that came down to you people.
13
]
14 MR. SHEWMON:
That's one example, yes.
I just 1
15 wonder if we have 17 more examples coming down.
We have 16 seen two so far.
Onward.
17 MR. BECKJORD:
Passing rapidly on, then.
We have j
18 negotiated structural testing with the NUPEC' organization in i
~
19 Japan for testing a steel containment structure and a 20 prestressed containment structure, both of them models.
j 21 Those tests will be done at Sandia.
The steel containment
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22 is the BWR concept, the advanced BWR, which is in 2
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23 construction in Japan.
That will be done in 1995, 1996 24 time.
The prestress containment tests will be done a year 25 later.
4 10 i
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A large fraction of the cost of those tests is 2
being carried by the NUPEC organiration.
Stainless steel 3
pipe toughness degradation --
4 MR. CARROLL:
What's the point of those tests?
5 This is to understand how these containments behave under 6
over pressure?
7 MR. BEclGORD:
Yes.
I think you came after the 8
test was done on the reinforced --
9 MR. CARROLL:
No, I am aware of that one.
10 MR. BEClGORD:
You are aware of that one.
11 MR. CARROLL:
It's the same kind of test but 12 different --
13 MR. BECKJORD:
It's the same kind of test with 14 prestressed containment which wasn't tested before.
There 15 was a test in England a couple of years ago for their plant, 16 but there was technical differences of view on the validity 17 of that test.
We were interested in doing the prestress 18 test complete following the same principles that were used 19 for the reivforced.
20 The Japanese were very interested in doing a test 21.
for the steel BWR containment, and they are paying for the.t.
22 We were willing to sponsor the activity at Sandia. - '1 hat is 23 not a need that we established.
That was a Japanese 24 interest, the steel containment.
25 A regulatory guide on the format and content of O
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380 1
license renewal applications, this was issued for public l
2 comment.
That describes in some detail the integrated plant 3
assessment.
That's the basis for planning the plant aging
.T
{
4 degradation management by the plant managers.
The final l
5 poir.t on there, the research information letter on treating l
6 aging and PRAs, this method is going to be very important l
7 for identifying and focusing attention on plant components l
i 8
by risk significance.
I think that I expect that NRC will 9
be using that in evaluating the plant owner's maintenance 10 prog 9
i 11 (Slides.)
12 MR. BECKJORD:
The prospects in this area --
13 clarification on the PTS rule.
I expect that we will be 14 forthcoming with rulemaking and regulatory guides on 15 annealing and guidance on the low upper shelf question.
We 16 are also -- actually, this viewgraph was put together before 17 the current subject which I am sure you read about, the 18 Trojan plant.
19 We have-been working on the guidance for the l
20 plugging criteria for steam generators.
There is a l
21 difference between the utility proposals on this, in 22 utilities preferring a voltage criterion and NRC pre' ferring 23 a crack depth criterion. -We are attempting to narrow those 24 differences.
25 MR. SHEWMON:
Is the NRC going to address wha't 4
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(_)
1 happens when you have pin holes instead of cracks?
Much of 2
the regulations are written in terms of cracks and that's 3
not what's out there.
There are very short, what I will
^
4 call pin holes.
They get arguing about the depth of pin 5
holes.
6 This rulemaking on reg guides on annealing, is 7
that going to be in six months or a year, or do you have any 8
idea when that is coming out?
9 MR. SPEIS:
It's within this coming year, by the 10 end of 1993.
11 MR. SHEWMON:
By the end of fiscal year 19937 12 MR. SPEIS:
Yes.
13 MR. BECKJORD:
On the risk evaluation, I think 14 that we will have an aging risk evaluation this year and a 15 method to prioritize maintenance activities, following up in 16 that area.
17 MR. CARROLL:
Back to your steam generator tube 18 plugging.
That's been a subject of interest to the 19 Committee.
We did have a briefing on the status a little 20 over a year ago.
The impression that I came away with was 21 that we are almost there.
We should have something to 22 discuss with you in the first quarter of 1992.
Now, we are 23 almost in the first quarter of 1993.
24 MR. BECKJORD:
I think there's going to be some 25 more discussion of that.
rr N,]
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MR. CARROLL:
It doesn't sound like we are any i
j 2
closer to resolution than we were a year ago.
}
3 MR. BECKJORD:
I think there are Trojan plus about 1
4 four other plants in which this is a critical item now.
So, j
5 it's getting a lot of attention.
f 6
MR. SHEWMON:
Is it converging, is the question.
7 MR. BECKJORD:
I hope it's converging, yes.
j 8
Containment structures, there are studies underway to 9
examine specific cases of corrosion and deterioration.
10 There are at least seven plants which have had problems j
11 involving MARK I shell corrosion of the torus of MARK I i
12 plants, shell coatings and the fire damage in one case, to j
13 the polyurethane filler between th" steel shell and the
!j' 14 concrete wall.
In total, at least seven plants have had 15 problems.
So, that's getting more attention now.
16 (Slides.)
17 MR. BECKJORD:
In severe accidents, I think you
?
l 18 have reviewed this recently, this summer in the SARP 19 program.
Accomplishments, the MARK I failure study f
20 confirming that if there is water present on the floor below 21 the vessel.in sufficient quantities, the low probability of-22 shell failure -- also the other side of that, if there is 23 not water present there is a high' likelihood of shell-24 failure.
25 I think we have' reviewed that with you, and I
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4 383 1
think there's general agreement that we have carrlod that 2
far enough.
The final study will receive a peer review.
l 3
That has yet to be done.
4 Direct containment heating, the testing for Zion 5
is completed.
The tests show generally, that there is a i
j 6
lower p
.ssure build up than you would expect than had I
7 previously been expected from a direct containment heating 1
l 8
condition.
This has to do with, first of all the gases are 9
heated by the interaction with the molton material.
The j
10 molten material tends to be held up in the compartments in o
l 11 the lower part of the reactor building.
12 It's this hold up of molten material settling in l
13 the compartments, so to speak, that tends to limit the j
14 pressure.
There are under way now, direct containment 15 heating tests on the Surry configuration.
16 Scaling methodology for severe accident research 1
17 essentially that makes it possible to improve the design of 18 severe accident experiments.
We spent a lot of time on 19 developing the SASM to get it right, and I think that work 20 is beginning to pay off now.
We have initiated two 21 experimental programs on debris bed coolability, the WETCOR 22 and the ACE / MACE program.
23 The WETCOR is a high temperature melt test with 24 inductive heating, at Sandia.
The ACE / MACE program is an 25 international consortia involving not only the NRC but DOE, O
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1 EPRI and foreign organizations.
2 This is important to the advanced light water 3
reactor programs -- one case would be the AP-600 -- because 4
heat transfer from the molten material, the heat transfer 5
and then transport to the containment wall is important to 6
performance and the final control of a severe accident in 7
that concept.
8 I think the draft which you saw of the severe 9
accident research plan is about out now.
Is that right, 10 Brian, the 1565?
Has that been published actually?
Is it 11 public now?
12 MR. SHERON:
My understanding is that it's in 13 printing.
I think it's supposed to be out within a week or
\\m /
14 so.
15 MR. BECKJORD:
As I said, the last thing we are 16 going to do on the MARK I liner issue is a peer review.
17 That, we will get underway in the new year, 1993.
18 (Slides.)
19 MR. BECKJORD:
As I said, we are conducting the 20 integral tests at SURTSEY and at Sandia, of the Surry 21 containment direct heating.
Core concrete interaction 22 research, that has been completed for the dry case.
We will 23 publish the SURC 1 and 2 test results and document the work 24 on the CORCON Code.
l 25 The fourth item there is the high temperature (3
%)
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1 "vereee# ee de tie # te e ree111tv.
we 111 ee e1eee the 2
large scale test.
Tha small scale testing facility is j
3 operating.
The tests began there in September at i
]
4 Brookhaven.
The purpose of those tests is to determine what
]
5 happens to flammability at high temperatures and in the 6
presence of high steam concentrations.
Also, not only i
j 7
flammability but the detonability at temperatures up to i
l 8
probably about 400 degrees centigrade.
9 I went to the facility in October and saw one of f
)
10 the tests.
I think they have done a fine job on that 11 experimental apparatuc.
They were doing a flammability test i
12 that day which we observed, j
13 The next item here is the Three Mile Island vessel j
14 investigation project.
For those of you who haven't heard 15 about this before -- I think most of the committee has heard i
l 16 about it at some length -- I will give you a very short 17 summary.
We undertook, beginning in 1988, to recover 18 samples from the reactor vessel lower head.
We recovered 15 l
19 samples from the vessel plus the in core instrumentation J
20 nozzle samples and guide from the vessel.
j 21 This was an international research project i
j 22 conducted with the countries of the NEA.
There were 12 that l
23 participated,. including-the U.S.
We paid for more than one-24 half of the research but the other slightly less than half 25 was very helpful.
The total project cost, when it's
- i l
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I 386 1
completed in the spring of 1993, will run just over $9 2
million.
We put up close to $5 million of that.
f 3
All of the laboratory work on the samples and
)
4 specimens that were cut has been completed.
The materials 5
investigations have been completed.
All that remains now 6
are really two things.
One is writing the final report 3
i J
t 7
which is going to be done between now and March.
The other i
8 is the completion of the analysis on the final question
{
9 which has to do with the structural integrity of the reactor 10 vessel.
1 11 That was one of the principal objectives of that 12 research activity, to find out why it was that the pressure 13 vessel did'not fail.
On the morning of the accident some i
l 14 reactor pressure vessel experts, their opinion was it would 1
j 15 fail if there was a core melt.
Subsequently we discovered
{
16 that the core melted and the pressure vessel did not fail.
}
17 What I can say at this point is that the materials l-18 investigations have established I think what are a 19 remarkable set of findings, that the temperature was 1,400 j
20 Kelvin in an area of the reactor vessel lower head about one i
j 21 meter in diameter, slightly off center.
It was at that
-22 temperature for about 30 minutes, i-23 MR..SHEWMoN:
But only to :a depth of a few inches, j
i 24 or do you know the depth.
j 25 MR. BECKJORD:- The temperature on the inside of a4 p.
v 1
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the vessel right at the surface material, was 1,400.
Half f
2 way in or about two inches into the vessel it was 100 Kelvin lower than that.
That's as deep as the specimens went.
I 3
4 think heat transfer, you can argue from heat transfer 5
principles, that there was another approximately 100 degree 6
Kelvin drop going to the outside of the vessel.
That's l
7 pretty hot.
l j
8 The first work that was done on the. vessel i
j 9
integrity question, the easy solutions were shown not to i
10 apply.
I really can't say a lot about this because the 1
l 11 management board on this project which is very protective of i
12 its prerogatives, has decided that the information will be j
{
13 released when they approve the final report.
The final l
14 report will be written in March.
The management committee I
15 will approve it in May, and it will be publiuhed on or about
}
16 June 30th.
l l
17 MR. SHEWMoN:
To what extent are there heat 18 transfer people involved in that and thus will get_ involved 19 in what the time temperature transient was on the inside of 20 the vessel as opposed to materials types who can tell you a 21 lot about what'they learned from --
22 MR. BECKJoRD:
The-materials conditions and 23 properties have been determined by the materials people.
i 24-The people who are involved in this final analysis are heat i
25 transfer and systems people at Idaho National Engineering 1.O ANN RlLEY & ASSOCIATES, Ltd.
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1 Lab and elsewhere.
I think that we have pretty well tied 2
down the scenario now.
I think they are on the right track.
3 They are now doing the calculations to establish that that 4
scenario explains what happened.
5 MR. SHEWMON:
I would be very dubious if the 6
conclusion was that the outside of the vessel was at 1,200 7
degrees K, which is a nice yellow at which carbon steel 8
really doesn't have a heck of a lot of strength.
I will 9
look with interest.
10 MR. BECKJORD:
I think we are all agreed on that 11 point.
12 MR. SHERMON:
A minute ago I thought you said it 13 dropped no more than 200 degrees to the outside of the 14 vessel.
So, that's 1,200 K which gets you back up, well 15 above a cherry red.
16 MR. BECKJORD:
That's right.
17 MR. KRESS:
Yes, but that --
18 MR. BECKJORD:
It doesn't have a lot of strength.
19 MR. KRESS:
That was an extremely local condition 20 there.
1 21 MR. BECKJORD:
-Yes.
22 MR. KRESS:
That doesn't say the whole outside.
23 MR. SHEWMON:
It was a meter in diameter.
That's i
24 not too local.
25 MR. BECKJORD:
We are getting now into the
()
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1 details, which I would like to say more about.
2 MR. SHEWMON:
We will wait with interest.
We hope 3
they make their deadline.
)
l 4
MR. BECKJORD:
I think that's going to be a very l
5 interesting -- I can tell you that that's going to be very j
j 6
interesting when that comes out.
Moving on.
We have l
7 completed experiments on the B&W geometry for the
}
8 temperatures in the system under severe accident conditions.
j 9
Four or five tests have been done.
I think the other one is 10 probably may have been run by now.
In any event, it's very l
11 close to being run.
l 12 (Slides.)
1 13 MR. BECKJoRD:
Licending support, turning to that j
14 now.
The Part 54 license renewal rule as many of you know, 15 there was wide interest in this on the part of industry.
We 16 received a lot of encouragement to complete it on time.
We 1
i 17 did complete it on the schedule that was established.
I f
18 Part 54 which is the generic environmental impact
{
19 statement, the comment period on that -- that went out for 20 comment last year.- The comment period ended in March of j
21 1992.
I had expected that we would be able to work with l
22 those comments and get a final GEIS out in this coming year, 23 1993.
That was not possible because of comments from the 24 CEQ environmental office downtown.
That has delayed the 25 report.
I think that the differences are resolved now.
3
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1 The issues were several.
One was access of the 2
public to individual licensing actions.
The CEQ wanted to j
i 3
make sure that a provision for public access was possible.
l 4
Then, providing a way to discuss issues that are dealt with f
5 in the GEIS if there is new information.
The resolution of 1
i 6
those differences took a fair amount of time.
Those 7
discussions were conducted with CEQ by the General Counsel's
}
8 office. I expect now the publication of the GEIS in early 5
9 1994.
)
10 The third item on there is the source term, severe i
i 11 accident source term.
It went out for comment in July of l
12 this year.
We expect the revised Part 50 with the new l
l 13 source term by the end of calendar 1993.
I think that you l
14 have reviewed this, i
15 MR. LINBLAD:
Eric, could I go back one subject?
l l
16 MR. BECE70RD:
Yes.
l 17 MR. LINBLAD:
What was the schedule again for the 18 GEIS, did I hear 19947 t
l 19 MR. BECKJORD:
Yes, early 1994.
20 MR. LINBLAD:
What happens between this period l
21 which something is just being wrapped up and all being i
22 closed out in early 19947 Do you need 12 months to' publish i
23 this?
r 24 MR. BECKJORD:
Jack, what's the critical path on 25 that.
i O
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MR. HELTEMES:
As you mentioned, Eric, the delays 2
were discussions with CEQ and EPA on the form of the rule, 3
the rule being Part 51.
We were trying to characterize the 4
results from the GEIS, as you didn't have to_ address them if 5
you were within certain boundaries you didn't-have to 6
address them, or plant specific.
The CEQ had certain 7
concerns with that.
That delayed thin-total process.
t 8
What's happening now is, the GEIS is being 5-9 modified in accordance with public comment and then we will 10 start the rulemaking procedures, the Part_51 and going 11 through the various process, again going comment by CEQ.
12 What Eric has mentioned is the final-rule, Part-51, Will go 13 before the Com*nission estimated in early 1994.
14 MR. LINBLAD:
So, there's another public process?
15 MR. HELTEMES:
Not really.
I didn't mean to make 16 it public.
17 MR. BECKJORD:
It doesn't have to go out.again.
18 MR. HELTEMES:
It will not go out'again for public
~
19 comment.
20 MR. LINBLAD:
These final steps-require some 12 to 21 15 months to do.
5 22 MR. BECKJORD:
The final item on that page is the 23 revised siting criteria, both seismic and population-24 density.
Proposed rule'is out for public comment.
I-think 25 we have discussed the seismic part with you, and also the O
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1 populhtion density, 500 persons per square mile out to 30
{
2 miles.
{
3 I think you know that this has been in a 4
regulatory guida for about 10 years.
But because it was in 3
l 5
a regulatory guide and not a rule, it did not have a lot of j
6 visibility outside of the U.S.
This revised rule out for 7
public comment has drawn a lot of attention from Europe and 8
Japan.
They are very much interested in-that, at' they are l
9 very much concerned about it becaune of the con 2.tfons i
10 surrounding their own reactors.
l 11 Taere are going to be very many comments on this 1
12 proposed rrle.
It came up when I was in Paris last week at 13 Tom Murley s meeting with the regulators.
As a result of l
14 that, he agreed that we will send.a couple of people.
one 1
l 15 of our experts in that area, Lynn Sofer, will be going with 16 Frank Congel for a one day meeting in Paris in the middle of 17 January to explain this rule.
i 18 I think that my own view of that is that the 19 explanations -- people will listen to the explanation,;but I 20 don't think it's going to change their mind on the 21 requirements of the rule.
They will still be commenting on
~
22 it.
The original purpose for the population density in that 23 rule as I understand in the Reg Guide when it was prepared i
24 ten years ago, was essentially to preclude urban siting of.
25 power plants.
It seems to me that there are many ways to do 1
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1 that.
So, I am sure there will be ways that we can 2
accommodate the concerns that these other people have.
But 3
finally, that will be up to the-commission.
l 4
(Slidos.)
5 MR. EHCKJORD:
The other. accomplishments, I think i
4-6 you have reviewed the waste oil incineration and i
7 environmentally acceptable method of disposal of the waste 8
stream.
Second item, the extension of the implementation 9
date of the Part 20 radiation protection, that was extended f
10 to January 1, 1994.
I do know of at least one utility that l.-
11 intends to put it into effect just as a matter of cost 12 effectiveness, in January 1, 1993.
That's Duke Power.
4 13 There were six Part 20 final reg guides that were 14 published in July of 1992, which has to do with how to 15 implement the new rule.
The final item on the page, there i
16 were six final rules for reducing a burden on licensees l
17 which are going into effect, those having no important 18 safety impact.
The changes help to improve the efficiency 19 of operations.
20 There are six of them.
I think you have seen 21 these; am I correct in that?
Have-you seen the:six rules?
22 First, frequency of radiological effluent reports, reducing 23 the frequency of the reports.
The second,Lchanging the 24 frequency of the final safety analysis report, updatesito 25 essentially refueling periods.
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a 394 1
MR. CARROLL:
We have been made aware of those.
I 2
MR. BECKJORD:
Prospects.
The final training and i
3 qualifications rule in Part 50, essentially this requires 4
training based on the National Academy of Training for 5
Nuclear Power Plant Operators requirements.
If the license 6
holders are in compliance with the National Training Academy i
7 criteria and guidelines, they are in compliance with NRC's i
j 8
rule.
]
9 The second one is the regulatory guide 10 supplementing the maintenance rule.
That is now in trial
}
11 use at nine plants.
The regulatory guide endorses the 12 NUMARC document on this subject.
The public comment was 13 over in November on that regulatory guide, and the final we j
14 expect to publish in June.
I 15 MR. HELTEMES:
Eric, I believe the regulatory 16 guide went out for public comment in late November, and 3
j 17 comments close in the middle of January.
j 18 MR. BECKJORD:
You expect to have the final in i
19 June?
l 20 MR. HELTEMES:
Yes.
The final reg guide is to be-21 endorsed by the Commission by the end of June.
22 MR. BECKJORD:
Revised siting criteria for the i
23 revision of Part=100 is expected in June, 1993.
That will l
24 refer to incorporating probabilistic methods for determining i
25 design. earthquake combined with deterministic methods. I O
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1 think there is going to be some controversy over that.
We 2
have work underway on that which I think will help.
3 Regulatory analysis guidelines, guidance for 4
addressing
'te safety goal -- can you say some more about 5
that, Jack?
6 MR. HELTEMES:
We reviewed that with the 7
Committee, and the Committee had a number of concerns in 8
that regard and wrote a letter recently.
What we are doing 9
is a little more work to address some of the Committee's 10 concerns and then we hope to discuss the overall situation 11 with EDO and get his views on what occurs next.
12 If it was going to be issued for public comment 13 that would be a Commission decision, and we haven't reviewed O
V 14 it with the EDO yet.
That is not yet decided at all, within 15 the Agency.
16 MR. BECKJORD:
The fifth item there has to do with 17 approval of spent fuel storage casks.
There are four 18 designs that were approved in 1990.
There are two to be 19 added now to that list.
20 MR. SHEWMON:
Do you know if either of those are 21 the cast iron casks?
22 MR. BECKJORD:
One of them is a welded steel 23 canister with a concrete barrier wall.
I don't know about 24 the two of them.
Do they use the same --
25 MR. HELTEMES:
One is the steel and one involves
/O V
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1 the concrete casks.
2 MR. CARROLL:
Neither is cast iron?
1 3
MR. HELTEMES:
I can't answer that.
d 4
MR. SHEWMON:
That's, I hope, a continuing item j
5 with the Commission.
There is certainly better technical e
?
6 information than the NMSS staff was willing to use on --
7 MR. BECKJORD:
On the cast iron.
8 MR. SHEWMON:
On the cast iron.
I am not sure j
9 whether a decision was made in your shop or NMSS.
10 MR. HELTEMES:
NMSS does the safety analysis j
11 report.
What we use is the safety analysis report for 4
12 proceeding with rulemaking.
The technical decisions come j
13 out of NMSS.
h'v 14 MR. SHEWMON:
I wish they had your materials 15 expertise, and they don't.
16 MR. BECKJORD:
Larry Shao is coming, so we can 17 come back to that if you like when he-gets here.
We expect 18 to issue a final rule on decommissioning-recordkeeping.
l.
19 Essentially what'this does is to require keeping a list of 20 areas that are contaminated and a list of contaminated 21 equipment.
What is our schedule on that, Jack?
r 22 MR. HELTEMES:
It's very near term.
It may be out 23 for office comments or up to the Commission,.I just don't 24 recall.
It's very near term.
4 25 MR. WILKINS:
Eric, let me observe on your slide l D>
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l Coud Reponers 1612 K. Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D. C. 20006
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1 on accomplishments, you said you issuod six parts final reg j
2 guides.
There are three more pending, and I would expect l
3 those -- let's put it this way.
We would have done our work l
4 on those very shortly.
There is-a joint Subcommittee with l
5 ACNW and ACRS on February 6th on three more.
Unless I am i
6 mistaken, that may be all that have survived your' pruning l
7 test.
8 MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
1 l
9 MR. HELTEMES:
That's correct.
i 10 MR. WILKINS:
I would expect'those to get out 11 sometime.
1 12 MR. hELTEMES: -April is our target for the 13 remaining.
af \\
\\_/
14 (Slides.)
15 MR. BECKJoRD:
I don't know if you have reviewed i
16 this program.
Stop me if you have.
We have had underway, a l
l 17 joint program with Department of Energy and EPRI on the-t 18 resolution of the seismic hazard-curve differences.
The f
19 work that we are supporting is at Lawrence Livermore 20 Laboratory and the part that doe is-supporting is at Sandia.
21 It's focusing on_the differences, and the 22 objective is to develop a consensus on the best estimate.
23 We expect'the schedule that we have in mind now is two 24 years.
That includes a peer review which the National-25 Academy of Science will conduct on this.
They are working i()
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1 j
398
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I with us now so that the people who are going to do the peer 2
review are aware of what's underway.
When a draft report 3
comes out they will undertake to peer review it.
4 MR. LEWIS:
Eric, I am always confused when people 4
5 say you are trying to beat heads together to develop a 6
consensus about the best estimate.
I know that in I
i 7
regulation having uncertainties or having experts that l
l 8
differ by a large amount makes a lot of trouble, because you 9
have to make decisions eventually.
10 But on the other hand when you force people into 11 an unnatural consensus you are destroying information j
12 because the divergence of views is as much information as i
13 the central estimate.
In fact when you say best estimate I 14 could chastise you or beat you up the way one does so often 1
l 15 by saying best estimate of what,-and then we would argue j
16 about whether it's the best estimate of the mean or the 17 medium or logrithimic mean.
God help us, we could spend the 18 day on that.
I don't want to do that.
7 19 The principle that one.should destroy diversity in 20 opinion by bringing people together and forcing them into a i
l 21 consensus best estimate does offend me, because it destroys i
22 the --
23 MR. BECKJORD:
.I take your point.
My 24 understanding -- and I can ask Larry to say more about this, 25 Larry Shao when he gets here.
My understanding is that when
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these two disparate hazard curves were brought forth before, 2
that there was not discussion between the people who did the i
3 work on each side.
('
4 There was a lot of discussion, but it did not j
5 directly involve the -- Larry,_you are just in time.
I was-6 talking about the program to resolve the differences in the 7
seismic hazard curves of EPRI and of Lawrence Livermore.
l 8
Professor Lewis was pointing out that -- he was-picking up
}
9 on the statement about getting the people together to 1
10 resolve the differences.
11 What he said was, if you are going to force 12 experts to focus on a best estimate you are going to lose 13 some information.
I said my understanding was that at the 14 time that these two hazard curves came out that there was a 15 lot of discussion in the community.
There was not.
i 16 discussion directly between the people who developed those
]
17 different estimates.
Our objective now, is to go back over l-18 the two estimates and attempt to get a convergence of views.
19 Can you correct me, or_say more about that?
20 MR. SHAO:
The history was we have a program with i
21 Livermore.- At that time we had five-experts.
22 MR. BECKJORD:
Take his point.
His point was that i-23 just forcing consensus doesn't necessarily solve'the 24 problem.
25 MR. LEWIS:
Let me maybe make an effort at making iO l
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my own point.
You are doing fine, Eric.
I am not 2
criticizing you.
When you force a consensus you destroy 3
information because the diversity of views is information.
4 MR. SHAO:
Right.
I agree with that.
At that 5
time -- let me give you some history.
At that time at 6
Livermore, we used five experts.
We used mean.
When one 7
guy is eicht feet tell your average is very high.
At that 8
time if k+. used medium our number would be very close to 9
EPRI's num)
.r.
At that time we choose to use mean.
Using 10 mean, you take average of the five experts and come up with 11 a big number.
12 At that time if we used medium instead of mean, I
13 our average is not that bad compared to EPRI.
We tried to i
14 use a little bit difference approach so that one extreme 15 opinion may not be so dominant.
16 MR. LEWIS:
The person who is out on the extreme 17 may be right.
18 MR. SHAO:
He may be right, but in this area l
19 there's nothing right or wrong.
It is a very gray -- not 20 black and white.
21 MR. LEWIS:
There is nothing in the laws-of nature 22 that says that'in the end there has to be a unique answer.
l l
23 MR. SHAO:
I agree with you.
24 MR. LEWIS:
There may be genuine uncertainty about 25 the question, and that genuine uncertainty ought-to be part ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, Ltd.
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401 f
1 of a decision making process.
So, a preconception that you 2
need to have an exact number agreed to by everybody is a bad 3
preconception to start with.
I am only reacting to the fact 4
that Eric used the term -
-I think you said something like.
i 5
enforce -- you used the term bringing these people together.
6 MR. BECKJORD:
To develop a consensus on the best l
7 estimate.
i
{
8 MR. LEWIS:
You have it.
I make the same 9
complaint when people use Delphic methods.
Eric's point was 1
10 that the two sides had not spoken to each other, as I l
11 understood your point.
Delphic. methods are a formal 12 procedure for bringing people together, beating their heads j
l 13 until they come to a consensus.
I have always opposed these v
14 methods.
I think it artificially narrows the range and 15 artificially misrepresents the divergence of views.
16 The problem is that people don't know how to take 17 into account a divergence of views when they are involved in
[
18 a deterministic regulatory process, but that doesn't mean 19 that it-isn't there.
I really have this dilemma about this, l
20 and you haven't resolved it.
i 21 MR. SHAO:
We are - just starting.
Any comments-you l
22 can give to us,-we appreciate'it.
23 MR. LEWIS:
By resolve it,'I don't mean bringing
!=
24 people together on a single estimate.
25 MR. SHAO:
Right now we are just setting up the
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i 402
(
1 organization.
The program just started.
We just got our 2
money and DOE --
3 MR. LEWIS:- I will bring this up again.
4 MR. WILKINS:
One possibility of course Hal, is i
5 that when you bring two sets of people together the j
6 underlying assumptions, the hidden facts that one group 7
knows the other one does not accept as facts emerge.
All of 1
l 8
them pay attention to all of that.
You may, in fact, get a 9
consensus, i
l 10 MR. LEWIS:
Indeed.
I 11 MR. WILKINS:
That is even reasonable.
That is 4
12 not forcing anybody to do anything.
It's forcing them to i
13 pay attention to all of the data that everybody else knows.
O's 14 I don't have a problem with that.
15 MR. LEWIS:
I don't, either.
Unthinkable, though 16 it may be, I have often come out of conversations saying Oh, 17 My Gosh, I was wrong.
18 MR. CARROLL:
When did that happen?
19 MR. LEWIS:
That does happen.
That is not what 20 the Delphic method is all about.
i 21 MR. WILKINS:
Eric didn't assert they were using a 22 Delphic method.
I 23 MR. LEWIS:
I know that.
24 MR. BECKJORD:
What I can say about.-- it's been 25 some time since I've been involved in a detailed discussion O
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1 of this.
First of all, the fact is that the two methods are
(
2 about a decade apart.
My recollection is that the method 3
which gives the higher hazard is based to a considerable 4
extent on the interpretation of one earthquake.
That was in 5
Quebec, as I recall, some years ago.
6 It seems to me the question is to get everybody to 7
look at the information that developed the hazr.rd curve on 8
each side, and to see if they are in real agreement that if 9
you use that one earthquake that you should have a hazard 10 that is that much higher.
11 MR. SPEIS:
Can I say something more about this?
12 I hate to intervene with such knowledgeable people.
It is 13 possible that one of the outcomes will be that these ip,h N) 14 differences are not going to be resolved.
15 MR. BECKJORD:
That's possible, yes.
16 MR. SPEIS:
The basic thing is to understand the 17 basis of this so-called experts.
That's really our l
18 objective.
19 MR. LEWIS:
That depends more on strength of 20 character than it does on the exchange of facts.
I think in 21 this case what Eric said is exactly right.
It's not that 22 both sides didn't know all the facts.
They did know all the 23 facts.
They were putting different interpretations on the 24 facts.
To get rid of the influence of that one earthquake -
25
- I forgotten which it was -- is not the same as pretending l (x w_-)
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1 the earthquake didn't happen.
f 2
It involves the interpretation of the data in 3
which experts can disagree with each other.
Then, it's a 4
fact.
i 5
MR. BECKJORD:
If that turns out to be the case, 6
then we aren't going to end this-in two years.
7 MR. LEWIS:
That's right.
8 MR. BECKJORD:
Some sort of decision -- it will 9
then require a decision be made between these two or i
10 resolution-somewhere in between.
Those are the three i
i 11 alternatives, I think.
12 MR. WILKINS:
It's conceivable that you may decide i
13 upon reflection, that you don't care.
j 14 MR. LEWIS:
I have used up too much time on this i
15 subject.
16 MR. BECKJORD:
Under prospects here, l
17 paleoseismological research.
The objective of that is to 18 shed light on earthquake magnitudes of earthquakes that have i
19 occurred.on the last five to 10,000 years.
The one example l
20 of that that I recall is the findings -- I think South l
21 Carolina related to the Charleston earthquake, i
}
22 Paleoseismological studies have shown-instances of 5
23 liquefaction that occurred associated with these old 24 earthquakes.
25 By pursuing that further, we think that.it will be i
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1 i
k-i 405
- f
)
1 possible to -- that is the people that are working on it j
2 believe that they can reduce the uncertainties in the hazard i
3 estinates for the Eastern U.S.
earthquakes.- Finally, the 2
4 revised seismic geologic siting criteria is part of the Part 5
100 rule revision in a year's time.
j 6
MR. LINBLAD:
Eric, before you leave that, the 4
7 previous one of Northeastern and Southeastern.
I recognize 8
Southeastern and I know there's work going on in the l
9 Northwest United States on paleoseismology.
I didn't 10 recognize the Northeastern.
What area is looking at l
11 Northeastern?
12 MR. BECKJORD:
The example that I remembered was 13 South Carolina.
ii\\
14 MR. LINBLAD:
That's Southeastern, isn't it?
i
[
15 MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
l i
16 MR. LINBLAD:
Did you mean Northwest?
17 MR. BECKJORD:
No.
That was just one example of l
18 the paleoseismological study that I recall reading about.
I l
19 know that that'1 not -- they are looking at some other 20 instances.
I just don't have the detail on that.
It's cape 21 Ann isn't it, in New England, right around Gloster.
22 MR. LINBLAD:
I'll talk to Larry.
23
[ Slides.]
24 MR. BECKJORD:
The accomplishments here, human a
25 performance investigation process, we were able to develop ANN RlLEY & ASSOCIATES, Ltd.
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methods for investigation for inspectors, the purpose of 2
which is to get at root causes in a consistent and a way 3
that will pass inspection regarding the completeness of the 4
investigation.
5 This was tried in -- we took the results of this 6
work and gave some instruction to the inspectors in Region l
7 I,
and they investigated ten events using the method that i
8 was developed here.
The inspections were favorable, and the 9
people who performed the work and reviewed it were very well i
10 satisfied with it.
I I
11 The second point on the evaluation, verification 12 and validation techniques for expert systems, a method was l_
13 developed to check out the logic system for an expert 14 system.
There are two things involved.
One was the logic i
15 system and one is the informatien base.
The logic system i
~
16 verification and validation can be done with conventional 17 techniques.
This reduces the scope considerably for V&V for 18 expert systems.
We are a bit ahead of schedule on that.
19 You still have to deal with the V&V of the
~
20 knowledge base part of it.
i 21 MR. LEWIS:
I don't understand,-Eric.
First of 22 all, aren't there' expert systems in use-in the regulatory 23 process?
24 MR. BECKJORD:
I believe not.
25 MR. LEWIS:
That's one question.
The second is, I O
ia
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407 l )
1 didn't even know there were any V&V problems on the logic 2
structure referring to the knowledge base.
Is this a 3
primary issue?
I am trying to understand why this is 4
important.
5 MR. BECKJORD:
I think this is just a software V&V 6
problem, as I understand it.
7 MR. LEWIS:
But it's software we don't use.
8 MR. BECKJORD:
That's right.
But, may use.
We 9
are doing this in the expectation that plants will be using 10 expert systems for things like refueling and that type of 11 thing, it has been discussed.
12 MR. LEWIS:
Usually the V&V problems don't appear 13
-- the logic for referring to the database in expert system O)
's.
14 is not very complicated.
I didn't know that there were 15 major questions.
There are lots of V&V questions on other 16 software issues, but I didn't think expert systems.
Please 17 go on.
18 MR. BECKJORD:
If you want to pursue this we can 19 put you in touch with the guy who knows more-about it than I 20 do.
21 MR. LEWIS:
Thank you.
22 MR. BECKJORD:
Prospects.
Guidelines for review 23 of advanced reactor control room design, we are negotiating 24 for a test of the work that has been done on the research to 25 do it on a real system.
It's an arrangement that we hope to O
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reach with the French on one of their systems.
That's 2
coming up this year, j
3 The second point under prospects, the study of l
4 risk impacts of alternative strategies for scheduling 1
l 5
maintenance.
Evaluating maintenance strategy and finding i
j 6
the -- the objective is to find combinations of equipment l
7 outage which will be riskier.
That is to say, if you have 8
all your emergency power-sources unavailable that would be a
]
{
9 risky situation, as an obvious _ example.
l 10 I think the objective of this is to help develop 11 what people have called a rolling _ strategy for outage 12 management, so that at no time during the outage is there a j
13 period of undue-risk due to necessary equipment being out of 14 service.
)
15 The final point there, accident management.
We i
16 are about done with our work on accident management.
The 17 objective'was to be ready to assess and evaluate-the 18 industry accident management programs.
We have worked with 19 an expert group under the Committee of Safety for Nuclear" L
20 Installations.
It was a group called SESM, a senior expert l
21 group on accident management. -Brian Sheron was the Chairman i
-22 of that group, and has worked with them'_for two years.
j 23 I can summarize it by saying that SESM essentially l
24 picked up the work that we had done in this_ area, and that's 25 a very'important part of their report.
Also, the IAEA has O
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Court Reporters 1612 K. Street, N.W., Suite:300 Washington, D. C. 20006 (202)_ 293-3950-
409
]()
1 picked up NRC results for their guidance.
Brian, do you 2
want to say anymore about it?
3 Brian just gava a report last week of the status 4
to the CSNI.
5 MR. SHERON:
Basically the status in the 6
international community is that nobody_right now that we are 7
aware of has a fully implemented accident management _ program 8
at their plant.
Most of the countries seem to have picked 9
up on the five basic elements of accident management which 10 the Office of Research had developed over the past couple of 11 years.
They have embellished upon them a little bit, and we
{
12 have tried to learn from what these other countries have 13 done.
kfh
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14 The group basically concluded that it would be a 15 good idea to have a specialist meeting probably within the
{
16 next couple of years, once all of these countries or at r
17
'least some of the countries have started to put in place i
18 actual accident management programs, and to hear from-the i
19 various utilities that have implemented this programs about 20 their experience.
21 There are a number of questions that are still i
22 begging for some experience type of input.
One is how to 23 transition from procedures in a control room to a_ technical 24 support center which may be then evaluating and assessing 25 the event and instructing the' operators, how to make that q
4 v
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.i 410 1
transition.
This is just one of a number of areas.
j 2
That is sort of a nutshell where we are with 3
regard to both our program and the international community.
4 (Slides.]
5 MR. BECKJORD:
A little bit on advanced reactors.
l-6 I think there has been a lot of discussion on the ROSA V I
7 test, and I don't need to say a lot about that.
We have no j
8 real difficulty negotiating the agreement with JAERI to 9
conduct those tests.
The agreement was, just to refresh 10 your memory on that, that the NRC will supply the equipment 11 to modify the loop and pay-for its installation at Tokai 12 Mura and then JAERI will run the tests.
13 Now, as to where that is --
14 MR. SHEWMON:
The instrumentation and-f 15 interpretation will be done where?
16 MR. BECKJORD:
The interpretation will be done 17 here, under our work with the INEL.
18 MR. SHEWMON:
We have instrumentation to be worked' 19 out between the staff and INEL.
1 20 MR.-BECKJORD:
All the instrumentation questions 21 are resolved now.
We are all in agreement on what the i
l 22 instruments are.-
I think that my understanding _-- this was-23 discussed with you at some length during the summer.
We did
~
24-have lengthy: discussions with the contractor-on the cost.of 25 this instrumentation.
That was all resolved.
I believe we
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()
1
_are satisfied with what's been agreed to.
2 The only problem has been reaching a contract.
I 3
don't want to spend a lot of time on that.
We don't yet i
j 4
have a contract with Somatomu.
The issue is not money.
The 5
issue is the terms of the contract which are standard NRC l
6 government procurement requirements for this_ type of 7
procurement.
I think they are very wary about this.
Their 8
first response was to various requirements for providing l-9 information on cost and that sort of thing, that they would 10 agreed to provide it unless they felt is was not necessary, i
11 In that case they wouldn't provide it.
12 Since that time they have advised us that they 13 could -- they are willing to provide the information.
They A/
14 have delivered about 100 pages in Japanese on the cost to l
15 the DCAA which is the Defense contracting Audit Agency in l
26 Japan.
One question was whether that had to be translated 17 into English, which I suppose might take two or three i
18 months.
I think we have gotten over that hurdle.
19 The last that I heard on this was that we were i
20 much closer to an agreement.
I do hope that we can get that
{
21-finally resolved and we can get on with the job.- We do have 1
22 a letter contract so that they are doing the engineering on 23 it, to keep it on schedule.
That runs out late this month.
24-I hope at that time we will be in a position to-let them go' 25 on the entire contract.
If that's the case, I'think we will
()
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412 1
be able to maintain the schedule.
2 MR. CATTON:
Eric, the last time we~ talked to you 3
about this the instrumentation hadn't been fully decided f
4 upon nor had the configuration.
As a matter of fact it was j
S kind of a moving target.
Is there something that. describes j
6 what you are actually going to be --
1 7
MR. BECKJORD:
That's in this document _that-has l
8 been moving-back and~forth, i
i 9
MR. CATTON:
Is it possible for us to see that i
j 10 document?
4 i
l 11 MR. BECKJORD:
Sure.
I 12 MR. SHEWMON:
In English, or Japanese, j
j 13 MR. BECKJORD:
The instrumentation -- it's the 14 costs that are in Japanese.
15 MR. CATTON:
That-just means Yen, and I can j-16 divide.
17 MR. BECKJORD:
What I am saying-is,.we can provide-18 you with the final resolution on what instrument.'is to be f
19 provided.
l 20 MR. CATTON:
What I would like to see is the
{
21 description of the overall instrumentation-package!that is-r 22 going lto be used and,what the final configuration':looks j
23 like.
It was moving when we last talked to you.
24 MR. BECFJORD:: It's fixed now.
I.
25 MR. CATTON:
.I would.like to see that.-
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MR. BECKJORD:
I think it's written down, isn't i
2 it?
I think we can give you a copy of it.
3 MR. WILKINS:
I am sure you are including where e
4 the instruments are located in the experimental facility.
f 5
MR. CATTON:
I thought that would go without --
i 6
MR. BECKJORD:
It describes what the i
7 instrumentation is and where it's located.
8 MR. CATTON:
That's fine, and what it's supposed j
9 to be used for and so forth.
j 10 MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
The other. prospects here, I i
11 don't think I need to say anymore about that unless there 12 are questions on any of these other points.
1 13 MR. CARROLL:
Do you plan to do scaling studies of 14
-- I guess you have done them on Oregon State.
15 MR. BECKJORD:
We will be doing scaling studies on 16 the vendor facilities.
We are going to be analyzing both 17 the Oregon State data and the data from SPES, the 18 Westinghouse data from SPES.
As part of that we will be l
19 doing a scaling study _of each one, j
20 MR. SHEWMON:
This-is part of the Idaho contract, l
21 or where will-that be done, the scaling?
i 22-MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
The SPES will be -- is that 23 Oregon State as well, Idaho?
24 MR. SHERON:
Yes,.they are all being done at 25 Idaho.
."[D i
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1 MR. SHEWMON:
The scaling.
l 2
MR.'SHERON:
The scaling studies are yes, on the
)
l 3
thermal hydraulic facilities.
I j-4
[ Slides.]
5 MR. BECKJORD:
You asked about research 3
6 priorities.
Basically these two pages are our priorities.
7 Primary system integrity, vesseld,-steam generator _ tubes.
l 8
MR. CATTON:
When you talk about steam generator i
j 9
tube rupture, what does this include as mechanisms causing
}
10 them?
Let me-tell you why I am interested.
1 l
11 The Japanese are extremely interested in the fluid 12 elastic instability.
I can't seem to figure out-why they i
13 are so interested and we are_not.
Maybe you can help me.
14 MR. BECKJORD:
This is of the tubes, above the j
15 tube sheet.
t-16 MR. CATTON:
Wherever.
1.
MR. SHEWMON:
That's where they had their first i
18 failure and got egg on their1 face.
l 19 MR. CATTON:
They discovered the cause was t
l 20 vibration bar being mislocated, for whatever reason.
Once 21 they took a look at it they decided that it was a.very
[
22 important safety question.
They have-laid down all kinds _of 23 requirements cn1 the --
i 24 MR. BECKJORD:
Even if the vibration bar is 4
25 properly placed?
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MR. CATTON:
That's right.
They have major effort
]
2 going on at Mitsubishi Heavy Steel -- Heavy Iron.
l 3
MR. BECKJORD:
Heavy Industry.
4 MR. CATTON:
Heavy Industry.
They are doing
]
l 5
everything, from making sure that they know how'to calculate 1
1 6
what the flows are that would cause it, being able to 7
describe the physical mechanisms that lead to it,-and this i
8 has been a requirement placed on the industries.
Yet, we 9
don't seem to be very interested in it at all.
I am 10 wondering, are they just running down a path that -- an i
11 unnecessary path, j
a
}
12 MR. SHAO:
We have one incident'six or seven years 13 ago at North Anna, they have misplaced vibration.
We don't iV 14 have such a problem-in the states.
Our general problem _is a 2
15 little bit different.. Our major problem like North Anna and 16 McGuire is mainly outside the diameter.
It's just corrosion 17
- cracking, i
18 Right now the plant -- they want you to~use i
l 19 criteria -- stress corrosion cracking and intergranular
~
20 attack.
The vibration problem happened about five or six years ago and never happened again.
21 V
22 MR. SHEWMON:
After that,__one reason Westinghouse 23 would say why it didn't happen again was that-they did an' l
24 analysis and said.what conditions were most-likely to cause 25 it, and some. licensees were advised to change conditions..
}
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416 1
As I understood it --
2 MR. SHAO:
It was taken_ care of about six years 3
ago.
4 MR. SHEWMON:
Possibly, that analysis was valid.
5 MR. CATTON:
Paul, I took a look at the analysis 6
that Westinghouse did.
I think if you had some empirical 7
data you could probably tune it a bit.
The analysis that I 8
saw was inadequate.
It was just a potential flow solution l
9 which is not any good for two phase flow through a bundle. I 10 think the Japanese understand that, and that's why they are 11 attempting to look at the problem properly.
12 The two phase mixture and knowing what it is, and i
13 the void fraction distributions are extremely important to F
14 being able to predict the fluid elastic instability. _ What 15 that says.is-that if you don't want.it to occur you have to l
16 stay far away from the threshold.
Yet, we don't really know-l 17 where the threshold is.
18 When North Anna occurred they just changed the 19 recirculation ratio a little bit and put_them into it, which 20 means that they had been operating very close to the l
l 21 threshold.
It's not like the-other kinds of vibrations, l
l 22-that the amplitude just slowly increases with flow.
It's I
- If you cross it you got it; if you don't-you 23 the threshold.
24 don't have it.
l.
l-25 MR. SHEWMON:
There is this work at-Argonne that 1'
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I has been going on, where the guy claims to be able to study i
~
2 it.
i 3
MR. CATTON:
That's Chen.
I have looked at his i
i 4
work, and he at this point cannot project fluid elastic i
5 instability in two phase flow.
He looks at single phase j
6 flow, and he looks at it from a structural point of view.
7 In other words, given certain things like the flow, he can 8
predict it.
f 9
MR. SHEWMON:
Maybe we are all just fat, dumb'and i
i 10 happy.
Larry's point was---
11 MR. CATTON:
That's what I am trying to-find out.
I 12 MR. SHEWMON:
Larry's point was that it has not j
l 13 happened again.
So, quite probably they are-staying out of 14 it.
Whether they know why they are staying out of it you 15 don't belleve they do.
16 MR. CATTON:
That's always one way to approach it.
17 If that-is sufficient, then it's okay.
I-am just a poor j
18 thermal hydraulics guy.- I don't understand these things.
I 19 didn't get an answer to my question, but let's go.on..
20-MR.=BECKJORD:
I guess one thing we could do is 21 ask Westinghouse what their. opinion is, since they certainly 22 know what_the Japanese situation is with their plant.
[
23 MR. MUSCARA:
On this_ problem, the tube _ rupture, 4
24 there are two complicating factors.
One_certainly was the 25 absence of the anti-vibration bar and the vibrations that b
h i
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,()
(
1 occurred at the end.
The tube had been pinned at a support 2
plate by denting.
We did get the vibration in the high 3
cycle fatigue.
4 The reason we don't see it very often of course, 5
is because this was a missing anti-vibration bar and because 6
the denting problem --
7 MR. BECKJORD:
The denting has been resolved, yes.
8 MR. CATTON:
That's right.
It's really the two 9
things that exacerbated it, the synergistic effect.
I think 10 elastic instability by itself would be a headache.
11 MR. BECKJORD:
You asked for research priorities.
12 Basically, the primary system integrity reactor vessel, as I said before, that's where we will spend the last dollar for 13 (m
14 research.
Research priority is also placed on the advanced 15 light water reactor issues.
The system performance, we have 16 talked about that with both the AP-600 and SBWR.
17 The digital control acceptance requirements and i
18 the V&V of software, that's going to be getting a lot more 19 attention now.
There is a lot of information coming to 20 light on that.
I guess my conclusion is, that's a more 21 difficult problem than I thought it was up until recently.
22 Severe accident issues, the priority there as I 23 said before, is to close the major programs underway for the 24 operating reactors and to refocus on the advanced reactors 25 for any variations on those issues that will come up.
(-
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1 i
I i
419 1
(Slides <)
2 MR. BECKJoRD:
I have some slides here on the ALWR j
3 severe accident issues.
I think that there were two 4
specific things that you wanted to talk about, two-other q
l 5
items.
One was the human factors research budget, and the 6
other one was the -- the three things -- international l
7 cooperation and you also wanted to talk about the budget 8
itself.
I think at this point what I would suggest doing
}
9 is, I will bypass these slides on severe accident issues 10 because of the time.
If there is any time and you want to j
I 11 discuss those thi.sgs, we can come back to it.
12 I guess one point to make is that we have gone out l
13 for comment on a rule for severe accident issues.
The 14 things that are listed here are all mentioned in that draft 15 for comment.
There were three alternatives that were 16 offered and on which we asked the people to comment on.
17 one was an approach -- the first one was 18 es entially what I will call the ACRS approach, which was to 1
l 19 ri
- c the general design criteria and to write rules for i
?0 eaca one of these phenomenon.
The second alternative was 21
.that the rule woS d identify the phenomena to be addressed, 22 and that the designer would respond on each point and 23 indicate what approach the designer would take.
The third' 24 alternative was to codify t.he fixes; that is, to state what 25
- the phenomena are, what the consequences can be, and how
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I 420 1
they should be dealt with in a rather prescriptive manner.
l 2
We will be getting the comment on that.
When does j
3 the comment period close?
f 4
MR. SPEIS:
About the next few months.
We l
l_
5 interacted with the ACRS on this, and they have written a l
6 letter to us.
The ACRS is familiar with it.
i 1
7 MR. BECKT. ORD:
Unless you want to discuss that i
l 8
some more right now, I would suggest that we get on to the 9
other matters.
Organizational research --
{
10 MR. SHEWMON:
Ivan, there was this matter of core 11 concrete interaction and.02 meter squart -- were you going l
12 to get that someplace else?
13 MR. CATTON:
I think so.
14 MR. SHEWMON:
Fine.
15 MR. BECKJORD:
My understanding is that you wanted i
16 to ask some questions about the management and organization i
17 research. -You asked for the budget on-it.
This shows the i
18 fiscal year 1992 and fiscal year 1993 budgets.
We did cut i
19 the research effort in human factors in 1993 compared to 20 1992.
The greater part of it -- not all of it -- was taken i
21 from the management and organizational factors.
It's called 22 organizational factors here.
I view it as both management 23 and organization.
The term management seemed to have 24 dropped out of the documents that discuss it, somewhere in 25 the last year or so.
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What about that.
The next slide shows the 2
changes. Het decrease of just under $1.5 million and the 3
total effort.
Most of the decrease, as I said, was from the i
4 elimination of the funding for the management and 5
organizational part.
That was 17 percent of the human j
6 reliability budget, and about one percent of the research i
i.
7 budget.
i j
8 Now, why did we do that.
We have tried to explain 9
the situation here.
There is no question, that management -
1 l
10
-by the way, that's Mtio, management and organization factors i
l 11
-- can contribute to accidents.
The research objective in 12 that work was to develop a standardized validated means of l
13 measuring management and organizational effectiveness.
3 14 That's a difficult job.
It's what I would call multi-15 attribute and complex.
l 16 There are a lot of elements of personality that 17 come into it.
You can walk into -- maybe people claim, and l
18 I know people who can do this -- they can walk into a plant i
j 19 and spend a couple of hours there, and they can come out and 20 tell you about the effectiveness of the management.
What 21 has been developed in the research that has been dono in-22 this office is structured interview procedures and
)
23 diagnoetic methods.
I referred to several of these before; j
24 that they had been applied in a number of test cases at 25 Region I.
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1 When you come to do this for reactors it turns out 2
that for an entire plant it turns out to be a big job.
We 3
found that in the activity at the Diablo canyon Plant at 4
Pacific Gas and Electric.
These methods take time and they 5
take a lot of resources, both resources of the party that is 6
going to do the investigation and tiso the time of the 7
people c:
<h' piant.
8 lt is very expensive.
It did not seem that there 9
was going to be any way to significantly reduce the kind of 10 resources that were required to do that.
We did have a 11 management review.
We had two things.
We had a budget 12 review last spring of-our 1993 budget on the part of the 13 management.
As a result of that review the team that 14 reviewed our budget said that they felt that this work 15 should be reduced. - We had a senior management revirw of 16 that in July and in November of this year.
The conclusion 17 of it was that from the point of view of user needs there 18 was not interest in pursuing the management and organization 19 studies at the plant.
20 There's another aspect of this which is important 21 to mention.
We gave a presentation to the Commission in 22 January of last year.
I was not present for that.
23 Subsequent to-it we got views from the Commission.
We got 24 views of the Chairman.
His concern was that the research 25 activity in management and organization was out in front of AV ANN RlLEY & ASSOCIATES, Ltd.-
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423 1
the utilities.
He wanted to know why don't you undertake to 2
get the utilities more involved in this area.
I did that, 3
and I started with EPRI.
4 After some discussions with them what they finally 5
said was look, at one time we did some work in this area but 6
we are not in it at all now.
If you are going to talk 7
management and organization you have to talk to INPO. I did 8
discuss this matter with Zak Pate.
It took some time to 9
arrange a meeting.
We had that meeting with INPO in 10 September of this year.
The reason it took time to arrange 11 that was that Mr. Pate wanted to be present for it, and to 12 arrange a schedule when he could make it and I could make 13 it, it took until September to do this.
14 Several of us went down there.
Joe Murphy, Frank 15 Coffman and I went down there.
We presented our program to 16 INPO and they presented theirs to us.
The conclusion that I 17 reached was that on-the specific matter of reviewing la management and organizational effectiveness of a plant, INPO 19 knew just about everything about the subject that we'did, 20 and very likely more.
Further, that they have instituted 21 and have been developing for some time, a process for review 22 of management and organiaation which they. conduct at roughly 23 three levels; at the operating level at the plant, at the 24-plant management level arai at, the corporate' level.
25 We were very impressed with what they described to l
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1 us and put on the table.
They also showed us several of 2
these reports which they are very careful about for obvious 3
reasons.
Their reports are very specific.
I would say that 4
j 4
I am satisfied that they don't pull any punches if they have 5
critical comments to make to the utilities.
]
6 These reports, they do hold confidential.
I j
7 believe that's been upheld in court now; that they cannot be 8
required to make these public.
They did show several of the i
9 reports to us.
We did not take any copies away.
They also 10 did disguise the organizations that were involved in them.
11 Although, anybody who knows these matters, it's really 12 rather difficult to disguise the organization.
They don't 1
13 have to put the name down because you know who they are l
14 talking about, i
15 A2 I say, I was very impressed with the scope, the l
16 extent and the depth of their review.
I think that they 17 have found ways of putting-into practical application just 18 about everything we talked about.
They use as part of these l
teams, people from other utilities.
That is, plants don't 19 20 ir.spect themselves.
I think that this has lent a-lot of j
21 strength and robustness to the' reporting system.
If INPO 22 comes into a plant and does a review the plant can say they 23 are just INPO and really don't understand all of this.
But 24 if they have people who are well known and respected as 25 experts from other plants who are involved in these reviews, ANN RlLEY & ASSOCIATES, Ltd.
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it's not so easy to pass off.
j 2
I think that my conclusion from this was that we 3
had carried the work about as far as it was practical to do 4
at this point.
In view of the fact that there was not user 5
interest in our own organization of NRR for pursuing this 6
now, we decided to stop that work; to summarize it and 7
conclude it.
That's the quick and short story on the human 8
factors.
9 We are not stopping work on human factors, we are 10 stopping the work on the organization and management.
We 11 are pursuing -- we have been and will be pursuing the matter 12 of attempting to relate organization and management 13 attributes to the PRAs.
A lot of the work will be going on 14 in this category here, relating the organization matters on 15 maintenance and other activities to PRAs.
There is interest 16 in that, and we are going to continue that.
i
{
17 MR. CARROLL:
Eric, I attended the November 12 18 meeting, and came away with the impression that Tom Murley 19 isnd the regional administrators were still thinking about 20 whether there were user needs in this area.
They have, i
21 subsequently, come back and agreed with the position that 22 you are describing this morning?
23 MR. BECKJORD:
That's my understanding.
-I haven't 24 talked with Tom about it since.
That's my understanding.
25 MR. CARROLL:
That's correct?
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1 MR. BECKJORD:
Does anybody have any comment?
2 MR. SHERON:
What we agreed at that workshop was i
3 that the NRR people -- we would go back and work with them, 4
and try to further refine what their residual needs are in 5
this area.
They are doing that.
The focus, as I l
6 interpreted the meeting -- as Eric;said -- we should i
7 probably wind down our studies of actually going out to the
]
8 plant and following people around.
3 9
We would pursue the reliability aspects, the HRA 10 aspect, of putting organizational factors into a PRA.
What i
11 we are doing is, we are setting up briefings with the NRR i
12 people and even the AEOD people, to better define exactly 13 how we proceed in this area.
We will probably be down here 14 telling you more about that in several months.
i 15 MR. SHEWMON:
Is HRA human risk assessment, or 16 what?
17 MR. SHERON:
Human reliability assessment.
18 MR. CARROLL:
I guess I come up with a little 19 d)sconnect there.
If I don't have the tools to measure the i
P0 attributes of an organization and how it may impact on 21 safety, how can I then figure out how to put this thing I 4
22 don't have into a PRA.
23 MR. SHERON:
You are right.
24 MR. CATTON:
You don't understand PRA.
-25 MR. CARROLL:
I see.
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MR. SHERON:
The whole purpose of these follow up-2 meetings is to first determine to what extent we need to 3
continue this effort, in putting HRA into the PRA framework.
4 The second is, what additional data do we have to get. in 5
order to do that and how we do that.
That may involve going 6
out to plants again.
-I can't preclude that at this time.
7 MR. BECKJORD:
That is not easy to do, because -
8 l
9 MR. CARROLL:
In fact, you do it all the time in
-j 10 the form of --
11 MR. BECKJORD:
NRR does it. Research doesn't do 12 it.
I t
13 MR. CARROLL:
In the form of diagnostic team 14 inspections and SALP evaluations.
15 MR. BECKJORD:
I know that, but in order for us to 16 get -- we have to get agreement from NRR~to do this.
There 17 are-so many other things going on and the plant staff is so l
18 busy with their own agenda and with the regulatory agenda, i
l 19 that I can see-that it-is an inconvenience.
It's very.
20 difficult to get. agreement to go ahead with th?se things.
l-21 That's the-reason -- I think that's part of the reason that 22 we are not carrying that' forward.
23
.The complete job of measuring these attributes is 24 very time consuming.
25 MR. CARROLL:
Absolutely.. But-the question is, is O
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it something that needs to be developed for the Agency.
l 2
It's fine that INPO has a program.
That doesn't satisfy 3
your needs, I don't think, very directly.
4 The one other comment on that is that my i
j 5
understanding -- correct me if I am wrong -- INPO does not a
j 6
regularly do corporate evaluations anymore.
They used to.
7 Today, their posture is that if a utility would like you to 8
come in --
9 MR. BECKJORD:
Yes, they do it on invitation, 10 right.
11 MR. CARROLL:
In the past it used to be that they 12 routinely did them.
But they, too, found it too intrusive l
13 and too resource intensive.
14 MR. BECKJORD:
What I gathered from our meeting in f
15 September was that the frequency of the corporate 16 evaluations is increasing overall.
~
17 MR. CARROLL:
They are requested.
18 MR. BECKJORD:
There are more of them now, yes.
l 19 MR. CARROLL:
Traditionally it used to be that for 20 every other plant evaluation would be accompanied by a --
21 MR. BECKJORD:
They-gave us-some figures =on that.
22 I don't recall them.
As I say, we are going to pursue the 23 human reliability-relationship with PRA, and that activity 24 will continue.
4 25 MR. CARROLL:
What I am hearing Brian say.is that O
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1 it is possible that you may need some better tools to go out f
2 and look at an organization to decide how you are going to i
j 3
input this into the PRA.
4 MR. SHERON:
That's correct.
5 MR. BECKJORD:
I think that's a narrower scope 6
than management or organization.
Research cooperations, I 7
will just go through these quickly.
8 MR. LINBLAD:
Eric, I was kind of waiting for Jay 9
to finish to ask something.
I heard two reasons why you i
10 weren't doing this.
The one that I saw in the slide was 11 that you had established an objective that you wanted to
)
12 bring this capability in house; that the Commissioners 13 didn't want you to get out in front of the utilities; that 14 you then went to --
15 MR. BECKJORD:
The chairman said that, yes.
16 MR. LINBLAD:
You went to Atlanta and satisfied 17 that the utilities that were ahead of you.
But then you-l
{
18 said so you stopped the program.
It seems to me that --
i 19 MR. BECKJORD:
Also, because of the user interest, i
20 user need.
21 MR. LINBLAD:
Right, and I respect the research 22 manager who says he relies on the users to assign him l
23 responsibility.
Maybe we need to talk-to those people i
24 instead of to Eric.
I really think that the general subject 25 is important and should be pursued.
I can understand if you i
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1 don't have funds and all the other priorities take them 2
first.
3 I would prefer though, not for you to give the 4
impression unless you truly believe it, that this is not 5
work that needs to be pursued at some time when funds and 6
priorities permit.
I don't think-that just the ability of 7
INPO to do diagnostics satisfies the NRC requirement.
But 8
certainly Tom Murley has to decide that too.
9 MR. CARROLL:
Nor do I feel that INPO's diagnostic 10 approach is any more sophisticated than NRC's approach.
11 It's basically a seat of the pants, I know how an 12 organization ought to work kind of thing, without the 13 benefit of the people who presumably have a lot of expertise O
\\s /
14 in organizations and how they work.
15 MR. LINBLAD:
One final remark.
I would think 16 that it would be of great interest in international reactor 17 safety as well.
18 MR. BECKJORD:
The only comment I would make is 19 that it's interesting that of your membership here, that the 20 two have extensive experience are interested in this.
When 21 I talk to utility people who are now running these plants 22 about it, it's about like bringing a skunk to a party, to 23 talk about organization and management.
24 I guess I don't deny that it's important.
It's a 25 difficult and a complex subject.
Personality is a big part.
O o
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]
1 of this.
What Pate says about it, and I agree with him, 1
j 2
there are people who have come through the Naval reactor j
3 experience and who have had experience in the nuclear plants j
4 and they know how to run a plant right.
5 The most practical way to extend and make use of i
6 that experience is to get them into important positions in a j
j 7
plant and then bring some young people along who can learn 8
what do you have to know in order to run these plants right.
1 9
MR. CARROLL:
The most Navy organization I can l
10 ever remember in my utility career worked at a place _ called i
j 11 Three Mile Island.
I keep reminding Zak_of that too.
i 12 There's a nice blend of people that have grown up in the 13 utility industry from the Nuclear Navy.
I get a little 14 impatient.
15 MR. BECKJORD:
Three Mile Island I, that was a 16 good crew.
They, for reasons best understood by them, they 4
17 did not attempt to do this kind of developing the role model 18 for Unit 2.
19 MR. SHEWMON:
Let me just comment that not s
20 everybody on the committee feels the way the two people that 4
21 asked questions did, about the continuation of this work.
e 22 MR. CARROLL:- That's correct.
23 MR. BECKJORD:
Shall.I move on then?
24 MR. SHERON:
Eric,_could I just interject one 25 thing on this organizational factors.
That is that when we O
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went ahead with this program five years ago there were 2
basically two thrusts.
One was looking and trying to j
3 develop what the attributes are of a pod organization.
The j
4 second was then to try and integrate this and somehow use t
j j
5 this information in a PRA.
l 6
What the study learned last summer that we did was I
j 7
that trying to dig out the attributes question and apply l
8 them was very resource intensive and had reached a point of 9
diminishing returns.
What we concluded if you remember at i.
10 that meeting that we had on November 12th with management i
11 was, they said this could be useful to us, the work that you 12 have done so far.
What they said is, please document it so i
13 that we can use it perhaps with our inspections and our SALP 4
14 process and bring it into play.
15 But what they felt was that we really didn't need 16 to go off and continue this further.
We had done enough in j
17 this area.
But the area that we'should pursue further is-1 18 the integration into the PRA.
That is-sort of where we are l
19 going and why we reached this one critical juncture, where i
20 we kind of jettisoned off the areas that were not cost j
l 21 effective anymore in terms of pursuing.
We are pursuing 22 those that are only really cost effective.
.23 MR. SHEWMON:
Gentlemen, we have things like the 24 maintenance rule and budget for which we have to close the 25 meeting, and other things here.
We have under ten minutes iO ANN RlLEYl& ASSOCIATES, Ltd.
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left.
What is your pleasure?
If we are going to cover any 2
of those items we better try to get on with_it.
3 (slides.)
4 MR. BECKJORD:
You were interested in 5
international cooperation.
You have the slides here.
I 6
don't thi.'k I need to say anymore about AP-600, ROSA.
I 7
don't think I need to -- the next one is on TMI lower vessel 8
head.
I have talked about that, and I don't need to say 9
anymore about that.
10 Other activities, just a quick look at them. I 11 visited PHEBUS last week in France.
I was really struck by 12 the effort that is going into that.
I guess my conclusion 13 was you have to visit it to see it, to appreciate the 14 complexity of what they are undertaking there on this source 15 term work.
They are-going to be doing a bunch of 16 experiments and they are doing it using their test reactor l-17 there.
Thy-have in essence a containment structure and all i
18 of the experimental equipment is inside.
i 19 They do an experiment with actual fission 20 products, and then they remove the experimental equipment 21 for one test and put in the next one.
To do this with the-22 complexity and the limited space in that containment is 23-really very impressive.
We are contributing to that work.
24 We agreed several years ago to join that project.
They 25 joined our severe accident research, and I am very impressed
<O l
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with what I saw.
2 We have work underway at FARO, at the European 3
community joint research center on fuel coolant interaction 4
questions, steam explosions.
We are in discussion with the 5
Japanese about work which they will do at the Alpha 6
facility.
The third item here, RASPLAV -- you haven't 7
talked with the Committee on that at any time -- this is the 8
research activity that I mentioned that we have underway 9
with the Russians.
The concept here is to investigate the 10 effect of cooling with water on the outside of a vessel, to 11 see if you have a core melt and how effectively you can cool 12 and quench that core with water inside the vessel but also 13 with water on the outside of the vessel, on the vessel head.
14 That experiment is being designed in Russia now.
15 We are supplying a relatively small amount of. support to-16 help with that.
Last week at the CSNI meeting I proposed to 17 the members that the cooperation--be expanded and--be turned 18 into a project like the-Three Mile Island Lower Vessel Head 19 project.
They agreed to hear the concept.
20 The Russians -- that's the Kurchatov Institute 21 under Stepnoy.
The safety research institute,_under Balshov 22
-- since they are theJones doing_that RASPLAV research.they 23 will make probably in February a technical proposal to the-4 24 CSNI.
Then,_the CSNI will-think about it and decide if they 25 want to turn that into an international research lO ANN RlLEY & ASSOCIATES, Ltd.
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1 cooperation.
I think it would help that experiment.
It 2
would expand the financial support for it.
3 MR. CATTON:
What scale is that; how big?
4 MR. BECKJORD:
They are designing it now.
5 MR. CATTON:
Just roughly.
6 MR. SPEIS:
The large one will be 200 kilograms.
7 There's a series of tests starting --
8 MR. BECKJORD:
What's the size of the vessel?
9 MR. SPEIS:
The size of the vessel --
10 MR. BECKJORD:- It's under a meter, isn't it?
11 MR. SPEIS:
It is about a meter in diameter.-
12 MR. BECKJORD:
Eight-tenths of a meter, something 13 like that.
14 MR. SPEIS:
We can provide the Committee more 15 information.
The objective is to use real material, 16 eventually.
17 MR. BECKJORD:
I-was pleased with the reaction of 18 the members.
There's a lot of interest in it, it turns out.
19 We knew that Finland was interested in this and they are 20 conducting some work on their own now.
France, the French 21 CEA is considering it.
I don't know, this may turn into a 22 bigger thing.
23 The core concrete interactions, we are involved 24 with the Germans and the Japanese at their facilities.
We 25 continue to cooperate with the CORA facility in hydrogen O
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1 deflagration and detonation.
Part of our research 2
cooperation with them involves work done which the Kurchatov 3
Institute is doing near Leningrad on hydrogen.
I talked 4
also about the NUPEC work.
5 Other things, aging, r._ clear power plant aging.
6 It's a big activity of information exchange with the 7
Russians.
On piping integrity, the IPIRG that you know 8
about.
Then on aging materials research and aging 9
participation with the PISC-III program which is winding up, 10 Roy Nichols gave a presentation on that wind up activity at 11 the CSNI meeting last week.
It is moving towards a 12 completion by the end of 1993.
There will be a big meeting 13 in Europe in August, presenting the results of PISC-III.
14 Cable aging, we have a joint research program.
We 15 are testing some French cables and they are testing some of 16 ours and some of theirs at SACLAY.
What I would say 17 generally about these research cooperations is that they are i
j 18 very important because of the number of these projects and i
19 the broad support for them, we are able to buy in.
i 20 Everybody is able to buy in to these programs.
21 MR. SHEWMoN:
Cable aging.is another accelerated i
22 task which we really don't know how to relate back to real 23 plants too well, is that it?
24 MR. BECKJORD:
That wasn't how I understood it.
25 MR. SHAO:
We can relate to plant aging.
We test
- (q
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437 1
1 for 20 years, 40 years and 60 years.
2 MR. SHEWMON:
Is this one of those things that if 3
there's a big fire will it survive, or if there's a big LOCA 4
will it survive; is that the --
5 MR. SHAO:
For radiation temperature and-fire.
6 MR. BECMORD:
Insulation performan::e is a big i
7 part of this.
8 MR. SHEWMON:
That, you never can test.
At least 9
with the fatigue you can go out and see whether things are 10 failing or anything like the rate they were predicting they 11 would.
l 12 MR. BECMORD:
Right.
l 13 MR. SHEWMON:
That, we know, isn't true.
That's 1
l-14 what really bothers me.
f 15 MR SHAO:
They raise the temperature to similar 16 aging.
1 17-MR. SHEWMON:
The problem then is when you go back a
18 and start trying to apply this to the plants.
You end up 19 holding them to a much higher standard or a more severe or i
j 20 more atypical standard than we ever had before with.the 1
21 current licensing basis.
l 22 MR. SHAO:
You are thinking of some older plants.
i
~
23 MR. SHEWMON:
I-am thinking of what you are doing T
24 in fatigue and what-we have heard on EQ with cable.
25 MR. SHAO:
You are-thinking of the license renewal O
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1 issue.
That was a different --
2 MR. SHEWMON:
That's what aging was about.
3 MR. SHAO:
The issuing the license is a little bit 4
different issus because NRC had grandfathered many plants 5
that were not subject to EQ before.
It's a question of how 6
you would deal with these equipment.
7 MR. BECKJORD:
I think maybe we should schedule 8
with you a discussion which can get a little more in to 9
depth into the aging program.
It's obvious that you have 10 some strong views on that.
11 MR. SHEWMON:
It sounds like a disservice to the 12 Agency, at least with regard to what we are going to do in 13 this step function anytime anybody wants to go page 39 and-14 one-half years.
15 MR. SHAO:
What Chairman is talking is a very 16 major issue.
It's how should we do EQ for the license 17 renewal. It's really -- right now, NRR don't have any 18 position.
19 MR. SHEWMON:
I have seen a couple of positions on 20 it.
21 MR. SHAO:
There were a couple of positions.
- Now, 22 the NRR manager wants to have a management review on the 23 whole thing.
It's-a major issue.
Fatigue-is a major issue 24 in licensing renewal.
25 MR. BECKJORD:
I think we ought to schedule a O
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439 1
presentation on that.
We have gone into some depth with the 1
2 research-review committee, and they didn't have a strong a 3
problem.
I think we better --
1 i
4 MR. SHEWMON We didn't either, on the first dump.
5 MR. BECMORD:
One thing I can say about the cable 1
6 aging is that the results to date show that cables are
]
7 pretty good.
There are a few exceptions to that, but most 8
of them under the simulated conditions of testing perfort j
9 well.
10 MR. SilAO:
Most of the cable can last 60 years.
s 11 MR. CATTON:
I have a different kind of question 12 about the cabling.
It's really not a part of the research
}
13 but maybe you can help me.
The more you struggle to make 14 the insulation inflammable t'o help you with your fire, I 15 have heard that the gases that come off of it if you just 2
16 heat it up a bit are super toxic.
17 MR. BECMORD:
That's an interesting point.
[
18 MR. CATTON:
So, you are caught in a dilemma.
If
{
19 you want it fireproof and you ever do get a short circuit t
20 somewhere, you have a problem.
We came on this because we l
21 are doing a little bit of work for NASA on hazards.
22 MR. BECMORD:
Aircraft hazards.
l 23 MR. CATTON:
Actually, Space.
It turns out we are i
24 not interested in fire anymore.
We are interested in smoke, 25 because the stuff is so nasty.
When you touch the dust O
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()
1 after you have cooked the wire a little bit and it will burn 2
your fingers.
You get HF and all kinds of nasty stuff.
3 MR. BECKJORD:
I understand that's been a problem 4
for passenger aircraft.
5 MR. CATTON:
It seems to me that this ought to be 6
something that you are looking into somewhere.
How 7
fireproof do we want to make it, at the expense of the 8
problems if you do indeed get a fire.
It is serious, I 9
think.
10 MR. BECKJORD:
That's a good point.
11 MR. CATTON:
If you could help me with any of 12 this, I would appreciate it.
If anybody knows anything 13 about it.
14 MR. BECKJORD:
Let's inquire into this and see 15 what the people that are doing the work know about it.
16 MR. SHAO:
We realize smoke can be important.
In 17 our future research program we are going to take smoke --
18 MR. CATTON:
Smoke.just smelled bad and looked bad-19 and it was maybe a problem.
20 MR. SHEWMON:
Maybe we need to get --
21 MR. CATTON:
Now, if you smell it you are in 22 trouble.
23 MR. SHEWMON:
Any other questions?
24
-MR. WILKINS:
Yes.
Eric, you said early in your 25 remarks that-aging.and severe accidents were-programs for O
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441 1
which the end was in sigt., or some such language.
Most of 2
the international cooperation projects are in those areas.
3 Do you contemplate that there would be in the near 4
or mid future, other activities in which we would be 5
cooperating with the French and the Germans and Russians and 6
so on, that are outside of these aging and severe accident 7
areas?
8 MR. BECKJoRD:
I think what I was attempting to 9
say was a couple of things. Maybe one thing that I didn't 10 say, we are trying to get the current agenda completed.- our 11 strategy has to be -- we have to finish things in order to 12 undertake new things.
New things are coming along.
We are 13 acting on that line.
14 Another point is that when I say we finish 15 something we don't intend to drop it.
For example, on the 16 aging, we have to maintain the knowledge and the expertise.
17 That means that you have to find some meaningful way of 18 keeping a few research people active in the field.
That's 19 difficult to do.
I mean, I don't know of a general formula.
20 for doing that.
21 But it's clear that in' respect to aging, we have 22 to maintain the information base and the knowledge.
Further 23 than that, as time goes on you are going _to-get more 24 experience because there will be more reactor years behind, 25 and you want to be able'to absorb and bring that into the O
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442 1
knowledge base and apply it as the license renewals come in, l
2 When I say we are going to phase it down, I mean 3
just that.
We are going to -- the major activity will be 4
behind us, but we have to find a way to continue the work at 5
a lower level which is fundable and viable so that the work 6
can be used.
The same will be true in severe accidents.
In 7
severe accidents the more you look at some of these new 8
designs there may be some variations in the problems that we 9
are looking at now for operating reactors that will require 10 some more attention.
11 1 don't think by saying that we are attempting to 12 conclude the work that we are doing now.
I don't say that 13 there isn't going to be work in the future.
I think that I
14 very likely there is, but it will be a new aspect that 15 hasn't been dealt with.
16 MR. WILKINS:
Thank you.
17 (Slides.]
)
18 MR. BECKJORD:
I think I have completed everything 19 except the budget.
The budget part of it, I don't think we 20 can discuss in an open session.
~
21-MR. SHEWMON:
We have something in the handout.
I 22 haven't sensed any particular need.
23 MR. FRALEY:
We can close.
24 MR. SHEWMON:
I know we can.
We are also over 25 schedule.
Why don't we just let people read that here.
)
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i i
443 1
MR. BECKJORD:
If you have any questions, I will 2
be happy to answer them in writing or however.
3 MR. SHEWMON:
Thank you very much.
Why don't we 4
take a break.
i 5
MR. BECKJORD:
You may see somewhere in the 6
letters on this subject that the cut that we just went 7
through will be accommodated without any offect on the 8
research program.
Those are not my words.
9 MR. WILKINS:
We understand that.
10 MR. BECKJORD:
I believe that those words emanated 11 from the Comptroller's Office.
I was not consulted, I do 12 not agree with them, and will have nothing to do with them.
13 There is no way that you can cut a budget ten percent and 14 not have an impact.
15 MR. SHEWMON:
Thank you.
16 (Whereupon, at 10:53 a.m.,
the transcribed portion 17 of the meeting concluded.)
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
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Court Reporters 1612 K. Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D. C. 20006 (202) 293 3950
REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission In the Matter oft NAME OF PROCEEDING:
392nd ACRS lieeting DOCKET NUMBER:
PLACE OF PROCEEDING:
Bethesda, }!aryland were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings, t
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RESEARCH PROGRAM DATE:
DECEMBER 11, 1992 PRESENTER:
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i i
i HUMAN FACTORS BRANCH i
DIVISION OF SYSTEMS RESEARCH RESEARCH BUDGET
($1,000)
BUDGET SUB-ACTIVITY FY 1992 FY 1993 SYSTEM PERFORMANCE OF ALWRs 290 150 PERSONNEL PERFORMANCE 968 490 HUMAN-SYSTEM INTERFACES 1,937 2,610 ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS 1,240 0
DATA ACQUISITION
& MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS 440 605 HRA/PRA METHODS AND APPLICATIONS 1,827 1,145 HUMAN FACTORS ISSUES 192 100 PERFORMANCE OF MATERIALS LICENSEES 230 550 BRANCH TOTAL:
7,124 5,650 l
4-1
i f
CHANGES OF HUMAN FACTORS RESEARCH BUDGET I
e NET DECREASE IN HUMAN RELIABILITY WORR IS 21% ($1,474K = 7,124K -
5,650K).
e MOST OF THAT DECREASE (84%) IS FROM THE ELIMINATION OF FUNDING FOR MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL' FACTORS.
MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS BUDGET IN FY-92 WAS $1,240,00.
17%: OF HUMAN RELIABILITY BUDGET i
j 1.2% OF. TOTAL RES BUDGET t
i
)
i j
J 1
4-2 i
F l
MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS ISSUES e
DULD FACTORS CAN CONTRIBUTE TO ACCIDENTS AND SIGNIFICANT INCIDENTS.
e RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:
STANDARDIZED, VALIDATED MEANS OF: MEASURING.
MEASUREMENT OF M&0 ldi MULTI-ATTRIBUTE, COMPLEX e
RESULTS TO DATE, MADE AVAILABLE FOR APPLICATION:
STRUCTURED INTERVIEW PROCEDURES, RATING SCALES, BEHAVIORAL CHECKLISTS FOR INSPECTIONS AND DIAGNOSTIC EVALUATIONS INTERIM METHODS FOR INTEGRATING M&O FACTORS INTO PRA SENIOR MANAGEMENT REVIEW JULY 7 AND NOVEMBER 12, 1992.
RES AND NRR TO COORDINATE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF M&O FACTORS
' MODELING FOR PRA '(AS PART OF HUMAN RELIABILITY MODELING FOR PRA) i i
I INPO APPEARS TOTHAVE EFFECTIVE PROGRAM; USED ON A REGULAR BASIS.
I RES-INPO MEETING SEPTEMBER 17, 1992
~
4 e
t j
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH COOPERATION ADVANCED LWRs AP600 INTEGRAL TESTING
. ROSA V- (JAPAN) o TESTS COMMENCE LATE 1993 SG TUBE RUPTURE, MSLB L
4
- SBLOCA, PBL BREAK, i
i t
5-1 1
4
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH COOPERATION SEVERE ACCIDENTS i
LOWER-HEAD VESSEL DAMAGE TMI-2 VESSEL INVESTIGATION PROJECT (0 ECD /NEA) 4 CONDITION & PROPERTIES OF MATERIAL EXTRACTED j
FROM LOWER HEAD l'
4 EXTENT OF DAMAGE'TO LOWER HEAD (CHEMICAL &
l THERMAL) 4 MARGIN OF-STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY LEFT IN PRESSURE j
. VESSEL i
4 SAMPLE EXTRACTION, SAMPLE EXAMINATION, ANALYSIS i.
OF RESULTS i
4 CLOSURE JUNE'1993
.i 5-2
h INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH COOPERATION SEVERE ACCIDENTS (CONTINUED)
PRIMARY SYSTEM AND CONTAINMENT FISSION PRODUCT AND AEROSOL BEHAVIOR l
PHEBUS (FRANCE, CEC) l i
e MELT JET BREAKUP AND ' QUENCHING',-
STEAM EXPLOSIONS
- FARO, KROTOS (CEC, ISPRA)
ALPHA' FACILITY (JAPAN) e MELT ATTACK.ON LOWER HEAD, EX-VESSEL COOLING RASPLAV (RUSSIA)-
CORVUS (SWITZERLAND)
CORE CONCRETE INTERACTIONS, INCLUDING COOLING
- BETA FACILITY (GERMANY)
ALPHA FACILITY (JAPAN)
CORE DEGRADATION AND REFLOOD CORA (GERMANY).
i e
HYDROGEN DEFLAGRATION AND DETONATION i
K0PEL FACILITY AND ANALYSIS (RUSSIA)
JOINT NRC-NUPEC (JAPAN) 5-3
i i
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH COOPERATION AGING NUCLEAR POWER PLANT AGING US-CIS JCCCNRS WORKING GROUP 12 (RUSSIA, UKRAINE)
(EQUIPMENT' SELECTION AND DATA, DEGRADATION I
I
. MECHANISMS, DIAGNOSTICS)
PIPING INTEGRITY IPIRG (CANADA, UK,
- FRANCE, JAPAN,
- KOREA, SWEDEN, l
?
SWITZERLAND, CZECHOSLOVAKIA,
- HUNGARY, BULGARIA) l l
i 1
1 5-4 l
i i
I
l 4
4 j
i INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH COOPERATION l
AGING (CONT'D) l MATERIALS RESEARCH AND AGING l
i r
DECD/NEA PARTICIPATION IN EUROPEAN COMMUNITY-SPONSORED i
PROGRAM ON THE INSPECTION OF STEEL COMPONENTS i
(PISC-III) e CABLE AGING i
(
i i
SACLAY (FRANCE) k P
Y 1
I i
1 1
i l
f
\\
l 5-5 I
l i
J 4
OTHER INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH ACTIVITIES THERMAL-HYDRAULIC CODE ASSESSMENT CAMP (21 FORElGN GROUPS EXPECTED TO PARTICIPATE)
DIGITAL INSTRUMENTATION AND CONTROLS HALDEN (NORWAY; RENEWAL 1993)
RISK AND HUMAN FACTORS e
UK,
- SPAIN, SWITZERLAND 5-6
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