ML20137C540
| ML20137C540 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Dow Chemical Company |
| Issue date: | 12/31/1996 |
| From: | Rigot W DOW CHEMICAL CO. |
| To: | NRC (Affiliation Not Assigned), NRC OFFICE OF INFORMATION RESOURCES MANAGEMENT (IRM) |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9703250035 | |
| Download: ML20137C540 (4) | |
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The Dow Chemical Company March 18,1997 Mound. Mcngan 4sw7 Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Document Control Desk U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C. 20555 DOW TRIGA RESEARCH REACTOR - DOCKET 50-264 Enclosed is tha Annual Report for the Dow TRIGA facility for the year 1996.
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W. L. Rigot Reactor Supervisor 1602 Building cc: Alexander Adams i
Regional Administrator S. L. Dombrowski i
S. B. Butts l
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e DOW TRIGA* RESEARCH REACTOR ANNUAL REPORT-1996 There were no major changes, maintenance problems, or down time involving the reactor during 1996. Operation of the reactor continues to be plagued with an unacceptably large number of unintentional shutdowns (scrams), most of which seem to be caused by the control system itself, although there seems to be a year-to-year decrease of these.
There were no US NRC inspections in 1996. The :equired annual audit was conducted by an outside consultant; recommendations were made and the Reactor Operations Committee has responded to these recommendations. The normal in-house audits of the radiation protection program, safety and housekeeping, and records were also performed and the recommendations acted upon.
A.
Staff, Licenses, and Training The staff consists of four Senior Reactor Operators. There have been no staffing changes during this period.
W. L. Rigot Reactor Supervisor T. J. Quinn Assistant Reactor Supervisor J. D. Romick Assistant Reactor Supervisor M. E. Buchmann Senior Reactor Operator Licenses are current. Rigot and Quinn licenses will be up for renewal in 1999, while the Buchmann and Romick licenses will be up for renewal in 1997. All operators took medical examinations during 1996.
The current two-year re-qualification program started in the second quarter 1996 and will be completed during 1998. The previous re-qualification program ended in 1996 and was followed by a comprehensive written examination which was successfully completed by all senior reactor operators. Four quarterly re-qualification sessions were held during 1996; all operators have participated and successfully completed the requirements for these sessions. The SROs are current with operating experience and participation in emergency preparedness drills, Reactor Operation Committee meetings, an annual operating examination, and the annual fuel inventory.
Operation of the reactor is an important part of the training program, since this reactor is operated on an as-needed basis, which results in numerous operations each involving reactivity manipulations, use of the control console, placement and retrieval of samples and handling of radioactive materials. The minimum experience of an operator during 1996 was 17.3 hours3.472222e-5 days <br />8.333333e-4 hours <br />4.960317e-6 weeks <br />1.1415e-6 months <br /> of actual operating time, involving 152 reactivity manipulations, and the maximum experience was 182.6 hours6.944444e-5 days <br />0.00167 hours <br />9.920635e-6 weeks <br />2.283e-6 months <br /> of actual operating time, involving 643 reactivity manipulations.
Furthermore, each licensed person performed about 1/4 of the daily checkout procedures and at least two monthly checkout procedures.
- TRIGA is a registered trademark of General Atomics 17 March 1997-Page 1 of 3 4
F DOW TRIGA RESEARCH REACTOR ANNUAL REPORT - 1996 I
J. A. Grappin remains the Radiation Safety Officer and sits as a member of the Reactor Operations Committee. The entire composition of the Reactor Operations Committee is listed below. Carol Poirer has been added as the Health Physics Technician for the Midland Area and assists in support of the reactor facility.
S. B. Butts Facility Director; Chairman W. L. Rigot Reactor Supervisor J. A. Grappin Radiation Safety Officer T. J. Quinn Assistant Reactor Supervisor T. D. Lickly Research Associate S. B. Butts is the Resource Leader for the Atomic Spectroscopy and Inorganic Analysis Discipline within the Global Analytical Sciences Laboratory; Rigot and Quinn report administratively to Butts; Grappin is the Dow Midland location Radiation Safety Officer as well as the TRIGA Radiation Safety Officer and reports, as does Lickly, to the Dow Environmental, Health, Safety and Security department.
B.
Reactor Operating Experience The reactor was operated for 1.85 Megawatt-days during 1996 for a total of 360 hours0.00417 days <br />0.1 hours <br />5.952381e-4 weeks <br />1.3698e-4 months <br /> (an average of 18.6% of the available normal working hours) and 1740 reactivity manipulations, including checkouts and testing as well as the irradiation of samples.
C.
Major Changes During 1996 there were no major changes in the facility and tbcre were no authorizations of new tests or experiments significantly different than those performed previously.
D.
Unscheduled Shutdowns There were 40 unscheduled shutdowns (scrams) during 1996. Although this represents an increase of the previous year's total of 33, it is down from 42 during 1994,47 during 1993,59 during 1992 and 72 during 1991. During the almost ten years following 1-1-81 the yearly average was 6 scrams, with a high of 9 (1983) and a low of 3 (1989), using the control instrumentation installed in 1971 and 1973. After installation of the new console there were 4 scrams during installation and startup in the last two weeks of December, 1990,72 during j
1991,59 during 1992,47 during 1993 and 42 during 1994. Some of these were related to hardware problems which have since been fixed, but a large majority seem to be due to three aspects of the control system: computer crashes, noise in the digital smoothing process which produces the period signal and some aspect of the DIO64 interface. The DIO64 is the interface between the mechanical switches used by the console operator to activate magnet power, move the control rods and manually secure the reactor. The problem with this aspect of the console arose during the third quarter and is still being investigated.
17 March 1997-Page 2 of 3
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DOW TRIGA RESEARCH REACTOR ANNUAL REPORT-1996 About 98% of the scrams were associated with the operation of the console: the digital smoothing process (about 32 %), computer crashes (about 28 %), period scrams at the count-rate / Campbell crossover _(about 8 %), and " Key Switch Off' scrams (about 28 %).
About 2 % of the scrams were associated with operator errors.
E.
Major Preventive and Corrective Maintenance of Safety Significance -
There was no maintenance, which had safety significance performed during 1996. One item which reduces airborne emissions to the environment was performed in 1996 and is described in the next section of this report.
F.
Radioactive Effluents The only radioactive material normally released to the environment from the facility is argon-41, which is produced from activation of the natural argon dissolved in the pool water and subsequently escapes from the pool into the reactor room and from there to the outside of the building, and from the natural argon present in the air used to transport samples from a laboratory into a terminus in the core of the reactor. Prior to 1996 there were several spurious releases of unidentified airbome radioisotopes. Calculations were made and no releases above 10% of 10CFR20 limits were made. During 1995 an airborne level of radioisotopes was detected within the reactor room which allowed for identification of the isotope present. The filter from the continuous air monitor (CAM) was removed and a spectrum acquired using a high purity germanium detector. The spectrum showed unusually high levels of magnesium-27 present on the filter. It was determined that the magnesium-27 was emanating from the pneumatic tube used for sample irradiations. The blower is in the reactor room and the exhaust is released from the building through a HEPA filter on the roof of the building. A back flow preventer was installed on the blower during 1996 and there have been no further incidents of these releases.
G.
Radiation Exposures Radiation exposures received by facility personnel and visitors are monitored using film badges and thermoluminescent detectors. No persons have received exposures approaching 25% of those allowed or recommended in 10CFR20.
W. L. Rigot Reactor Supervisor 13 March 1996 l
17 March 1997. Page 3 of 3