ML20147A703
| ML20147A703 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/05/1978 |
| From: | Bender M, Lawroski S, Seiss C Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T, NUDOCS 7812140194 | |
| Download: ML20147A703 (196) | |
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PUBLIC NOTICE BY THE 2 UNIT. iTATES NUCLEAR REGULATr 'OMMISSION'S
~
3 ADVI W COMMITTEE OM REACTOu SAFEGUARDS 4 . .
i Tuesday,. 5 December 1978
. 5
- 6 The contents of this stenographic transcript of the 7 proceedings of the United States Nuclear Regulatory
. 8 Commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS),
9 as reported herein, is an uncorrected record of the discussions 10 recorded at the meeting held on the above date.
Il No member of the ACRS Staff and no participant at this 12 meeting accepts any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies 13 of statament or data contained in this transcript.
-3 L_)
14 15 .
. 16 -
17 18 19 20 21 22 l 1 23 f "%
Fed feporters, Inc.
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2 CR1557 I
MELTZER/mm UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
{} 3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 5
6 7
SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING -
O on l
9 GENERIC SAFEGUARDS ,
10 ,
11 Room 1046 1717 H Street, N.W.
I Washington, D.C..
() I3 la Tuesday, 5 December 1978 1
The ACRS Subcommittee on Generic Items met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., Mver Bender, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
BEFORE:
18 MYER BENDER, Chairman of the Subcommittee 39 DR. STEPHEN LAWROSKI, Member DR. C. P. SIESS, Member.
1 22 '
23 24 Amf")ud
's- Repo,ters, 25 inc, I
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3 mm/MELTZER 1 P_ R,O C_ E,E_ D_ I_ N_ G S, CR1557
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2 MR. BENDER- This meeting will now come to order.
3 l This is a meeting of the Advisory Committee on
() 4 Reactor Safeguards, Subcommittee on Generic Items.
5 I am Mr. Bender, Subcommittee Chairman. The other 6 ACRS members present are Dr. Lawroski and Dr. Siess. l 7 The purpose of this meeting is to develop information 8 for consideration by the ACRS in its review of the status of the l 9 various generic items contained in the committee's November 10 15, 1977 status of generic items relating to Light Nater 11 Reactors Report No. 6.
12 This meeting is being conducted in accordance with es 13 the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the 14 Government in the Sunshine Act.
15 Mr. Richard Maior is a designated federal emolovee '
16 for this meeting. He is on mv right.
17 The chief sockesman for the NRC staff will be 18 Mr. Larry Crocker.
19 The specific items to be discussed today include a 20 review of the 28 unresolved items to better define their 21 position regarding the actions needed to resolve each item, 22 and a general review of the imolementation of the 48 23 resolved qeneric items to find out how effective the implementa-24 tion program has been.
i AC}eral Wootters, Inc.
J(> - 25 A transcript of the meeting is being kept and it is I i
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-____ b
4 i
E mm I requested that each soeaker first identify himself and speak
'2 with sufficient clarity and volume that he can be readily
,)
3 heard. ,
4 Before takina up item 1, I would like to have a brief d l 5 Executive Session to just reach some agreement within the 6 subcommittee as to the mode of operation. <
l This is the only meeting the subcommittee has had l 7
8 this year and I didn't feel that there was any areat need for 9 having one previously because the progress towards resolution 10 of the unresolved items was not noticeable for some time. We 11 may have a few items that have reached the stage of resolution 12 and hopefully we will hear about tbase today.
{} 13 However, the committee had -- the full committee had 14 agreed that we would trv~to do something about making certain 15 that the matters that were on the generic items list in 16 addition to having a resolution by the committee's terms, 17 also had an implementation plan so that we could at least 18 assure' the public that resolution was meaningful.
19 Consequentiv, I had hoped in this meeting to soend 20 some' time just having he staff quickly run through with us 21 where the implementation stood on items that have been resolved 22 for things like preparation of Regulatorv Guides. In other O- 23 words, whether a Regulatory Guide has actually beeen out into 24 effect. In some cases it involves channes in the cressure'
' Ace'Orat Reporters, Inc.
b- 25 vessel codes, inspection practices and things of that sort.
I
5 ,
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Hopefully, we will be able to learn how many of 2
those are beyond the stage of just being paper agreements.
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3 It may be that we will find in this discussion that some
() 4 portions of the licensed facilities are complying and other 5 portions are not. And that might be useful for us to know.
6 Are there thoughts which Let me ask the subcommittee 7 either of you have concerning what we should do?
8 DR. SIESS: Mik e ', I don't know what we can do today 9 on this, but it seems to me something we ought to look at for 0
the not-too-distant future. And that is trying to coordinate I
or relate the ACRS generic item list to what I will call 12 the staff's generic item list.
13 The staff has a very formal list, formal orocedures,
(])-
Id task action plans, priorities; they are reviewing the criorities 15 and categories and moving things from B to A and C to A. Thev 16 have very definite olans for resolution and presumably thev will I7 have very definite olans for implementation.
18 They also have apoeared to have developed a new I9 category of " unresolved safety items." It is a subset, if vou 20 will excuse the exoression, of unresolved generic items. And 21 as I recall, in a check we made a couple of years ago, every 22 one of the ACRS' generic items is on the staff's list of 23 generic items. They didn't all have the same criority in the 24 staf f's list that thev had in our oriority ' list. But there AVNeral fleporters, Inc.
k-) 25 was about a 50 cercent agreement on oriorities.
6 mm 1 And maybe it is possible for us in the future to take
.g~ 2 our existing ceneric items, look at them in relation to the 3 staff's list, and to concentrate our attention on where thev 1
() 4 are there. As we come in) with new generic items, do it with 5 the thought of adding them to the staff's list, or getting the !
I l
6 staff concurrence that-thev: belong on the list of cencric 1 7 items. And then devote most of our attention to following the 8 staff's generic items resolution crocess and implementation i
9 process rather than just looking at our Dart of it.
10 I obviously believe they have got some items in 11 there that are more important than items that are on our list.
12 They just never were put on our list because we recognized that rs 13 thev were high-priority staff items. ,
.O 14 MR. BENDER: I certainly wouldn't have any cuarrel 15 with that. I think we do have the obligation to deal with the 16 things which the committee has called out in its letters, 17 just to be sure that there is a visible attemot to get those 18 items --
19 DR. SIESS: But that oblication, I think, could be 20 exercised bv seeing that those items are on the staff's list.
21 And if they are on the staff's list, a list of what we think 22 is an apprcpriate prioritv.
23 MR. BENDER: Yes, meaning thev have them, some kind 24 of plan for resolution.
. Ar:e?~' tal Reportett Inc.
25 Yes, I agree with that.
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'DR. SIESS: I am sure the staff is not dealing with 2
generic items separately, whether thev are on our list or 3
theirs. At least all the evidence I have seen is that thev
'O d have treated their generic item list which does include all of ,
5 ours.
6 Am I t.ight, Larry?
1 7 MR. CRCCKER: That is correct, Dr. Siess.
8 All of the ACRS' items ara represented someolace on i 9 -the staff generic items list. It may be a verv low priority 10
- in some instances --
II DR. SIESS: In a few instances.
12 I made up a correlation once. At least half the l
O items were the same priority on the two lists. And a small Id percentage were off -- a negative correlation.
15 But to do this we have got to look at the staff's 16 definition of generic items. We may want to adopt the unresolved '
I7 safety items concept that the staff has adopted because IO Congress told them to. They have act to out something in the I9 Annual Report about it.
20 Now, this by itself will not get generic items out 2I of letters, but that is a goal to be sought, I think.
'22 MR. BENDER: Nell, I think in the past we didn't O- 23 make that correlation with the staff's report and generally 24 reach some position on the oriorities which we assigned to those Acs rat fleporters, in things. And presumably the staff is aware of that set of l
8 E- I priorities.
(} 2 MR. CROCKER: Yes,there was a cross-reference in your 3 letter of 15 November last year, between the ACRS list and the
( 4 ' staff's generic items by category.
?
5 Really there was a rather good correlation, I thought, 6 on relative priorities. There were a few --
7 DR. SIESS: But what I am really trying to sugaest 8 to the Generic Items Subcommittee, work toward the obiective 9 of reviewing the staff's effort on generic items and not iust 10 on our generic items. Because as.I said,there are some II items on their list that we certainly think are important.
12 I am not quite sure why they are not on our list, but
(} 13 there are some.
14 MR. BENDER: Well, some of the things on their list 15 are matters which we considered resolved in the sense that we _ . -
16 had accepted their position. But they recognize that implementa-17 tion has turned out to be somewhat stickier than they thought.
18 DR.SIESS: I believe the staff's effort is much more l
19 organized on the generic items list than our effort is. And it 20 would be easier for us to follow their effort, being sure that !
21 ours were taken care of, and gradually phase out our seoarate 22 list, to see that it is incoroorated into theirs and that we O 23 agree.
24 MR.nBENDER: Well, I would be'the first one to agree -
' Arx eral Reporters, Inc.
V 25 with'the approach. I think if we are going to do that we have I
9 mm I got to get the full committee to support that idea.
f3 2 But I think it is a good one.
v 3 DR. SIESS: Maybe today we can look at it sort of in r"s
() 4 that light and see if it is workable.
5 MR. BENDER: Did you have any thoughts, Steve?
6 DR. LANROSKI: I would just like to mention another 1
7 on which I believe the staff has a large effort, namely the 8 ' systematic evaluation program and how all f this ties in with l l
that, if we could hear it. I 9
10 At the present time, not like it was maybe once 11 anticioated.
12 DR. SIESS: Well that program has been under the 13 Operating Reactors Subcommittee.
(~}
\_/
14 MR. BENDER: But Steve is right, it has some implica- l 15 tion. For example, the containment testing business is one of 16 the things that is being looked at under the Systematic 17 Evaluation Program. And it is, I think, one of the items on l
18 your generic list. l l
19 DR. SIESS: Well one of the strong relationships is 20 simply that a lot of the high-priority generic items are 21 matters that have to be resolved in connection with the l 22 Systematic Evaluation Program.
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kl 23 DR. LAWROSKI: Yes. That's why I think it is imoortant 24 that it not be ignored today, even though, as has been pointed . '
Ace eral fleporters, Inc.
25 out, the SEP comes under the Operating --
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n 10 l mm DR. SIESS: It doesn't have to.
MR. BENDER: Nell, Chet, I have no reservations :
) 2 about the suggestion you made. I would be willing to out it to 3
() 4 the committee, if vou and Steve would like, that we iust adopt j
the more general generic items list the staff has.
5 I cringe a little bit at the idea of having another 6
set of generic item numbers to deal with, but mavbe we can 7
-figure out a way of-how to do that.
8 DR. LAWROSKI: But we have to do something about our 9 l list, our numbering system anyway, Mike, let's face it. This 10 1 l
may be the time to start.
11 (Laughter.)
12 1 DR. SIESS: If we could get the generic items out of our letters, then we don't have to worrv about the numbering 14 l system. And I will continue to say that there is no place for 15 ;
generic items in letters on cases, because that takes them out ;
16 of the categorv of generic, and makes them case-soecific, and 17 this bothers me.
18 But I am sure the staff is going to address resolu- ,
19 l tion of items by reference to the task action plans of th ek l 20 generic items. -
21 I think it is also confusing to have two sets of
() 23 generic items, ACRS generic items -- and I look at our list and I look at the staff's list and I say, " Gee, how come thev 24
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Ace y think that's important and we don't?" which is what it looks 25 l
l
11 mm I like. And I know that some of their items are ours, whether 2 we call them that or not.
3 MR. BENDER: Well there are a large number of items
() 4 on the staff's generic item list that, in a subiective way I 5 would characterize them as being trivia, but that is my 1
6 perspective; just as the staff looks at some of our list and 7 considers them irrelevant, imoractical, or trivia.
8 MR. CROCKER: I'm glad vou said that.
9 (Laughter.)
]
10 DR. SIESS: See, our old criterion was if it was 11 mentioned in three letters it became a generic item. And there 12 were a lot of things that we iust didn't keep that way, a nd i 1
13 that was sort of a strange criterion in view of the way we 14 are now settirig priorities. We are certainlv setting 15 priorities on a much more rational basis than how many letters 16 we mentioned At in.
17 MR. BEN DER: Well, I don't think we can resolve the 18 matter of how we would do it here.
19 The principle seems to me to be one that we could 20 put forth, and we will just have to consider what the 21 practicalities are.
22 Are there other matters that the subcommittee wants 23 to.take up?
24 DR. LAWROSKI: I think we have so much ahead of us i Ace ^teral Fleporters, Inc.
~
U 25 today, we had better get with it.
I
12
- MR. BENDER: Well, let's proceed.
1 2 Larry,-it is not my suqqestion that we belabor the
{~ )
3 discussions. We would like to go down through the lists
() 4 svtematically, and as rapidly as possible. If you can suntmarize 5 the situation in a half a minute, there is no reason to take 6 half an hour. ,
7 DR. SIESS: Per item. -
8 MR. BENDER: Thank you, Chet.
9 (Laugh ter . )
10 We may want to belabor a few of them.
l 11 MR. CROCKER: That's fine, sir. I susoect that half 1 12 a minute is probably stretching my capability on most of these 13 items.
14 I would like to introduce the folks I have with me 15 this morning, Mr. Bender.
16 To my left is Mike Aycock, our program supoort staff, 17 Mr. Denton's office.
I 18 To mv right is Ralph Meyer, section leader, fuel 19 section, NDSS.
20 Sort of hiding in the corner is Jerry Carter from 21 the Division of Operating Reactors.
22 I will try to run down the list very rapidlv as to 23 where we stand on these items. I am afraid we don't have a 24 great -- i Ac/ #%rst Reporters, Inc.
" 25 MR. DENDE R: Let's begin by asking which list are you
13 l I
I going to work from?
mm !
2 MR. CROCKER: This is the December 4th letter, sir, 3
and I think you probably have had it in your hands almost as 4
long as l've had it in mine.
5 DR. SIESS: Larry, can we ignore the May 4th letter?
6 MR.CROCKER: Yes,you can ignore that.
7 That was the previous update, and we didn't have a 8 chance to talk to you abost it.
9 DR. SIESS: This has everything -- this suoersedes --
10 MR. CROCKER: The December 4th letter supersedes the II May 4th letter, that is correct. Some of the items are pre-12 cisely the same. You will see that we made some progress in 13 geologic time, but there have been a number of changes.
Id We will have a very brief, as far as I'm concerned, 15 discussion abou4 this implementation of the resolved items.
16 Mr. Avcock would like to discuss with you the 17 commission oaper that you have in front of you. It is SECY 18 78-616, which is an input on unresolved generic items as cart 19 of our annual report.
20 And then we would like to talk very brieflv tbout 21 several of the fuels related generic items,which is whv 22 "r. Meyer is with me.
O- 23 MR. BENDER: This thing is dated November 27. I just 2d want to point out that that was my birthday. It was a fine '
AcrOeral Reporters, Inc.
V 25 birthday present.
l
~
14 mm 1 MR. CROCKER: Well, happy birthday. l 2 (Laughter.)
3 Would you just like to run down the generic items
() 4 in order, Mr. Bender?
5 MR. BENDER: YeL,'I think that would be a useful l
6 thing to do.
7 Now the items you have in this December 4 letter, 8 'just from a quick scan, are those which are presentiv on our 9 unresolved list?
10 MR. CROCKER: Those are the items from your current 11 unresolved items list.
12 MR, BENDER: Okay.
1 13 MR. CROCKER: On item II-1, turbine missiles, we are 14 in the process right now of precaring NUREG report which will 15 recommend specific requirements on turbine fabrication and 16 operation to reduce overall damage probabilitv.
17 The words that vou see in the report here, I believe 18 are exactly the same as the ones that appeared in the "tav 4th 19 letter. I am told that there has been some progress, although 20 you can't measure it as far as the paper is concerned. I am 21 not really sure just when that report is due out,' but we have 22 had a -- do you have something on that, Mike?
23 MR. BENDER- Can I ask in a practical sense about 24 things that are going on? i Acey"-)'frel
\~ Reporters, 25 Inc.
The industry, I think, initiated a fairly active R&D l t
15 '
mm 1 program to learn more about the consequences of missile strikes ,
-(g
'T 2 -And I wondered if that had any imoact on -- other than finding 3 out what the forces were -- on the staff's resolution of the
() 4 turbine missile question. ,
5 MR. CROCKER: I am sure it has. That comes under our 6 Task A-32. And EPRI, in particular, has been doing a 7 considerable amount of work on the turbine missile strike 8 effects.
9 MR. BENDEP: Hell, the question is whether that work 10 is adding anything to resolution of the problem.
11 Is the data of value to us, or do we know?
12 MR. CROCKER: Yes, I believe our people are, in 1
(} 13 fact, using the data. Just how it is being factored in here, 14 I am not quite sure.
15 DR. SIESS: I think they are using some of the data 16 on deciding what is acceptable for penetration formulas.
17 Now the EPRI tests have not gotten t)the penetration 18 tests, the containment nenetration tests. They have done turbine 19 casing tests.
20 MR. CROCKER: Yes, I believe this is correct.
21 DR. SIESS: But there were three or four other tests 22 on penetration of concrete that I think the staf f has used 23 to come up with, given the concrete strength, it has to be 24 thic thick, period.
ANDpfel Ileporters, litC.
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25 They have got some very simple acceptance criteria
16 L
mm~ 1 for that.
2 MR. BENDER: Well, in many cases the concrete is there 3 and it is thick enough. It sort of makes the problem go awav.
() 4 DR. SIESS: Yes.
5 Or, if the applicant simply says, "I'll make it 6 that thick,"'then all we can argue about is what the strength 7 is. But what they haven't got is any idea as to how good 8 these penetration formulas are.
9 I think they are conservative, which would out this 10 in the same category we are in other areas: We have got 11 something that we are pretty sure has adecuate margin,. but 12 we don't know how much. And I don't think anybody has got anv
. 13 good data on a glancing blow,'which certainly reduces the 14 target area down if it is very much different.
15 ' So it is sort of like the areas where we said we have 16 got a conservative approach, and the industry is working to 17 refine it. But in the meantime I think it is conservative.
18 I think low trajectorv missiles is resolved, per- j 19 sonally.
20 MR. BENDER: Well, can we expect soon, something which!
21 summarizes the staff's position?
22 DR. SIESS: The staff position is in a Reg Guide and i
23 in a Branch Technical Position as far as I know. Isn't it?
24 MR. CROCKER: There is a Reg Guide on a low trajectory Ace Neret Repo,rers, Inc.
b 25 missile.
l,
17 a
mm I DR. SIESS: That doesn't have the concrete. That is 2 in a Branch Position --
3{
3 MR. CROCKER: No.
4 We have two tasks, really. One on turbine missiles, 5 which is Task A-37, and one on missile effects, which includes 6 turbine missiles, A-32. I 7 The report, as near as we can make out from our schedule ,
8 right here, is due out in' April of next vear, this NUREG report. l 9 MR. BENDER: What I am trying to determine for 10 myself is, what will constitute resolution?
II What are you going to give the committee as a basis 12 for saying this problem is resolved?
13 MR. CROCKER:
(]) We will have revisions of the Standard 14 Review Plan, which will specify presumably this turbine 15 orientation, soecify materials to be used in turbine fabrica-16 tion, inspections to be run. I suspect it also will get into 17 the tests of the various stop valves involved in the turbine to 18 make sure that you cannot get up into destructive oversoced I9 condi tion s .
20 DR. SIESS: Is the' report you are referring to the 21 one on page 2 here of the Denton letter which says:
22 ". . .will recommend specific requirements on 23 turbine fabrication and operation. . ."
24 MR. CROCKER: That is correct, the NUREG report. ,
,Ac O; erst Reporters, Inc.
U 25 DR. SIESS: That's really not -- that's just one part ;
18 4
I mm o'f it, isn' t it?
2 MR. CROCKER: That is a cart, yes.
DR. SIESS: That is just releasing the probability.
O <
So if that gives an acceptable -- gives a probability that the 5
staff will accept if these things are met, that could take 6 '
care of future cases, if the geometry is such to provide the 7
rest of the probability you need.
8 MR. CROCKER: Yes.
9 DR. SIESS: But for existing plants, narticularly 10 with the tangential orientation, this isn't going to get them I
out of the problems. They are going to have to look at 12 missiles and possible penetration and so forth, SEP program.
1 13 Q. MR. CROCKER: I don't know if the SEP program is Id planning to go back to that or not.
15 DR. SIESS: I am sure that they-are.
16 MR. MEYER: It is in there.
I7 DR. SIESS: It has got to be. It was an unresolved 18 issue, I think.
I9 But that is where the EPRI tests and other things 20 come in.
21 MR. BENDER: Does tha staff have a position that 22 says that if the orientation is a certain way for certain O 23 plants,the problem is resolved in Reg Guide?
24 ACarsl Heporters, Inc. MR. CROCKE R: As far as the low-tra-lectorv missiles V 25 are concerned, yes. With a peninsula orientation, provided I
19 mm 1 that it is, in fact set far enough away --
,- 2 DR.SIESS: For single units.
. N_/
3 MR. CROCKER: For single units.
() 4 MR. BENDER: And for those,the high-traiectory missiles 5 are still under evaluation?
6 DR. SIESS: What we have been doing, Mike, is for a 7 single unit with the peninsula orientation, the Reg Guide 8 says that reduces the probability of low trajectory.
9 Then the staff looks at high-trajectory missiles on 10 a probabilistic basis. And on every case I can recall, they 11 have decided the probability is low, is quite a bit lower than 12 the low trajectories. Therefore it is acceptable.
13 MR. CROCKER: That is correct.
14 DR. SIESS: Now that still is case-by-case, because 15 it depends on the plant geometry. But I don't see how it 16 depends so much on the plant geometry.
17 And then for multiple installations they have to 18 look at those. And people are still playing with different 19 peninsula orientations for multiple units.
20 MR. BENDER: Well, let me leave it like this rather 21 than belabor this thing much further: -
22 I think it would be helpful to t he committee if
( 23 you would write down in total what you are olanning to give us I
24 Arr'Steral Reporters, Inc.
k_[ 25 I
20 mm 1 ultimately as the basis for the resoluti~on of the matter, rT 2 It seems to involve turbine orientation, the nature
( /
3 of the missile potential which goes back to die selection of (G/ 4 materials for the turbine itself, and possibly missile 5 resistance, plus for some instances at least, the probability 6 evaluation based on trajectory orientation.
7 DR. SIESS: It is the three items that Bush had in 8 there: The probability of the missile being ejected, the 9 probability of it hitting a particular cart of a plant, the 10 probability of it penetrating or scabbing and causing enough 11 damage.
12 Now, A-32 -- A-37 must involve all three of these,
/~% 13 so really what we are asking is what is going to be the O
14 rsolution of generic item A-37, because I think when that 15 is resolved ours is resolved, the turbine missiles.
I 16 MR. BENDER: I think that is a fair ctatement.
17 DR. SIESS: A-32 is other kinds of missiles, and l
18 some parts -- the penetration part is the same,bbt not the l 19 probability part.
20 MR. CROCKER: That's true.
21 DR. SIESS: A-32 is pipe whip and pump flvwheels and 22 that sort of thing. l
(' ,
\~ 23 MR. CROCKE R: Including the turbine.
24 DR. SIESS: So I think as far as the turbine missile Ace ral Hemners. Inc. '
25 problem, if the staff could tell us what they consider l
l
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21 I l
mm 1
resolution of A-37 to be, then we have it. And that may be
() in this document for the Annual Reoort. I don't know.
3
. Is A-37 in there? l 4
MR. AYCOCK: I believe you do have copies of Task j 5 l Action Plans. The Task Action Plan on A-37 describes what the 1 l
6 end product of that task will be, which is the NUREG recort, the appropriate Standard Review Plan modifications, and 8
possibly some Ted1 Spec recommendations, and describes what 9
will be in the report.
10 DR. SIESS: This is why i would like to tie the two l l
11 together, because we can say when A-37 is resolved, our I 12 generic item is resolved, then we can concentrate on A-37.
() MR. CROCKER: Well I would like to mention, Dr. Siess, i
14 '
that I endorse to some extent your thoughts on combining these. I 15 We have talked about it to a limited extent within the staff'. l 16 I feel much in the position of a bookkeeper keeping I l
a double set of books right now.
MR. BENDER: Well, let's leave it --
19 DR. SIESS: See what I mean, Mike.
20 If we look at A-37 -- I know we have looked at it before but I don't think it was in this much detail. What's 22 the date on this NUREG?
MR. CROCKER: This was just published.
24 '
DR. SIESS: I haven't got it. No wonder I haven't A[J%-
ersl Hoorters, ine.
g5 seen it.
a l
,- 22 i
mm '
I MR. AYCOCK: This is' essentially what you have seen l
-h 2 before.
3 DR. SIESS: It looks like it is a lot more
) 4 detailed.
. I S MR. AYCOCK: No, I don't believe so, not in this area.
i 6 There is one section that has been added on, " Basis for 7 Continued Plant Operations." i 8 MR. BENDER: Well I don't think this is the place i 9 to establish whether that has got the right detail in .it.
10 Do you understand what we want?
II MR. CROCKER: I understand what you are saving.
12 DR. SIESS: It would be helpful, I think, if the (J 13 committee looked at this and said, "Okay, you have got A-37 14 successfully resolved. That takes care of our item."
15 And then we could devote our attention to A-37 and 16 when you say it is resolved -- I assume we are going to look 17 at what you say is resolved anyway. I don't know what the l
18 mechanism is but --
i I9 MR. CROCKER: I'am sure you will be looking at it.
20 DR. SIESS: I am sure we will. Then we would have l 21 it clearly coupled. l 22 MR. BENDER: Let's go on to the next item. I O. 23 MR. CROCKER: All right.
1 24 Item II-2, offective operation of containment sprays i
. Ace ersl fleporters. Inc.
W 25 in a LOCA.
23 1 There is an ANSI standard in the final throes of t 2 development right now, ANSI N581, which addresses the PWR 3 and BWR containmentspray system design.
) 4 There also is a NUREG report that recentiv has been 5 published on the technological bases for models of spray 6 washout.
7 The combination of these two really pretty well 8 covers this operation of containment sprays in a LOCA, once 9 the standard is out and has been adopted by the staff.
10 The present plans are by endorsement through 11 Regulatory Guide.
As far as we. are concerned at that point I believe I 12 13 we will consider this item to be resolved.
14 And I understand the committee's concern in the past 15 has been basically the question of the spray additives. I i
16 had a long conversation the other day with one of our pecole
]
17 about this subject. We have got the three possibilities right 18 now; the sodium hydroxide, thiosulfate and hydrazine.
19 Apparently the staff hEs almost adamantly refused 20 to take a position endorsing any one'of these three. Ne can 21 see some advantages and some disadvantages to each.
22 Thev all appear to give the iodine washout we are O 23 looking for. The problems involved are basically operating 24 problems as far as the plant is concerned. So they really have i
'Av'*mi neporters, inc. l 25 . avoided taking a position that is strictly endorsing one of I
1
24 mm '
1 these additives versus another one. And I think we have js 2 probably gone about as far as we can go right now on that.
\
3 MR. BENDER: Well we had two points that there was
() 4 concern about. One was the matter of whether it was wise to r .
5 continue to sanction the caustic sodium hydroxide additive 6 because of the potential for introducing that stuff into the 7 containment inadvertently and with the possible material 8 damages that would arise from it.
9 The second aspect was that the alternative which 10 seemed to be hydrazine didn't seem to have enough technological II basis behind it to make it totally a supportable one, i
12 Now since that time I think a couole of ceople have l 13 decided to use hydrazine -- 4 14 MR. 'CROCKER: Yes,they have.
1 15 MR. BENDER: I presume that there is a technological 16 basis for doing that? q i
17 MR. CROCKER: For using it. And it has been accepted l 18 as far as I know, as being an inadequate additive as far as l
19 accomplishing the desired goal. )
i 20 DR. SIESS: But thev raised the question with l
21 hydrazine about additional hydrogen generation. And on the I 22 ,large containment, I think it was Davis Besse, they said that
( 23 was not problem, they had a large volume. But somebody else 24 said it was. Erie, I think.
. Ace /"]rst Fleporters, Inc, (J. 25 Now, did you get any feedback from our meeting with 1
25
. mm-I the Germans where they raised the question of why the devil 2 we use sprays anyway?
3 MR. CROCKER: I heard the Germans raised this 4 question.
5 DR. SIESS: Their attitude was, they don't like 6 any additive because of the plant consequences, really not i
7 safety consequences. And without the additive the iodine 8 washout isn't very effective as compared to the filters they 9 have got in the air cleanup system. And that the heat reduction 10 or the temperature reduction -- pressure reduction, I'm sorry, II wasn't significant.
12 And we got into a little argument on that point as 13 to whether it was the first or second peak that got reduced 14 and which one governmed.
15 But they don't use it, and they thought they had 16 pretty good reasons.
17-Let me ask you something slightly different:
18 At St. Lucie, Unit No. 1, on November 3rd, 1978, l9 they had an inadvertent actuation of a containment spray.
20 1100 gallons of reactor coolant water was inadvertent 1v sprayed 2I into the containment.
22 Does anybody know anything about that one?
23 If it was simply reactor coolant water it wouldn't 24 have anything in it but boron, right?
Ace'1eral Fieporters. Inc.
c 26 mm I DR. SIESS: So that meant the sprays activated, but 2
whatever the additive was wasn't.added, is that right?
3 MR. CROCKER: I'm not sure, Dr. Siess.
4 I know some of the plants in fact had a built-in 5
delay on the NAOH additive, two minutes or something like 6
that, to give the operator a chance to get in and turn off 7
the spray --
8 Now all this did was, 30 workers got DR. SIESS:
9 low-level contamination. It was shut down at the time.
10 See, our concern about inadvertent actuation and II its possible consequences, can 'be looked at in terms of this 12 incident. Apparently they didn' t get the additive in and I3 Q. maybe that helps. j Id MR. BENDER: Well there has been at least one case 15 I know of -- I think a couple -- in which sodium hydroxide 16 has been dumped into the containment.
I7 DR. SIESS: And from those we ought to be able to I0 tell how much of a cleanup problem it was.
I9 MR. BENDER: I don't think there was all that much 20 of a cleanup problem. But people keep worrying about if you 21 get caustic in there, whether there is any potential for 22 getting it in a place where it will cause some kind of caustic-O 23 induced embrittlement.
24 And since you don't know where the stuff is going, i Ace tal Hmonm, Inc, it is really hard'to know whether that is really a problem -
l l
l
27 mm 1 or not.
2 DP...SIESS: But Mike, you know our original concern --
3 and it may have gotten changed a few times in the process --
O s/ 4 was simply the question of, maybe hydrazine is better than e
S sodium hydroxide, a nd if so, why aren' t people using it?
6 MR. BENDER: Well, going back to the days when. Bill 7 Stratton was on the committee -- and he was one of the maior 8 stirrers-upper of this thing --
9 DR.SIESS: But we had several presentations from the 10 staff on the various effects of the different ones.
11 We have had discussion with applicants.
12 And I think once Mike you suggested that if we r's 13 couldn' t see a course of resolution of a generic item, we V
14 ought to eliminate the darned thing.
15 MR. BENDER: Well, I would be for that in this case.
16 I don't have a strong axe to grind.
17 DR. SIESS: I have got a feeling this one has 18 gotten down to a matter of opinion, somewhat complicated in 19 my mind by the Germr. position that says they are not even 20 necessary, there are other ways of doing the same thing 21 that.are just as effective or more effective.
22 And I'm not about to raise the question of let's 23 eliminate sprays because we have got an awful lot of plants 24 with them. But this one to me seems about as close to being Arr^4rel flepotters, Inc.
k l' 25 resolved as it is ever going to be. I don't even know what
28 ;
mm-I the question is any more.
pg 2 MR. . BENDER: Chet, my personal view concurs with
%)
3 yours.
() 4 But we need to have from the staff something that 5 says, "We plan not to endorse any one of these three sprays 6 because we find that the arguments for one or the other are 7 not persuasive."
8 And I think that could be a basis for the committee 9 reconsidering its position.
10 DR. SIESS : It is a C-10 item, and I don't -- we 11 don't even have uus Cs. It is too far down to worry about.
12 MR. CROCKER: It is one of the programs that, while 13 it is identified as a C in our listing, there is some work that 14 has been going on and still is, and we would like to draft that 15 much.of it --
16 MR. BENDER: Well, if you could give us a position 17 like that, I certainly wouldn't disagree. l 1
1 18 I don't know how Steve feels about it. Have you I 19 got any reaction? i l
20 DR. LAWROSKI: Well, maybe one reason, that there l 21 are differences, perhaps, in these sorav additive's just from 22 the standpoint of the degree of reversibility of iodine that O
ss/ '23 will come out with time.
l 24 Isn't caustic supposed to be superior in that regard?i Ace.'Nerst Reporters, Inc.
- '25 MR. BENDER: That, I don't know.
l
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l l
29 mm' I MR. CROCKER: Sodium hydroxide 13, I believe, the 2 best acavenger as far as getting the --
3 DR. LAWROSKI: Whether the degree of reversibility or q
U 4 the tirne is an important carameter in this is something, I 5 don't know.
6 MR. CROCKER: Part of the problem with hydrazine 7 understand, that you have to buffer it in the first olace, 8 which applies sodium hvdroxide even though you are using 9 hydrazine.
10 DR. LAWROSKI: Yes. -
Il MR. CROCKER: And once vou get it in the hydrazine 12 it goes out of the water anyway and reloasos the iodine. So 13 you can't hold it without doing something to keep it there.
14 DR. SIESS: But.it seems to me that something from 15 the staff that says they have considered the pros and cons 16 of all kinds of sprays and they can't find any significant 17 difference, and they have looked at the inadvertent actuation 18 and -- it is a safety problem because if vou introduce a 19 corrodent into the system then somebody is going to have to 20 worry about when you got it out.
21 But if the time delay is enough to -- the low 22 crobability of doing it, then I think that is somethina we O 23 could use as a basis for deciding this thing.
2d MR. CROCKER: No can certainly work on a cacer or i AqO pal Heporters, Inc.
25 something for you --
30 mm-I MR. BENDER: At this stage of the game I think the point which the Germans made about whether we should consider
' O 3
the risk asnects of adding that material at all and relationship 4
to the contribution to safety, it might be worth throwing it ,
5 into the pot.
6 MR. CROCKER: It could very well be.
7 Did they have a paper or something that they 8
presented, or was it just discussions?
9 i MR. BENDER: I wasn't here, but I understand it was 10 primarily discussion. .
l 11 -I But I suspect that somewhere in the literature vou "
12 will find something that documents their position. ,
I3 MR. CROCKER: We will certainly look at it.
O- I 1 f
MR. BENDE7: We can try to get our staff to review h
" Y the matter and see if we can find out what the Germans have. I 16 Can we move to the next item?
MR. CROCKER: The next item, II-3, has to do with 18 thermal shock post LOCA to pressure vessels.
s There is still work coing on at Oak Ridge on this, 20 on the HSST program. Apoarently we have come to the conclusion 21 '
now that-the previous specimens thev tested down there had a 22 thickness-to-diameter ratio that was considerablv at variance 23 with what you would exoect as far is modeling for the pressure 24 nFederal Reporters, Inc. vessel. And that there is now a proposal to increase the i vessel to a 39-inch outside diameter with a 4-inch shell. And
- 1
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31
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'ck) some additional tests on that to see if we can, in fact,
( ), confirm that the ' initial results they got on the crack 3
propagation will hold fcr that sort of a geometry.
_( 4 MR. BENDER: At one time I thought this problem was ,
5 only of concern for older vessels.
6 Today I don't know what it is of concern to.
7 Do you know?
8 MR. CROCKER: Primarily it is still a concern for 9
the older vessels.
10 We believe now with the' materials we are using on the 11
. newer vessels that are being specified today, that there 12 really is not a problem throunh the design life of the plant.
() MR. BENDER: Tre vou stating a staff position, or is 14 that your personal impression?
15 MR. CROCKER: I believe I am stating a staf f position.
16 MR. BENDER: So if there is concern, it is for a few 17 vessels.
18 MR. CROCKER: For a few of the earlier vessels.
19 MR. B E?I D E R : A small number of vessels, let me put 20 it that way.
21 MR. CROCKER: What was the number, 12? Was it 12?
22 MR. AYCOCK: I think we could say that it is 23 conceivable that something could come out that might be 24 '
AffrM Heportm, Inc. applicable to Current vintane vessels. But We ion't eMpect to
\sr 25 see that. #
32 mm 1 MR. BENDER: Okav.
2 And that is covered by your Task Action Plan A-ll?
3 MR. AYCOCK: Right.
) 4 MR. BENDER: And as I understand it, yo'Ir plan is 5 then to do additional shock tests? Is that the aporoach?
6 MR. CR7CKER: That is the current aporoach right 7' now, to do some additional shock tests on the laraer diameter 8 vessel.
9 MR. BENDER: And that is in the R&D orogram, I guess, chaq 10 is being presently planned, as I' understand?
11 MR. ' CROCKET: It is under the HSST effort, ves.
12 MR. BENDER: Okay.
r" 13 Steve, do you have anythinn you want to add to that?
14 DT. LAWROSKI: No.
15 MR. BENDER: Let's go on.
16 MR. CROCKER: I would like to skin item II-4 if I 17 could for right now, Mr. Bender.
18 MR. BENDER: But don't forget it.
19 MR. CROCKE7: Oh, no, we won't do that.
20 Mr.Meyer has a vested interont in some discussion 21 on that.
- 22. MR. BENDER: I have invested a lot of time in that 23 one.
24 (Launhter.) i AOeral Repc,rters, inc.
\/ 25 MR. CROCKER:
On the loose parts monitor, iten II-5A,!
1
33 !
l mm l 1 there has been very little change here since our last recort 2 to the committee.
3 We do, in fact, require aoplicants to oermit the k 4 installation of loose parts monitors. Some, in fact, have-5 them installed. l 6 We still are not convinced within the staff that 7 we know enough about them to know what to specifv. So all we l
I 8 have required is basically a comnitment to out it in at such i
9 time that we find out really what we want.
10 MR. BENDER: Do we have a commitment from all the Il plants now? i 1
12 MR. CROCKER: I am not sure about all of the old I 13 operating plants. I know everything for the last eight or ten Id years has at least had a commitment to loose parts nonitoring.
1 15 MR. BENDER: Both BWRs and P'!Rs?
16 DR. LAWROSKI: BWRs --
17 DR. SIESS: The things that worked for BNRs don't 18 necessarily work for P'9Rs because of the noise. l 19 And I think GD han done some experinental loose 20 carts monitoring with BWRs -- is that rinht. Noel? l
~
i 2I MR. S!!IRLEY: That's correct. l l
22 MR. CROCKER: All of the vendors are working on l 23 loor e.rts monitoring.
24 DR. SIESS: I think that one seems so close to beinn -
AcAerst Reporters, Inc.
\_)
25
- resolved. Ren Guide 133 is out out, and we agreed to the i
1 I
34 1 implementation of it, I would say that one is resolved.
2 MR. BENDER: Well, if they think they are getting the 3 BWR vendors to supply what they are getting -- something
() 4 comparable to what thev are getting from the PWR vendors, I 5 think I agree with you.
6 DR. SIESS: I am not sure it is strictly comparable, 7 but, I wasn't quite --
8 MR. BENDER: -- certain that the BWRs had a 9 proposed system that they were putting on. Maybe I'm not 10 too clear about that. ,
11 MR. CROCKER: I am not that familiar with it.
12 DR. LAWROSKI: Do you want to ask Noel?
13 MR. BENDER: Is there somebody here that can soeak
}
14 to it?
15 MR. SHIRLEY: Noel Shirley, General Electric 16 Company.
17 Our position has basically been stated previous 1v 18 to the ACRS in the time of the review by the Subcomittee, as ,
19 well as Dr. Kerr's Instrument Control Subcommittee when they 20 reviewed Reg Guide 1.33.
21 Our position has been stated at that time and it 22 has not changed. We still do not feel that the current state .
23 of the art, either with the design of loose parts monitoring 24 systems nor the signal detection capabilities, are really AczOrst Reporters, Inc.
\'I 25 sufficiently advanced to warrant the cost of such systems on
35 l l
mm I the BWRs.
(} 2 As it may be, however, it has not necessarily changed 3 the staff's concept that such systems are, in fact, applicable G
k/ 4 6 safety systems and hence are desirable components to be 5 installed on plants.
6 It is my understanding that the staff has' enforced 7 or reinforced that position on the review of all clants going 8 through the OL; such as there are commitments for all BNRs 9 to have such systems installed in these plants.
l 10 MR. BENDER: Okay. That's a big help. Thank vou. I 11 If we don't hear from you otherwise within the next 12 week, we will assume that you do, in fact, have a commitment
(} 13 on all plants coming up for operating license, BWRs or PWRs, 14 to put loose parts monitors on them.
15 And if that constitutes a resolution, I would be 16 willing to put it to the committee that way.
17 Any problem with that, Chet?
18 DR. SIESS: I think it is resolved as far as it is 19 going to get resolved.
20 The argument as to whether they are worth it or not 21 is not going to be settled.
22 The argument as to whether they are themselves l O 23 safety systems and have to be designed as Categorv 1, I think l
24 that part is settled in the Reg Guide. There is a tendency i eret Fleporters, Inc.
A3 25 to go with them, but I think that get backed off. They are
36 mm 1
Tech Spec type item now rather than Category 1 item.
2 In the Reg Guides you can operate without the loose
,]
3 parts monitor --
4
, MR. CROCKER: I believe that is correct. This has been 5 one of the big drawbacks inthe industry.
6 The second item is in the same general MR. BENDER:
7 area, II-5B.
8 MR. CROCKER: II-5B on vibration. Really, so far as I 9 know, there has been nothing done on this since our last 10 report from the subcommittee. -
II We do have it as approved Category B task.
12 Presumably people are working toward development of the task 13 action plan and sometime will commence efforts to resolve it.
Id But as of right now I don't believe anything is going on, 15 Mr. Bender.
16 MR. BENDER: Is it your impression that the neutron I7 noise detectors represent a potential resolution of this thing?
18 I think it could be used for part of MR. CROCKER:
I9 it. I'm not sure it would satisfy all of the concern of the 20 vibration monitoring.
21 My understanding is thi the neutron noise gear is 22 primarily useful for vibrations in the core barrel or O 23 something like that. I'm not sure that it would pick uo very 24 much elsewhere in the plant.
ACarat Reporters, Inc.
'd 25 Are the loose parts monitors that have DR. SIESS:
l
37 mm I been develooed and installed, so set or adjusted that they O 2 are n t g d f r just ther types of vibrations?
3 MR. CROCKER: I cannot answer that, Dr. Siess. 1 0 d DR. SIESS: They really pick up acoustic vibrations.
5 I believe they alarm in such a way that they would get some-6 thing bouncing around, but would not pick up systematic ,
7 vibrations.
8 The neutron noise worked very well at Palisades 9 both to detect and to diagnose what was going on.
10 MR. BENDER: That was useful in connection with:the II channel box problem.
I2 DR. SIESS: The other way we have been picking up O vidretio" is av ree19 ue crecxe-Id MR. BENDER: That's not the best way.
15 (Laughter.)
16 MR. CROCKER: We would rather do it before then.
17 DR. LAWROSKI: That's kind of a slow technique.
18 DR. SIESS: Well, you can pick up a lot of vibration.
I9 Whether it is serious or not you probably don't know without 20 either extensive analysis or finding the cracks.
21 But there have been a number of instances that 22 vibration has beenpicked up without any instruments. Just O- 23 things have been shaking, is the way you could tell them.
24 I remember a couple of-feedwater pump situations Ac*nerst Reporters, Inc.
25 where they had~to go in and put on additional restraints and
}
38 mm 1 things of that sort. But that is not what we are talkinc about, 2 is it?
3 Are we talking about pipes vibrating?
() 4 MR. BENDER: I have to say --
5 DR. SIESS: What is there besides internals that we 6 are talking about? '
7 MR. BENDER: -- the committee has never been very 8 explicit in what it was looking for. And I am sure that has 9 been a problem for the staff.
10 But I think we would like to have from you something 11 that represents a better definition of the way you think you 12 are going to go.
13 DR. SL"SS : How about the committee giving a better 14 definition of what we are talking about.
15 MR. BENDER: .Having the committee give definitions is 16 not part of its exoertise.
17 (Laughter.)
18 DR. SIESS: But it started out, it seems to me, loose 19 parts monitors. And then somebody tossed in vibration without 20 ever defining it.
21 And then we have separated them out bec'use we knew 22 that vibration wasn't defined necessarily. And I think it is
() 23 incumbent on the committee to say what it means, because I 24 don't know what it means.
Acer*Meral Reporters, Inc.
(. 25 MR. BENDER
- I have to agree that it would be l
-.. ~ ..
a 39 mm 1 desirable if the committee would do it. I' not even sure.
(} 2 which committee member was the major oroconent of this thing.
3 DR. SIESS: It should be the whole committee is a O 4 proponent.
1 t
5 MR. BENDER: But it always turns out that some one i i
6 individual has a strong interest in it.
7 You are right, though, Chet, it certainly is a 8 whole committee --
9 DR. SIESS: It might require a little research on 10 our part to find out the history of it and get the committee l II to look at it again.
12 MR. BENDER: Dick, would you see if you could make a
() 13 point to try to get as much background as vou can on this so we 14 can bring it back and discuss it with the full committee and 15 see if we can' t come to a better definition cf what we are 16 shooting for?
17 DR. SIESS: In a sense the Staff is not going to be 18 able to resolve it if they don't know what we are talking about, 19 And we are not going to know when it is resolved, if we don't 20 know what we are talking about.
21 MR. BENDER: I couldn't agree with vou more.
22 MR. CROCKER: One of the oroblem definitions -- in O 23 our December 4th letter, we say:
24 " Development of vibration detection ecuipment Ace']se neponers, Inc.
25 could enable the industry to obtain earlv warninq l
40 mm I of potential problems caused by excessive vibration
] 2 og reactor pressure vessel components."
3 That, apparently, is where we are at.
4 MR. BENDER- I think it would be certainlv nice to 4
5 have a good vibration detector system. But my nersonal view 6 is the safety issue is not a strnna one.
7 MR. CROCKER: This, I think, is the way we feel. And it 8 is one of the reasons it was designated a Category B task. It 9 is, by the way, Task B-73. And the very brief writeuo we 10 have on it there is that the task' involves.nassessinq the need II for, and if necessary develooing criteria for acceptable 12 vibration monitoring systems to provide early warning of 13 exdessive vibration inside the reactor vessel.
Id Like I said earlier, this is a Category B task. "'o 15 my knowledge, we have not written a task action plan for it 16 at this time. I don't believe anyone is working on the problem ,
I7 other than just sitting on the sidelines waitind fot its turn.
18 DR. SIESS: The problem definition in the necember I9 letter is not the same as the ACRS oroblem definition. And 20 it might be worthwhile to read what ACRS said on II-5B:
2I " Neutron noise analysis can detect vibration 22 within specific components such as the core barrel.
23 The detection of vibration in other reactor nressure 24 vessel components is less well established."
AcOcral Fleporters, Inc.
V 25 Now, if that is correct,. it does limit it to
41 mm I pressure vessel components. And it says it~is "less well 2 established," which makes it more difficult to resolve.
(~ }
3 I think we need to take a look at that one as well.
4 MR. BENDER: He will go back throuch the history of 5 it ourselves.
6 DR. SIESS: But their problem definition is probably !
7 more close to that of the task action olan than it is to the 8 ACRS generic --
9 MR. CROCXER: That little bit I read, Dr. Siess, was 10 just the next sentence following those two you just read.
II MR. BENDER: Can we go to item II-6?
I2 MR. CROCKER: II-6 is the common mode failures 13 which the committee's last letter subdivided into three 14 categories:
15 One being reactor SCRIM systems which translates 16 to ATMS.
17 The committee has had several meetings with the 18 staff on this. The next one is scheduled fer this Fridav l9 morning, I believe. Dr. Mattson will come down and tell vou 20 where we are right now,and I would rather he do it than I
~
21 try.
22 MR. BENDER: I think we will concede that we know 23 as much as we can know right now about the ATWS situation.
24 MR. CROCKER: Item II-6B, has to do with nonrandom i l AF'N
- )ust Reportus, Inc, I
~.
25 multiple failures of alternating current sources.
42 I
4 This is a category B item. B-56 has to do with 2
diesel reliability. That is emergencv onsite.
]'
3 MR. BENDER: It is B for you and A for us.
4 DR. LAWROSKI: Yes, there was a reversal in there.
5 It will be corrected.
0 MR. BENDER: Oh, I think the committee decided it 7
wanted to get the power business straightened out fairly 8
rapidly, and the staff didn' t think it. was all that imoortant 9
that it be top priority.
O DR. SIESS: The staff has just uoped the station black-11 out to an A category.
I MR. CROCKER: That is correct.
13 DR. RIESS: And how do the 6B and 6C -- is ste. ion Id blackout simply loss of all AC?
MR. C.ROCKE R : Yes.
1 l
16 DR. SIESS: Okay. :
I7 So that means that 6B has now been unced to vour new l
18 3_44, MR. CROCKER: That is correct.
l 20 '
MR. BENDER: Well, the situation is that you are still 2I working on it, I take it.
22 We have been a little confused -- I, personallv, have 23 been confused about whether the actions vou are taking really 24 Ace ^vd Reponm, Inc. are going to get you anywhere. I have read the task action
\,) 25 plan.
43 mm 1 DR. SIESS: For which one, Mike?
2 MR. BENDER: The adequacy of offsite oower system,
{
3 which seems to be a large part of what we are talking about.--
13 (l 4 DR. SIESS: Yes., but if this is now cart of A-44,
^
?
~
5 station blackout, which is really, what can vou do with no 6 AC power -- is that right?
7 MR. CROCKER: That is correct.
8 DR. SIESS: It addresses our concern, I think, a 9 little broader than just how good is the offsite oower.
10 MR. . '3MD"n: 0.k l , I baal). r 'lidn' t intended to be Il all that exolicit about'what was in A-35.
12 My impression was that the original effort in A-35 l'
was to look at how reliable offsite oower systens were and
{
14 find out something about what could be done to uoqrade them.
15 How it was going to be done was never very clear 16 in the task action plan. The idea of finding out the 17 survivability of clants without it, was at one time a secondary 18 issue. Now it seems to be the primarv issue.
I9 MR. CROCKER: That is one of the crimary issues.
20 MR. BENDER: It is clear that we are going to have 21 blackouts where all off site oower is lost.
22 MR. CROCKER: Ne are, in effect, starting now with a j O- 23 given that we have lost the outside power,the diesels don't l
1 24 work, where do we stand. That relieves us to A-44 task i Ae-rs1 Heporters, Inc. i N- 25 -
action ;olan.
l l
1
44 mm I DR. SIESS: So that essentially incoroorates the old 2
A-35 and B-56 then?
3 MR. CROCKER: .'like coints out I should have stated 4 that a little differently. We are going to consider whether 5 or not we should consider this.
6 MR. BENDER: Well,. I think that is orobably a oretty 7 good position. We need to know the circumstances under which 8 it is of concern.
9 My impression is that it is a matter of how long 10 the sur"ivAbility capability has to be. And some nosition Il concerning the likelihood of restoration if you should lose 12 the diesels and the ofsite power simultaneously, or 13
( subsequently.
Id DR. SIESS: Larry, is it appropriate to sav that 15 the A-44 now incorporates the old A-35 and B-56?
16 MR. CROCKER: Parts, I believe. I'm not sure that 17 it in corporates all of them, Dr. Siess.
18 DR. AYCOCK: I think A-35.is oretty much untouched 19 by B-57. B-57 -- the old -- let's go back, to trv not to get 20 too confused here.
21 The new A244, station blackout, is going to, I guess, 22 look at whether or not station blackout should ha a elesian 23 basis, recognizing that we already have sone canabilitv.
24 Those plants -- I guess all PWRs have some capabilit't for Ace est Repodm, Inc.
25 auxiliar.y-feed without any AC power.
I t
45 mm 1 The question is how lona, and other related 2 questions. But -I don't think that includes acrelock at
(])
3 reliability of offsite power. That is going to be handled 4 in a separate A;35, which may in fact orovide input to the new 5 a-44, 6 MR. BENDER: Dr. Lawroski is cointing out that at 7 one time the staff was a strong proponent of havina steam-8 driven boiler feed pumos as part of the caoability, iust so 9 that the loss of power wouldn't result in loss of heat sink 10 capability. -
II MR. CROCKER: That position has not changed. Ne l 12 are still a proponent of steam-driven -- ,
(} 13 DR. LANROSKI: But all plants don't have it.
14 DR. SIESS If.they don't, thev have a dedicated 15 diesel.
16 MR. CROCKER: "heirhl.khaveafirstcmhilit'r f 17 some kind, either steam or some have dedicated diesel.
18 At least they are not dependent on the offsite AC, 19 nor on the emergency diesel generator.
20 DR. SIESS: Nor on the big generators, nor on the 21 quick-start.
22 MR. CROCKER: The question really in our minds now, is
-O 23 -whether, knowing we have that caoability on the olants as 24 to whether it really can be put on the line manuallv, whether i Acc,_ pral Reporters, Inc.
(_/ . 25 they should have'some sort of nonmanual control svsten to oct I
46 .
J mm I
in there. And secondarilv, or as a corollary to it,.how lonn 2
would the. system be able to run without AC?
_ ()
3 And that'is what this new Task A-44 is designed to
() 4 look at.
~ .. - .- _. . -. - - . - . . _ . _ . . . . .__- _ ..:
MR. BENDER: 7ur perception of the 7 roble 7 as a
,f 6 committee had it under consideration was, is the c6mbinati6n 7
of AC power and the emergency diesels, adequately reliable, i
8 taking into account the history, the oerfornance over the 9
cast several years?
And if it isn't, what should be done about it? ,
Now, is the staff addressing that cuestion the way I 12 have stated it?
() MR. CROCKER: I think we are addressing vour question 14 of what should be done about it.
15 I'm note sure that we had in there an overall question 16 of reliability of the combination of the offsite clus the I
onsite AC sources.
18 DR. SIESS: '7 ell adequately reliable involves the 19 probability of not havina any AC cower, how long you can last 0
without it, and how long it would take to restore it, wouldn't 21 it?
MR. CROCKER: Yes.
O(~/ 23 DR. SIESS: And if you could restore it in five 24 Aes^stst Reporters, Inc.
Q-) 25 MR. CROCKER: Then vou would feel very warm about it l
i l
i
- - t , . _ _ __
47 mm I MR. BENDER: But, could we get the staff to try to 2
address the problem in.that way'the way I have stated it?
(])
3 I think that is what A-44 is, isn't it?
DR. SIESS:
c -
4 MR. BENDER: I don't know if that is what A-44 is. ,
J 5 A-44 seems to be survivability, but it doesn't 6
real.ly address the restoration cuestion.
7 DR. LAWROSKI: I think vou out it well.
8 DR. SIESS: Have we got a description of A-44?
9 MR. CEOCKE R: 'le do no t .
10 It is not in this SECY pacer?
DR. SIESS:
11 DR. LAWROSKI: It is in the SECY cacer.
12 MR. MAJOR: Page 33 of the SECY caper.
() 13 MR. BENDER: Of which part?
Id MR. AYCOCK: Enclosure 1.
MR. CROCKER: There is not yet a task action olan in 0
the A-44.
I7 DR. SIESS: That was originallv B-57.
18 MR. BENDER: Well, it doesn't helo a great deal, at 19 least this writeup doesn't helo much.
20 MR. CROCKER: Ne will know much nore about it when we 2I get a task action plan.
22 DR. SIESS: There is a reference there to extended
/~h
2 loss of all AC power. And I think that is cart of the kev.
24 If you can go for six hours, and you know from
~
i Ace
- ret Reporters, Inc.
historical records,that 90 percent of the diesel f ailures
^
s 48 l
mm' I can be corrected in two, offsite power can be restored in two 2 or something like that -- but I think those two factors have 3 to be taken into consideration. .
1 4 MR. CROCKER: Ne will try to get that.
5 MR. BENDER: Can Vou try to cet that oroblem defined 6 in that way for us?
7 MR. CROCKER: We will try to get that into the )
8 definition, Mr. Bender.
9 The next item then is II-6C, direct current systems.. I 10 The present staff position is stated in NUREG 0305, 11 which defines minimum acceptable DC power system basically 12 comprised of two tihysically independent systems.
13 Ue are looking at this one :hore time -- at least one 14 more time, trying to quantify the power system reliability 15 in relation to the DC system.
16 The end oroduct will be another NUREG renort which
~
17 will document the analyses we have performed and develop a 1
18 staff position, perhaps revised, regarding the adequacv of I i
1 19 the existing DC power system.
20 The present schedule as stated in there is for mid- l 21 '79 completion on this.
22 MR. BENDER: Again mv recollection is the DC nower i 23 reliability goes back to t he question of what impact it has 1
24 on the reliability of the offsite power, and the nergency Ace est Reporters, Inc.
L 25 diesel power supply. ,
l i ll
i T'49 mm 1 I don' t know that there is anything else that has --
g 2 that comes out of that.
(J 3 MR. CROCKER: I think the basic DC concern arose
() 4 from one of Mr. Epler's letters where he postulated a loss of 5 one of the DC systens which them caused reactor SCRYi, 4hich 6 required the use of DC to mitigate the consequences.
7 MR. BE?IDER: But it . turned out the requirement to 8 close the circuit-breakers so you could get something into 9 operation.
10 DR. SIESS: He had some. examples of things that had 11 happened, that had not led to any serious consecuences .
12 But I think he postulated there could be scenarios rx 13 that would lead to serious consequences.
d 14 MR. CROCKER: Ar. ' this is basically what we are 15 trying to look at now and take another cut at it as to whether 16 the two divisions of DC cower are adequate, or do we reallv 17 want something else in there.
18 DR. SIESS: Larry, am I correct in that sone of 19 the recent plants, we have been seeing four divisions of DC 20 power?
21 MR. C ROCKE R: That is correct. Ne had one through 22 several months ago that had, I think, four safet"-related
/^;
k/ 23 DC battery banks and two for nonsafety.
24 DR. SIESS: Yes. Because in some o# the cases like ,
Am^ erst Reporters, Inc.
kl 25 RIIR suction, where you had to have closed under certain
. , - _ , . , . - - -,,4
M 50 mn 1 circunstances and onen under others, where it would take four 2 valves with four seoarate sources of valve actuation, thev 3 have gone 6 the four systems. They can handle the series
() 4 parallel setuo, but it takes four seoarate svstens to do it.
5 MR.CROCKER: Yes.
6 I'm not sure whether those are all DC sustems.
7 DR.SIESS: I.think one case I know it was. I 8 think that was what led them to it. )
9 But four'doesn't nake us necessari1v anv nore 10 redundant. There is no more redund.ance than the two. If you 11 need four vou have got to have four. I don't know what it 12 does or a risk analysis, the orobabilities.
13 MR. CROCKER: I haven't really seen anything on 14 that, Dr. Siess.
15 DR. SIESS: Is there certain carts of the safetv 16 systen that vou have to have redundant ,nd dive-se, other 17 places where vou wouldn't where this would nive von extra 18 redundancy and not just diversity.
19 MR. 9E'! DER: Let ne trv again.
20 I think the issue is in the oast the concern with 21 the DC power system has turnoi out to be whether'the batteries 22 were drained down to the coint where thev couldn't sucolv
/3
(/ 23 any DCJpower when needed, or whether through some malfunction 24 you have lost the ability to connect into the DC nower circuit.,
Ace ^eral Heporters, Inc.
kol 25 In either case it scens to ne that it is nenerallv
51-t -a matter of whether that ecuionent which has to be onerated
'2 by DC power can he onorated.
3 The equipnent that is involved turns out to be 4 circuitbreakers, the sensing enuipment that night need nc 5 power, that is instrumentation, and possibiv the 90RYi svstem 6 although in general I think the position has been that the 7
SC.RYi strstem alwavs functions if you turn off the DC nover, 8 and is probablv not a reliabilitv issue.
l But I think at the noment we need to have the staff l 9
10 establish for us what it thinks it is doinq, and address the 11 matter. l
~
i 12 DR. SIESS: '1 ell the three items that thev list under that in the December 9ecort aqree with mv recollection of the Q 13 ia kin +1a of questions that have been raised.
15 *19 . BENDET- Nhat are you reading from?
16 DR. SIESS: Denton's December 4th, '78, II-6C where 17 it says program. It savs:
18 "The cuestions that have been raised concern. . ."--
19 fir. BEND 3R: " ell, thev all go to the same matter, 20 so it is a matter whether the nC nower results in a loss of 21 some kind of energy source that can --
22 DR. 9IESS: I am just saving that I think what 23 they have got acrees with our concern.
24 '19 BENDER: no the noint I am trying to make is, I Accbral Reporters, Inc.
V 25 think it is all part of the same cruestion: How reliable the
. _ . . . . ~
52 -53 mm I electrical'nower supolv is.
2 MR. CRoCKER:
-( ) The AC sucoly?
3 MR. RESIDER- 5?e have iust chosen to make 90 nover 4
system one of the issuen because you have argued over the vears, 5 that the DC cower system is so reliable thatspu don't have to 6 account for it in the reliabilitv assessment.
I 7 MR. CROCKER: I think we are working on the ornblem, 8 but I mav have to ao back and see if there is a redefinition --
9 MR. BEilDER- I think vou are, too.
10 I think the coint I an trying to make is that reallv, I'
11
, we don't know whether we will know when vou have reached an end 1
12 because we don't know what you are trving to do to qet to an l 13
(]) end.
14 MR. CROCRER: Ne may he suffering from the same 15 problem.
16 MR. BEk1 DER: And if we could establish what the 17 resolution will be, what you are hooinn to establish --
18 MR. CROCKP,R : 'Jhat we are aiming at riqht now is a 19 relook at the present staff oosition on this, which will come 20 up in about the niddle of next year with another 'IUREG renort 21 based on this relook that would sav, "Yes, two divisions of 22 DC power are adequate and we are hacov with it," or, '"de want 23 some changes built into t'Te design somewhere."
24 DR. SIESS: And that would be your reliabilitv
,_ base i Aco: aret neporters, Inc. ,
V 25 . study? Is it being done that way, crobabilisticallv based?
i 54 1
mm I MR. CROCKER: Yes, I believe that is correct. l 1
2 DR. SIESS: It is A-30? j 3 MR. BENDER: fdell , I will oresume that vou are
( )- 4 looking at it enough so that we will have a better definition 5 the next time we meet as to what vou think will constitute 6 'l resolution. ,
l 7 MR. CROCKER: Bv the next time navbe it will be 8 resolved. I will not be holding nv breath.
9 MR. BENDER: I won't be that ootinistic, but vou may be l
10 right. .
II (Laughter.)
I2 Can we go to II-7?
13 MR. CROCKER: II-7 I would like to defer also for 14 Mr. Meyer for a little later discussion.
15 MR. BE?iDER: Okav.
16 IIow about II-8.
I7 MR. CROCKER: II-3, the BUR recirculation cump 18 oversceed.
l9 As recorted in Mr. Denton's letter there are a 20 number of test orograns underway right now. This writeun, 21 by the way, includes the effort both on P7Rs and 'P*ns. You can 22 see that in addition to reactor vendors, EP".I has been involved e
( ). 23 [ there is some work going on with CREAR" on nodel tests.
24 The overall effort on oumo oversneed is included i
- Ace [-'eral Reporters, Inc.
(-) 25 within che staff's task action olan, B-68.
1 1
' 55
s 2 that they have looked aaain at the reliability of the recirc
.) pumns in terms of materials that are in it,and have concluded 3
() 4 that the likelihood of the failure that would create ornblems 5 due to overspeed is so small that they would like to make the 6 problem go away.
7 MR. CROCKER: That is nv understandinn of their oosition.
8 MR. BENDER: Is the staff trying to accent that 9 position?
10 MR. CROCKER: They are looking at it right now. Thev ,
l 11 are evaluating the GE data and we would hooe to have a cosition l l
12 on that, again, by .about nidvear next vear. l 1
- 13 MR. BENDER: And if thev don't like the GE data and 14 decide to disagree, we will be back with the nuestion of well, I 15 do we need a decouolor. i 16 MR. CROCKER: Some sort of a decouoler --
17 DR. SIESS: Mike, Denton's letter doesn't sav what 18 vou said.
19 It says, GE:
20 ".o. . concludes that a decouoler Setween the 21 oumo and motor is not required since notential 22 missiles resulting from overspeed of both the notor (f 23 or imoeller would be contained within the notor housinn 24 or pump casing."
+rsi Heporters. Inc.
k, Ace?~*k 25 It does.n't say the orobability i s 1o' 7 It savs
56 mm
'I missile will be contained.
- 2
/~T MR. BENDF.R: You nav he right in what was said. I O
3 thought that thev were arguing about --
d MR. CROCKER: Yes, it was that anuthing that might 5 be thrown out wasld be contained within the casing.
6 DR. SIESS: Is that dependent on the soeed? ,
7 MR. CROCKER: I am sure it is a function of 90eed.
8 But aoparently -- I am not f aniliar with the data, by the wav.
9 MR. BENDER: It would have to be a function of the 10 speed'at which:.the turbine or the imoeller flew aoart, because '
that determines the eneray that is there.
I2 DR. SIESS: Don't make it too strong.
() 13 MR. BENDER: Yes,but you have got to have credictable Id capabilitv.
15 DR. LAWROSKI: Is that a nisorint, that BNRs 16 included here as the title? Because the orogram is reallv 999.
I7 MR. CROCKER: No, it is not, Dr. Lawroski. And I 18 meant to mention --
DR. LANROSKI: There should be two of then.
20 A II-8,and there is a II-S --
MR. CROCKER:
2I OR. LAUROSXI: " hat's what I thouqht would be the case ,
t 22 Ne have not two different categories.
DR. SIESS:
{m 23 MR. BENDER: PNRs and BURS.
24 At the moment I am trying to net the BNPs sorted i
. Aes^srat fleporters, Inc. "
N$ 25 out.
57 11 DR. SIESS: II-8 is BNRs.
2 MR. CROCKER: II-9-2 is the PN?. Work. The staff 3 is handling this.as an integrated effort.
1() 4 DR. LMfROSKI: Ne have'.it-senarated, but they don't.
5 They should use a different --
6 MR. CROCKER: Mr. Denton has reconmended in this !
7 December 4th letter, that the comhittee consider combining B these two into one lump.
9 DR. SIESS: On page 25 is PWR. They senarated then 10 just the way we did. .
11 MR. BE'JDER: I'n sure we wouldn't have any problen 12 with the combination, but can we address then separatelv right 13 now? !
14 The approaches to resolution are nonewhat different.
15 The question I am trying to adcright now is, oresuming -- if l
16 it turns out you don't want to accept the GS position, vou 17 are back to decouplers. Is there an activitu vou can do 18 something with decouplers?
19 MR. CROCKER: So far as I know,there is.no effort 20 on decouolers right now. '3e would wait until we have evaluated 21 the GE data and see whether we agree with it. If we do, fine. '
22 If not, we would be back on the decouplers in all orobabilitv.
23 MR. BENDER: The~ Germans, you know, have c decounler 24 that thev.are using.
" Acn^wal Fleporters, Inc.
25 sir . CROCKER: I was not aware of that<
l 58 l
"* MR.. BENDER: You orobably ought to look and see 1
2 whether the German decoupler acoroach would be accentable to 3 NRC as a resolution of the matter.
() 4 Has GE looked a t this German decouoler? I 5 MR. SHIRLEY: Dr. Bender, I am not aware of anv l
6 detailed analysis that GE has done on the decoucleg. -
- hat 7 is not to sav it mav not have been done. I am simolv nersonallv j I
8 not aware of any such review. 1 9
MR. BENDER: You are aware of the device, are vou not?
10 MR.SHIREEY: Yes, I an. ,
1 1
11 MR. BENDER: Mell, mavbe the staff ought to take a l 12 look at that asoect of things, unless it is preoared to accent 13 the GE eva?untio'n.
i 14 I am sure the committee will want to be norsuaded as l
15 much as the staff, if qE's answer is right.
16 DR. SIESS': Do the PNR punos have the him flywheels 17 like the BWR?
18 MR. CROCKER: I don't believe thev do.
19 MR. BENDER: Can we ao on to --
20 'iR. CROCKER: The ne::t item then is II-9, the 21 advisabilitv of seismic SCRAM.
22 As you recall --
O k./ MR. BENDER: Let ne back uo for a ninute. Before 23 24 Lwe get 6 that,we didn't discuss the PNR, although this discus- ,
' Ac;f)trst
( Heporters, Inc.
25 sion has a lot of. discussion of the PNR nissile in it.
=
39 -;
"" DR. SIESS: If you look at the P'fR it refers back
- 1
, 2 to this, so this is really both.
3 MR. BENDER: '*avbe we ought to just no ahead and
~t"
( 4 deal with that one while we are on it.
5 MR. CROCKER: nine.
l 6 DR. 9IESS- The staff's ooint is they 'rould like to 7 combine these two, Mike. Can we agree b that?
8 MR. BENDER: Does anvbody object?
9 DR. LAi1ROSKI: I don't.
1 10 DR. SIESS: Thev are treating them together and I 11 don't see any --
12 "R. BENDER: Ne will consolidate, then.
1 We have to somehow or another act our numbering
{) 13 system consolidated.
14 15 DR. SIESS: The staff doesn't think one will be 16 resolved before the other.
17 'iR. CROCKER: The wav the orogram is coing richt now, 18 it appears that they are both going to be at the end date 19 about the same time.
20 DR. SIESS: And the resolutions will be similar?
21 MR. BENDER: The nooroaches may not be*the same.
22 I think what CE has been doing is trying to determine 23 whether they could, in fact, get an oversneed that would be 24 high enough to make the inneller fly anart. ,
AceNeral Reporters, Inc, k~l 25 DR. .SIESS: My oaint is, the disadvantage of I
L
t 60 ;
I combining them is, we mav end uo with two different resolutions ,
2 in which case we have to seoarate then.
3 The advantage of combining them is that the staff is
-( ) 4 looking at them together, and we ninht as well look at then 4
5 together. If they resolve one and not the other, we can sav i
6 so.
7 I guess I would be in favor of conbininn them sone 8 way.
9 MR. BENIDE7: Well, I thought we agreed we would 10 combine them. But that doesn't nreclude the nossibility of 11 having solutions for the PN3 that are dif ferent than the W19.
12 MR. CROCKER: Certainly.
13 In fact, I would be willinn to waaer we would not get 14 one reoort to solve both sides of the problem.
15 MR. BENDER: Technologically thev are the same tvoe 16 of problens. But the resolution might be different because the 17 energy suoply is different in the two svatems. The numos are 18 different, the sizes are different and there are a lot of 19 other things that influence the answer.
20 But I oresume that when CE finishes their tests, 21 you will come to some cosition that is not unlike the one vou 22 are trying to develop for the GE nronosal, that the nissile
~
) 23 with either be created or it won't be created.
24 MR. CROCKER: I was trying.to think how similar
'(-
. Acer~)nal Reportees, 25 Inc.
it. night be. I would suspect it would be a rather dissimilar
61 mm 1 conclusion, as'a natter of fact.
fg 2 They are working --
V '
3 MR , BENDER: The reasons nav be different.
) 4- GE is arguing -- if Chet's analvsis is right,- ' ,
5 that even if the missile is nenerated it will be stooned bv the 6 pung casing.
7 CE is arguing that at 400 percent oversoced the 8 impeller still won't fly apart. But thev could also look at 9 the resistance of the casing if thev wanted to.
10 MR. CROCKER: I don't think that is cart of the D'1R 11 program. It might be incorocrated later on.
12 MR. BENDER: Nhy don't von look to see whether that is 1
13 an alternative, as long as vou are lookinn at it.
S 14 It seems to ne if vou could have the same 1
15 resolution for both of then, that would be -- ]
16 M4 CROCKED.: I susoect part of the nroblem is, 17 you are talking that vou have got a flvwheel coming aoart on-one 18 of the F7Rs,you have got a lot more enerav in that than vou 19 have in the BNR recirc numps. Y'ou have to try to keep inside 20 a casing, which would be a rather difficult feat. l 21 MR. BENDER: Hell it is not inside the dasing.
22 It is hanginn on the motor.
23 DR. SIEOS: There is caning around the f1vwheel.
24 MR. B ENDER: "e are not going to qct much further on ,
AceOral Reporters, Inc.
25 this one. Me mv. have clarifici what we don't know about it.
! i i
62 mm 1 Now let's qo to --
2 MR. CROCKER: This item under seismic GCnYi, II-9, ,
3 there has been very little progress since we talked with the ,
() 4 committee in. June, I guess, of last year.
8 5 At that time the staff reoorted that it had concluded 6 we should not install seismic SCRA*is. The subconnittee felt 7
that.ve reallv should not be looking at anticinatory tvoe 8
trip systems, but rather at systems that night trio in the i 9 range of one-half to two-thirds of the SSE, and suqqested that 10 we contact the Japanese and find out what thov were doing.
11 with their olants relative to seismic SCRA"A.
12 Ne did, in fact, renuest information from the Jaoanese regarding whether or not thev had installed seismic
(} 13 ja SCRNis .
15 We also asked then to review this UCRL renort 51156, 16 that we had recorted on last vear.
j7 To date we have had no fornal feedback from the ,
l
)
18 Japanese.
19 However, last fall sone of the staff nenbers were 20 in Japan and discussed this matter with them. Thev do, in fact',
21 have SCRMi systems on their plants. A Jaoanese delecation was 22 in the States earlier this vear, Julv, I believe -- or June --
23 I'n.sorrv, June of this voar -- and in discussion 9 with then 24 again we learned that, or confirmed that they do in fact have , ;
Aa/"\at Hemrters, Inc. '
25 these SCRYi systems.
t 63 1 DR. LAMROSKI: I don't know wheth er the word 2 "renuire" is the right terminologv. It savs recuire here,
.O-3 but I am not sure that that is --
() 4 MR. CROCKER: I talked with Dr. Yoshita and he J.
5 said it is required. The government recuires the system. But 6 the system as installed was prooosed by the olant onerator..
7 I am not quite sure just how all that works.
8 DR. SIEGC: Larry, the Livermore recort was essentiallv 9 invalidated and we said one-half to two-thirds because it 10 was all predicated on the low-level S6 RAM with a lot of 11 spurious SCRAMS. And if you have a seismic SCRAM on a half to 12 two-thirds, there are apparently no disadvantages to it 13 except oossible costs.
14 The kind of system thev are installinn in niablo 15 Canyon, the probability of a sourious SCRAM is ver , very low.
16 It is a two out of three tyoc thing.
17 Now, I guess what has never been clear to me, 18 becmne of my background, is the advantages of the seismic 19 SCRAM. It is no longer anticinatorv, so it doesn't reallv 20 reduce the load on be ECCS, I think one thought was that if 21 there is something that is damaged bv the earthodake, the 22 fact that vou SCRAMed it earlv would heln. I don't know.
() 23 And has the staff looked at what it will accomolish 24 for us by any scenario?
Ace?" oral Reporters, Inc, k) 25 MR. CROCKER: I have' wrestled with this, Dr. Siess.
64 mm 1 The only advantage I can see to a soismic SCR3.M in if vou
< 2 . postulate that the particular shake you are seeing at a niven 3 time is merely a orelude to something that is a real disaster
() 4 coming down the pike, then I can see an incentive to ACRAM 5 a plant, and th3 earlier the better.
6 DR. S7.ESS: That is if the earthanake - .
7 "R. CROCKE'.:
If we are going to no four times the !
8 S9E 16 vel on the earthquake, then it certainly would be nice ,
9 to have the rods inserted before the bin shake nets there.
1 10 DR. SIESS: If vou get four times the "SE hv any !
l 11 scenario you are going to malt the core.
12 M9. . Co.OCKER: I suspect vou a.re nrobably right.
13 DR. SIES9: I don't think it makes any difference
)
14 whether the rods are in there or not. It just makes a time 15 difference. I 16 The nuestion, of course, was brought up on Diablo i
17 and they agreed to do it. It was the staff nosition, it wa9 18 an ACR9 position, it is being discussed,has been discussed, 19 and presumably will be further discussed in connection with 20 proposed revisions to Aopendix A.
21 MR. CROCKER: I was not aware thev wers talkina l
I
, 22 about it.
23 DR. SIPSS ' fell, as soon as na started talking about l l
24 proposed revisions to Apnendix A, seismic SCRt.", cane un as ,
,: Acef'vol Re@rten, Inc. .
l 25 it will continue to.
l l
l
( :-
65 I
mm 1 I think what the conmittee needs to helo resolve l
2 this question-in its nini, is just the cuestion I snked:
3 V
3 what are the advantages to seisnic SCRo.".? j
() 4 I guess I have never heard Dave articulate them in a 5 way' I can understand. There may be some advantages.
6 MR. BENDER: I think vours are absolutely consistent 7 with mine.
8 MR. CROCKER: 7he nniv one I can see is if vou are 9 postulating an earthauake larger than the SSE, at which point 10 you Nould have some concern that the plant equipment micht not 11 survive.
12 DR.SIESS: Protection system.
13 MR. CROCKER: Protection systens.
14 Then it would be desirable to. ave a SC'A*t before vou 15 get there.
16 But the other side of that coin to ne is if you 17 deliberstely put the SCRA51 on for one-half to two-thirds of 18 the SSE, what vou are doing then is virtually assuring that 19 you are attempting to SC'A'1 the nlant suoerinnosed unon the 20 carthauake londs which I don t think, as an engineer, nakes nore 21 sense. I just bject to trving to superimoose these things 22 even though the plant is designed to survive the SCE. To
'23 deliberately SCRAM it, require all the valve .otion and 24 overything at that carticular time, I think is the wrong way Accr~'eral Fleporters, Inc.
U 25 to go.
66 ;
mm 1 So I really am torn on which way to try to go on
(} 2 this. They are starting some effort now within the research 3 part of the house, trvina to look at nrobabilities of oarthauak?s.i 4 And really, I have been holding on the seismic snRAM non for 5 about six months or so in hopes that one of these dasts somebody 6 could tell me what the orobability is of getting an earthauake 7 bigger than the SSE.
8 If it turns out to be a pretty good number. then it 9 mav be one --
10 DR. R7.ESS: It mav be that the earthnuake in this 11 half range is probablv about an order of magnitude lower than 12 the probabilitv of the SSE, whatever it is.
() 13 MR. BENDER: Let me propose the following as a May 14 of getting to a resolution:
15 First, the committee was not taken with'the staff's 16 original study which drew its conclusion on the basis that 17 a sensitive seismic SCR\M would cause nore problems than it 18 would cure, because the committee thought that that was over-19 stating a requirement.
20 The committee had the view that a less sensitive 21 seismic SCRAM miqht have some value, narticularly since the 22 Japanese are vsing one.
' 23 What we would like to have for the nurnose of this 24 resolution, is at least; somethinn which savs wh'r the i AcOsrst fleporters. Inc.
~
25 Ja7anese are requiring something that is not very sensitive.
I
67 t
v mm I And second1v, some dif ferent assessment that.
{) 2 3
perhaps addresses the. pros and cons of a less sensitive one [
than.was considered in the original staff stuiv.
4 'fe night then wind up agreeing with the staf f that 5 it is not necessarv or desirable. But at the noment we don't 6 have a basis for judging.
7 qq, cgocgno.. Nell as far as why the Jaoanese 8 require -- as I sav, we have been unable to get a formal 9 response from them.
10 My discussions with then, the feeling I cano away II with was thAt the s7ismic SCRYis on plants were curelv for 12 political purposes. It makes a very nice talking noint for 13 public relations when vou tell the people, look, don't worrv 14 about an earthquake out here,'te have not 1 SC'Xi system that 15 is ooing enshut the plant do'in.
16 But, I don't think you are going to find that l
17 written down anvwhere. As I say, we have had no fornal l 18 response frma them on our request.
I9 MR. BENDER: I'm sure thev wouldn't give vou an 20 answer like that form.allv.
21 'iR . CROCKER: I'm sure the'r wouldn't.
22 MR. BE'1DE3: But, even if you don't have something i 23 formal, I think the sta#f's innression of it based on 24 conversation'.with exnert people, i# vou could document that i AceParet Fleporters, Inc.
d 25 and vour.own position, too, we would have a basiq for knowino i
l 1
69 mm I what to do.
2 Go ahead, Chet. ,
3 DR. SIFSS: Mike, right now this is a verv low
() 4 priority with the staff, and vou are not going to out it in 5 any higher oriority unless we make a strong case for outting 6 it into higher orioritv. And I, personally, are not interested ,
7 in nutting it at a higher uriority until I understand the 8 benefits.
9 And I think as far as I an concerned, I'd say I 10 accept the staff's priority unless someohe can convince ne Il that there is some qreater benefits # rom the seisnic 907A't than 12 I know about.
13 And we le=.ve it on our list, they leave it as the
)
14 one on their list --
15 MR. BENDER: Prioritv does not have to do with the 16 question of whether to put it on. It is the advisability of 17 doing it. And it may not take very much e# fort to get some 18 information together.
19 3". SIES9: But as long as it is a O nriority, thev 20 have done what they are trying to find out from the .Taoanese 21 and gone as far as t acy can.
22 Now my point is, the staff has assiqned it a 0 0- 23 orioritv. And if we want to nahe it higher, the conni.ttee 24 has got to write a letter savin,, vou know. this in n ' lot Ace].rst fleporters, Inc.
- v. 25 - more important than where you have got it, and we want vou to
E 69 i
mm I do some work'on it.
2 MS. BENDER: I think that is kini of a hard nosition.
3 DR. SIESS: They have heard us.
4 PiR.' 39NDER: Ohe 7resun, tion is thst something is t
5 on the 9 priority list, vou can't work on it. ,
6 OR. SIESS: That's about what 9 means.
7 MR. CROCKER: That's really what the D neans, 8 'tr . Bende r. .\nd I should point out that while it is on the 9 staff's D list, it is not on nv own 7ersonal 7 list, hecrise 10 seismic SCRA'i was niven to ne sonetine aqo, and I an trying 11 desnerately to get it off my back and do something with it.
12 MR. BENDER: I susoect that that is about the way it 13 should be resolved anyhow. Sonebodv should write down and 14 say, I talked b three .Tananese who are helieved to be 15 authoritative, and this is what they told me.
16 MR. CROCKER: That has been written down. For press 17 of other things, it has not been staffed around the shoo out 18 here. But I assure you I shall try to get at it within the 19 next few months.
20 MR. BE'IDER- I Son't want to pursue this. I don't 21 really have a valid disagreement with Dr. Siesscosition.
22 But if we can get rid of it it woulc he helpful to us.
). 23 DR. SIESS: Now the staff isngoing over to Taoan 24 again early next vear to talk with the seismic,and they have i Ace { ret Acporters, Inc.
V 25 invited \CRS to send'one or maybe two ocople. And I think the I
I 70 -
nm 1 ACRS can try to get an answer out of the Jaoanese. ,
() 2 And, I'm not sure that satis #ies' Dave's concern that 3 the Japanese don't have a nood reason, because he nav have a g O 4 good reason.
5 MR. BENDER: I'll repeat the point which vou made 6 to me earlier; it is the committee that S n to be satisfied, 7 not the individual.
8 DR. SIESS: I am satisfied right now with a D 9 priority. And Dave's got to convince me it ought to be an 4.
10 MR. BE'JDER : I wou).d like to qet it of# the list.
11 My inclination is to try to get rid of things.that 12 are uninportant to the committee because I thin.k thev confuse
[]} 13 the public. ,
14 DR. SIESS: Nell, but the point is, the staff has 15 got it on their listnand it is not incortant to them.
16 And if we buy their list, vou know --
17 MR. BENDER: He and the staff can agree.
18 I think what the oublic discerns is, there's something 19 on the list that we continue to recort. And I think it is 20 incumbent on us to get the nnimoortant things out of the wav.
21 33. SIrcS- I'n not sure.
22 Do you think the nublic has more concern about O 23 something that is on our list, with something that's on the 24 staff's list?
i Ace at Repo,tm, Inc.
25 MR. B"9 DER: I believe thev do. Yes. I don't.kno"
I
-71 1
nm 1 why. I guess there is a good, rational reason for it, but I
/~% 2 believcithat thev do.
Q .
3 (Laughter.)
1
() 4 DR. SIESS: Nell, that is why I would lik'.to e qet rid
, t ;
5 of the duplicate lists. I 6 MR. BEPIDER: As a natter of fact, that is.one of 7 the things that concerns nn. Ne are going to expand a list 8 which is of reasonable size right now, with a lot of other 1
9 extraneous things that I'm not too happv .about.
10 But we will address that later.
11 DR. LANROSKI: That's what comes of buying their list, 12 thought 13 MR. BENDER: 9e will have to figure out 509 to do it.
14 MR. CROCKE7: ' light we sell vou just a small nortion I 1
l 15 of our list, instead of sll4:of it?
16 MR. BEliDER: Frankly, I don't want to buv any of it.
I 17 (Launhter. ) I 18 But, multiole lists create confusion.
19 Can we no to the next item. !
l 20 MR. CROCKE R: Ohe next item then is II-19, emergency 21 core cooling system caoabilitv for future olants.'
22 '2he conmittee has been briefed on a nu"tber of 23 occasions by Dr. Murley and his ocoole from Research. This l
l 24 task has been transferred out there now. There was a 'friteuo AcnOrat Reportees, Inc.
k-[ 25 in the December 4 letter from ?ir. Denton which orovides the
72 '
mm .
1 .present status of this.
.2 I would propose not to sav anvthing more about it, 3 Mr. Bender, unless you have snme narticular questions.
() 4 MR. B9NDER: Mell, I'll nahe an observation since
?
5 .Or. Siess has sone that he considers not too imaortant.
6 (Laughter.)
7 My view of this is that'the motivation for it is i 1
8 not very clear even though we have had it on the list for a I 9 very long period of time.
10 MR. CROCKER: " hat was one of the two itens that the 11 staff went through that was assigne5 to Categorv 9 on our 12 initial look at it.
13 MR. BENDER- So if it stavs Categorv D, I wouldn't
)
14 be concerned about it.
15 But it does seem to no the public is concerned about 16 the fact that it hangs around. .
l 17 MR. C o.OCTE R : Yes, they are.
18 M.R . BEN 7ER: And I would sau it is the nublic that 19 needs to be satisfied.
20 DR. sIESS: Of course this has now been made a part 21 of the research on imnroved safety programs which' puts it 22 in the category of long-tern research.
23 M't . B.T? DER: Fell I don' t even know # ether this 24 longer 1Lst of things, number 1 throuch 9, reallv are the kind ,
Acey^rst Reporters, Inc.
e
\- 25 of things that would be of interest to the committee, because I
l
73 ,
mm 1 'the committee has never stated what it desired.
p 2 DR. LW1ROSKI: I'.take it thounh the Nord "capabilitv" G
3 is used in the title, really reliability is also inalied in it?
r~
i 4 DR. SIESS: 'le s .
t 5
The letters we wrote on improved ECCS, we finallv 6 wrote one that spelled out the kind of things we accent as 7 improvement, which included the new fuel, for exanole.
8 Inproved reliabilitv was clearlu mentioned in that list. -
9 I quoted the list nextensively a few weeks ago. I
-10 can't do it again. ,
11 When the staff was working on the MUREG to Congress 12 on improved safety systems, one of the imnrovenents thou had
(} 13 listei was an "CCS for which it would be easier to demonstrate 14 that it would work.
15 Frankly, I think that is orobab1v the only inorovement 16 you are going to make. If you come uo with another FCCS, it 17 requires another billion dollar research orogram to show that 18 k.will work. And I don't think we have made a real imorovement 19 in the eyes of the public.
20 As far as I am concerned, vent valves look like to be' 21 an improved ECCS, but I can't quite figure whv on'ly one vendor 22 is using them. And that was listed. That is on the list.
h' 23 74R. BMNDER: I"think we will have to leave'it that 24 it is not resolved.
Ace' ral Fleporters, tnc.
~'
25 DR. SIESS: It is not qoing to go away, and it is l
?
74 r
getting research priority. It has really been tossed over to 1
2 3esearch now.
O- i 3 MR. C ROCKER: That is correct. l 4 DR. SIESS: ' Imoroved safety. ,
s 5 MR. B E '1 D E R : I recall that Dr. Shewnon, in a neno-t 6 randum to me, suggested that there are some thinas.-- mavbe 7 all of the items on the generic itens list oaght to be referred 8 to knowledgeable subcomnittees.
9 This seems to be a fair:(y riood candidate for that 10 kind of -- ,
11 DR. SIESS: Di' you have a cartic'11ar subcommittee in 12 mind?
(~} 13 (Lauchter.)
v l 14 Mh. BENDER: I have one, but so t'ar it has never !
15 been offective in defining anvthing it wanted.
i 16 We will leave ocen what we will do about it. )
Let's go on to the ne::t iten.
17 j i
y; I MR. C ROC."S R : I wonder if we nicht back off nnw, 19 'ir . Dender, and pich no these itens II-4, II-7 and II-B-2, 20 which we haven't gotten to vet, but see i" we can qet 'tr. Mever 21 to talk about the fuels oroblems for just a nonen't. I 22 MR. MSYER: Three of these neneric iteno --
23 MR. BENDER: '70uld vou recent then again for the 24 record? ,
AceOrti Reporters, Inc.
\ l' 25 MR. MEYER: The three noneric itens are II-4, 1
L L
75 W9 1 instruments to detect fuel failures; No. II-7, behavior of 2 . reactor fuel under abnormal conditions: and No. II-B-2, 3 qualification of new fuel aeometries.
() 4 The last one of these three ve believe is resolved t
5 and rather cleanly. The first two, my coal today is to trv i
6 and find out what needs to be done, if we haven't done what 7 is desired, and then set about doing that. ,
8 Let me --
9 MR. BENDER: Let ne deal with II-B-1 first. just to 10 be sure we have an agreement on it. I l
l 11 MR. MEYER: Okav. i 1
12 MR. BF.1 DER: What vou are saving is all o" vour new
. 1
, 13 fuel geonetries have now been verified bv exneriment and 14 analysis, and you have adequate information to show that they 15 are all acceotable, all those that have been cronosed and are 16 being used, are acceotable?
17 MR. MEYER: Yes.
18 We are saying sonething bevond that,and that is 19 that we have procedures which we are now using across the 20 boards that will insure that this continues to Se the case for I 21 future fuel design changes. Tnd these orocedures are 22 incorocrated in the recently revised Standard Review 'lan, O n s- uon 4.2.
- 3. 24 MR. BENDER: Does the subcommittee have anv reason Arm rst Fleporters, Inc.
' d 25 to take issue with what is suggested?
g * %
W 6 -
76 nm 1 (No response. )
2 Okav, then we will orocose to the connittee that j(,
N) 3 this is resolved. !
C)
(, 4 How, let's no to the other two items.
1 e
5 'iR . MEYER: Okav.
6 These two items aopear to be narrowly - .from their 7 titles they apoear to be narrowly defined as fuels issues.
8 I'm not sure that is the case.
9 Ne have given resconses from the coint of view of I
10 the behavior of the fuel, and I am not sure that those resoonses ,
l 4
11 have been satisfactorv. Let me try and characterize those in 12 a word.
1 13 Nith regard to instrunents to detect fuel failures, l
~) l 14 we have said that there are instruments to detect fuel ,
l 15 f ailures. And they areesensitive, bev vill detect not only l 16 severe fuel failures, but ninor fuel failures. IIoweve r , they i j
17 don't act very raoidly and therefore they are not terribiv 18 useful as devices to generate SqRAM signals. l 1
l 19 ' lith renard to behsvior of fuel under abnormal l l
20 conditions, our response is simolv,that is really everything ,
l 21 we do. And it is not going to be. resolved in the foreseeable 22 future because individual oroblems come '.nd "o. And this seems 1
23 so generally stated that it doesn't annear to be resnivable.
l l
24 D9. SIESS: It reallv said,"Do P3v."
Ar:e**rst Reporters, Inc.
ss 25 1R. BENDER: II-7 says do PDF.
l l
77 mm l' DR. SIESS: Yes.
2 That's what II-7 did. It savs make tests in PBP. t
(~)
%)
3 And then when that was listed as a generic iten, P9e wasn't
() 4 ' onerating, . if I'm not mistaken.
p 5 MR. BEMDER: 9011, it nay have even occurred before 6 PBF had a test proqram. I think it did, inCfact, occur before 7 PBF had a test program.
8 DR. SISSS: "That is all that .T.I-7 is, is a recommen-9 dation that encouranes analvtic nodeling and testing in 93" 10 to find out about fuel failure nropaqation and r autocatalvtic 11 effects, and flow blockage and so forth.
12 MR. BENDER- If we could have somethino from the staff 13 which states what is being done in the P9F that would be 14 resoonsive to the generic questions raised in II-7, we might 15 be able to resolve it on that basis.
16 I think that Dr. Siess.is stating it right, that 17 PBF's test oronram is reallv quite ef fective in telling us 18 a lot things we want to know. Thev n=v not do everything, but 19 they will tell us a lot.
20 MR. M3YDR: Nell, I would hope it is that simple.
21 But Ict me explore a thought for a moment because in both of 22 these activities, I see words havina to d,o with flow binckage,
() _
23 failure prot agation and the kinds nf thinns that we are not 24 doing very-much about.
Atxtf^ ital Reporters, Inc.
l 23 If that is the central concern, i# flow blochace is I
i 78
"" 1 the central concern of the committee, then I would like to see 2 the item rewordei so that apoears tube the case.
3 If behavior of reactor fuel under abnormal conditions
() 4 in the general sense, and related te PBv testing is all that S there is, then there is a well-defined test orogram'which .I 6 am sure has been made available b the committee from the 7 _ Office of Research.
g MM. BENDER: I am trying to keen the two items 9 separated.
1 10 DR. SIESS: I think he is right. They are not 11 separable.
12 MR. BENDER: Thev are senarable 'in this wav: The fg 13 most that we can learn about behavior of reactor fuel.s under
'\_)
14 abnormal conditions, is what can'be done in "BP. It could go 15 all the way, even to the coint of showinq what would haonen ,
I i
16 if you had flow blockage, if you wanted to. Mhether that is a !
17 useful exocriment or not, would be nuestionable in nu mind 1
18 because I don' t think we need very mann exneriments to know i 19 what haopens if vou turn the flow off.
20 MR. kiEYER: It is being cuestioned as tothe.orioritvj l l
I
- 2) that that exoerinent gets in the PBF test nronrad.
22 MR. BE'!DE9: B'It vou could address that part of it.
() 23 The second matter, the II-4 has to do with the
' l 24 instruments to detect fuel failure. And that ouestion is one Acef~Sral Reporters, Inc.
k-[ 25 that has to do with whether there are devices that are I
I l
a
79 mm 1 appropriate to out in a reactor that would tell us whether the i
2 fuel has reached the coint of notential meltino or clad run-3 ture, and whether it is wisc to do that.
() 4 MR. MEYER: Could we -- let's try to home in on the 5 behavior of fuel under abnormal conditions first, and see i' I 6 can get a comolete understandinc on that, because I believe if f 7 your concern is that .hhere 'should-be crocrams to further under- 1 8 stand the behavior of fuel under accident conditions, that I 9 those orograms are in place and that the committee knows 10 enough about what comorises those orograms that it would con-11 sider this issue resolved right now.
. l 12 MR. BENDER: Okav. I would be willing to acceot it 1 13 if I had it documented in such a wav that the committee could
()
14 really consider it.
15 DR. SIESS: Yes.
16 I think the question in II-7 is not iust flow 17 blockage, it is fuel failure prooagation. These are not my 18 words, I am trying to paraohrase what I have heard.
19 If one pin fails, are there mechanisms that could 20 lead to subsequent failures of additional nins or an entire i
21 elenent? This could be flow blockane , swelling and flow 22 blockage; it could be jet forces. I know thev have been
() 23 talked about from time to time.
24 Another phase of the question I have heard asked is:
Ace-F")*ral
(_ - Reporters, 25 Inc. a fuel failure be confined to one fuel element?
Mould If one l
A e
89 mm 1 comolete fuel element failed, could this lead to more extensive 2 failure in the core?
3 Now in my mind it comes partiv from the fact that .
I l
() 4 the whole ECCS calculation is based on a ceak clad tennerature
' 1 5 on one pin at one height, essentiallv, and how serious is this l 6 when it is propagated. But I wouldn't say it is sinolv flow )
i 7 blockage. l I
8 The term that was used at one time, by Dave, anvwav, 9
is fuel failure orooagation. )
1 I
10 MR. M. EYER : I think we are bringina out --
11 DR. GIESS: And I think PBP is doing that.
12 MR. 'CYE R : '7e are bringing out the words that I i
13 thought were going to come out, and it is necessary to talk l
} about those because failure cronagation and flow blockane are 14 j
15 not the most activelv pursued items in our study of behavior l
16 of fuel under accident conditions. Ne are not doing much of l 17 that. Ne are doing a lot of other things.
18 DR. SIESS: What are vou doing? "ower coolant 1 19 mismatch isn't concerned with fuel swel'.ing and #10w Slockane?
20 'iR . 'tEYE R: 'Then I said flow blockage, I was thinkinn 21 entirely of the 3'!R inlet flow blockage. .
22 DR. SI.9SS: Oh, no.
() 23 M'. . MEYE R : And I bdieve that to be 'ohat was the 24 underlying concern when flow blockane was mentione d in -these i Am EMetal Heporters, Inc.
h 25 questions.
81 mm i D.R . SIESS: I guess we need to get that straightened
,q 2 among ourselves, because when I said fuel failure orocacation, !
()
3 I am starting with a pin that failed,and can that failure (f 4 propagate? And that would be flo1 blockage due to clad 5 ballooning.
6 Flow blockane down at the botton is sc.mething else.
7 I thought that had been addressed enough times -- now that is 8 basically a BWR problem. B'1R doesn't have the closed channels.
9 Do you have any feel Mike as to whether the " low 10 blockage is due to swelling, or is it due to --
II MR. BENDER- I think.both are involved.
12 I am sure when this was put together there was no 13 attempt to decide which item might be the most inoortant
.O 14 matter.
15 D7. SIESS: But if it Mere obrased in terms of fuel 16 failure propanation it would be the other.
17 MR. MEYER: "ot necoccarilv, because --
18 MR. BENDER: Mu noint is somewhat different. It is 19 to say that the staff can nahe its own list of things that 20 are of concern.
21 MR. MEYSR: ~7e do have such a list.
27 MR. BEH7E". : And if it were cresented with sonething
) 23 that said, "Me are working on these and have decided not to 24 work on some others because the ones that we don't want'to i Ace f]et Reporters, Inc.
(_/ 25 work on, we consider of minor significance," then the conmittee l
-i
82 i mm i possibly could cone to sons position on this qeneric item.
2 DR. 9IESS: Look, the power coolant mismatch test, 3 don't you have those iust with reduced flow, or are thev ,
-O 4 1wers with iocreesed gower2 4
5 fir . kiEYER: There are some of each.
6 D7. 97.ESS: Mell, a PC'i test with rei.uced flow 7 certainly takes card of the inlet blockage. That's all that 8 happens when you block the inlet, is you get reduced flow i l
l 9 through that element.
10 MR. MEYER: The reduced flow -- the inlet flow blockage l
11 problem, as I.believe it concerns some 7eonle is alnost total 12 blockage of the bundle. In fact, 100 percent blockane of the )
4 13 inlet nozale is required before you can aporoach the neltina
( )
14 of the fuel in that channel.
15 DR. SIESS: That is a mechanistic thing, to look at 16 the design of the inlet.
17 MR. MEYER: .Yes. Mell, there are leakane oaths built 18 into the design around the sido of the botton of the hundle.
19 MR. BENDER: Mell the issue is not whether one fuel 20 channel can nelt, but whether there was enough neltino to 21 create a public safety hazard. Tnd that is really what the 22 botton line is.
23 MR. MEYER: Well this causes us confusior because ,
24 practically everything we do has to do with oredictina the ,
wel fieporters, Inc.
, Acey^bk behavior of fuel under abnormal conditions. And whether we
- 34 - 25 E I o.
W 83
"" 1 are talking about cellet cladding interaction,and failtires that 2 result from that, the loss of geometrv because of nechanical 3 forces from an AswTutric load or an earthnuake, or a number of
() 4 other events that we include in our analvsis' of the onstulated 5 accident. We have a lot of individual efforts on those. It is 6 not at all clear from this that vou want all of those or some 7 subset.
8 DR. SIESS: Would it help vou if this was described in 9 terms of a fuel failure crocaqation?
10 MR. MEYER: Yes, i t would.
11 DR. SIESS: That is what I read into it now because 12 it talks.about partial melting of fuel assemblies due to flow 13 blockage might lead to autocatalvtic defects leading to more O 14 cxtensive fuel failures, pressure pulses, et cetera.
15 MR. MEYOR: Yes.
16 DR. SIESS: Similar behavior micht occur in the case 17 of reactivity transients.
18 MR. MSYER: Yes. Certainiv -~
19 DR. AI2SS: I read it as oronaga ion, and I recall it as propamation. '
20 And s'e could take that back to the 21 comnittee and see if they want to define it in terms of fuel i 22 failure propanation. And we have got pecole that know what ;
1 (f 23 PBF is doing and thov can tell us whether thev think PDF is 24 responsive to this.
i_
Acufw)iral Hmortert 25 Inc. Okay?
I
R4 mm I MR. BP'1 DER: Yes, I think that is a acod anoroach.
2 MR. MnYER: That would be a biq hele if this were 3 narrowed down to failure propaantion, includina ONR orocanation.
4 DR. SIESS: It says transients as well as PC't.
i 5 MR. MEYER: That would be verv helpful.
6 DR. BENDER: Okav. we ' rill trv to address the matter 7 in that wav and see if the committee can define its interest 8 a little bit more.
9 DR. SIESS: Now, II44 goes back to Dave Okrent acain.
10 And Dave's feelina is that if you .have not a lot of neltina, II the sooner vou know it, the better off you are. j 12 And is there some wav to know when vou have had a 13 . f airly substantial amount of fuel f ailure? That is'what the 14 " severe" I think implies in there. Not iust the leakers where 15 you pick it u, with the activitv. And nobodu hss ever come up 16 with any good way of doing it.
17 Outlet thermocounles has been mentioned, I think.
18 Has that been mentioned in connection with this?
I9 MR. BENDER: Mhat kind of thernocouples?
20 nR. SIESS: Outlet thernocouolen.
21 M3. BENDSR: At each fuel channel?
22 DR. SIESS: Yes.
23 I know that has been nentioned, but I can't think of
' 24 whether it relates to this or not, i AwA-Veral Reporters, inc. l l
U 25 DR. LwaoS::I: I don't know why vou sav vou have to l
,~ ,
85 1
mm j. have those wordings, because without soecifically saving .
I 2 fuel- failure orooagation -- I don' t know how else vou can
. ,'N
/ .
1 3 interpret that second sentence under II-7. l l
4 DR.'SIESS: You could 3"' ret it as'iust beinn an 5 example.
6 MR. PIEYER: Nell reactivity transients incl'19es rod 7
ejection, rod drop kind of events. And we have a 1.arce effort i
1 g in that area. '
DR. LYiROSKI : The second sentence certainly covers 9 --l 10 MR. MEYER: I'm sorry, I'm probab1v not readinn from 11 the right -- !
12 !)R . 9IESS- You have to redd from our words.
13 DR. LTNRO9KI- Don't iust read our titles, read what t
ja the words are, too. The second sentence. ]
i 15 DR. SISSS: That's what I was reading a minute ago.
16 But we could reword that. If it is fuel failure cronanation, 17 we could sav so.
18 MR. SiRYER: I don't think it is really clear whether i
19 that sentence means inlet flow blockage in a R'OR alone, or 20 whether you are talking about failure orooagation which micht 21 well be caused by D'1B propagation. ,
i 22 DR. GIESS: Nell, I read it to mean both Secause j
() 23 it says partial neltino due to flov block 3ne could lead to 24 more extensive fuel failure. That's a fuel failure oronaga'im. ,
-Ace Feieca Fleporters, Inc.
25 and that's a PCM-type situa tion , I think.
.I e
36 nn 1 And then it savs:
2 "Sinilar behavior night occur in the case o' 3 reactivitv transients."
() 4 i reactivity trannient is what vnu mean hy a --
5 MR. B"1 DER: I have to believe that the committec 6 had-not given that nuch thought to the total meanina of its 7 words. Ne will try to cet then.
8 MR. MUVER- Okay.
9 Me do, bv the wav, hav. something "oing on, the 10 fail' Ire',romanation which we discussed.with the comnittee 11 about si:: months ago. It is not an extensive effort, but 12 it is responsive to your interests in the f ailitre nronanntion.
13 .ind we can report the status q# this item the next
)
14 time aro.tnd, when hooefullv the statenent o# the problem is 15 nore nointed in that direction.
16 MR. SENDER: Mell, from nv standpoint as an individual,!
17 as opposed to a spokesman " rom the committee, I think it rould 18 he helpful to us if we really knew how the staff views things 19 that need to be done, too.
20 You are having a bia moact on what is beina done !
21 at'PBP and the re.soninn behind it is not alwaus as clear as 22 it should be, either, from the sts?f's stand,oint.
O 23 2. "svn': 'xe". ^re v u 1,vitie" me to "4ve vou 24 a sp?.ech on that rinht now? ,
- Ace 3ecteral fieporters, Inc.
([ 25 MR. BENDER: '!ct now. I think the committee Nould I
.. - r .
37 mm , j 1 like to have:the staff's written oninion. '
2 MR.' MEYER: Okav. !
3 In fact, we have discussed it in reallv those terms (f 4 of your subconnittee on a couole of recent occasions. ;
5 MR. 9E'MER: And some nenbers of the subconnittee 6 came back and said, "'?hv are vou worried abou't reactivitv 7 transients? They can't get vou into any trouble."
8 But anyhow, I think one of the difficulties in havino l
9 a discussion of the sort we are havinn here, is that the I
10 ground shifts too ranidiv. .
11 It would be better if sonchodv sat 60- and )
12 sustematicall" dincussed the matters and Ne to so"e l 13 considered opinion. And then, on the b2: that sunnested 14 some olan of action.
15 I think that is true for vou, it is true for the 16 committee. But the connittee reserves the nrerogative of 17 being a committee and ,ot havinn to dea.1 with individual l 18 things too exnlicitiv.
19 MR. MEY19: Oh.av .
20 D9. SIESS: The prerocative of beinn vamue.
21 (Laughter.)
22 M9. MEYDR: '?e have initiated nonething on f ailure
( 23 oropagation. It is not novin" too ranidlv, it has not not 24 t.,e highest priority possible, but we are not standinn still ,
- Acef9rst Fleporters, Inc.
(-) 25 on that,.bocause'I have heard before from the con".ittee that l
i
, . _ . , y +g+-m-. .-c--
89 mm j there is an interest in that.
/ 2 DR. PIESS- Anv test von make with .more than one
\m- .
3 oin has got tn lead to some insights on failure cronacation, A
() 4 and that is what PBF does.
5 MR. MPYE7.- Okav. Back to the instruments.
6 This one leads ne down a blini allev -- not entirelv 7 blind, but down a cath that raises questions at the end as 8 WG11- '
1 9 Ne do have instruments to detect failures. Che'r 10 derive their sensitivitv hv being slo'r and letting some back-11 ground activity decav. And it cones down t)the coint where 12 we in NRR are really not doing anythinn to trv and imorove the I 13 resnonse or the instrumentation for fuel failure detoction in I ja the olants.
15 No are doinq some neu things to trv and nake sure
~
16 that the failure detection instruments that thev have are 17 being used, and that their use in terms of failure Setectors 18 is beinn discussed.
19 But I think wheni vou consider the 'Ise of failure i 20 detectors to give vou incornation raniily in order to take some j l
21 action, that vou are probablv talking about generating a SCRAM 22 signal with an activity nonitor of some kini, fuel failur, 23 detector of some kind. ,
- 24 And when I come t>that conclusion. then it seems '
! Acererst fleporters, Inc.
(_) 25 that the question _is a lot hinner than the fuel section of I
39 s
mm the Core Performance Branch. And I would like to fini out if 2 the comnittee is reallv interested in a ne'r level of CORA.M O 3 orotection for the olant based on failure detectors. And if
[]} 4 this is a concern on which some poliev --
t' 5 DR. LANROSKI: That's what the wording says under 6 II~4 7
" Instrumentation canable of earlv warning and 8
timelv resnonse nay avert an incident becominn an 9 accident."
1 10 M?. . MEVER: Nell, we have annroached this item in l
11 the past bv tellinn vou what we have done with the failure 1
12 detectors.
13 I think we are to the noint that i" vou are reallv
() ja interested in better detectors to nenerate 'C".AM sinnals, that l
~
15 we hava qot to elevate this concern to a nuch broader 1
16 interest in the Core Performance Branch. " hat's our n+oblem 17 and we will do that, if that is clearlv the interest of the
]
18 committee.
19 DR. LN 7'.OT;I : "here is no harn in vour talkinq to l
1 20 the colle:Gucs in some o ne other branches, vou know.
21 MR. MEYER: hat is not the coint I am.trving to 7ake, !
22 MR. BENDER: I would like to make the followinn 23 sungestion:
24 As an individual I am not reall.v verv nuch interested,
- Ace w
(,)ersi Reporters,25 Inc. whether you can get a fast detection sytqten.
.in But I think j l
90 mm j how I would respond to it from a connittee standonint voilld 2 depend somewhat on how the staff views the likelihood of O . 3 accomplishing somethina.
4 If S pu want to come back and say from a nractical 5 standpoint we don' t see any way in which we are going to net 6
anything that is much better than you currentiv have, and we 7
are satisfied with it, then the committee co 114 look at it f
8 that way.
I #
9 At the noment trou haven't reallv reacted in that Nav.,
10 DR. SIESS: I think it would be Northwhile to have ii them come in and talk to the full committee sometine about 12 this, to hear more neople than un tell us what the oroblen is.
13 f tR. 3E'IDER: That's a nood thought.
O 14 nR.PI mS:
And this is related to the other one, l
j i
15 hecause if fuel failure propagation cannot occur, then vour 16 present detection which will oick uo one nin failed. and i
37 obviousiv unu will do soseching, you Nill catch it in nientv of 18 time before vou <Tet a lot of nins failing.
19 '70 w , if the idea is to nick it up after vou have 20 had a dozen nins fail before you net to three dozen, that is l 21 ust another level. 7 don't know. ,
22 The question af nromnt detection used to be in here.
23 MR. SE'10"R- It goes back to the noint o# whether 24 you should initiate a SCWi which requires various -- to be i
^ Ace ~1eral Reporters Inc.
very useful, it needs to be fairiv fast.
~) 25
$ M".F e ei-
91 1 DR. SIESS: In other words, sto7 a oroo=.gation?
2 M'.. BENDSR Yes.
3 In other words, i' vou conclude that that is not a l( ). 4 practical thing to do, then the committee need.s to consider 6
5 whether it ~-- something it iust learns about the failure 6 propagation slowly is -- t 7 DR. SIESS: It depends on how fast it can 7ronaqate.
8 How fast is fast enough. In this case it deoends on some 9 scenarios which I don't think anvbody can draw.
10 MR. MEYER: The connon ienominator to all this 11 all seems to be the nostulated inlet flow blockage 4.n the B'79, 12 because there is no -- we have not bundle tests for LOCA )
13 ovents, and there doesn't seem to be any kind dFrod-to-rod 14 interaction or orooagation from one balloon to the next in 15 that kind of an event.
16 Se have qot hundle tests for reactivitv insertion 17 tyne of failures,and there is no evidence for failure nronaga- ,
18 tion in that hind of a node.
19 And so it seems to us that the thing that is at the 20 heart of both of these caosti6ns is sone nointed concern over 21 complete inlet flow blockane in the BMR, nolten fuel being 22 generated while it 4.s all bottled un and somehow netting out
() 23 and damaging the rest of the core.
t 24 MR. BENDER: You have made enounh of a noint.of it, ,
Aceh9rst Reporters, Inc k_) 25 and 7 think we will probab1v follow vour acoroach, Chet, and
l 92
... mm have the' committee hear the storv directly.
j
.2 DR. SIESS- I think -- vou know when it ta'.hs here 3
about large amounts of fission products could b9'ramidiv
() 4 released to the coolant, that will be true for either SN'. or o
5 PNR. Y u have got a lot of nelting.
6 But then it says, "and possibly to.the environment."
7 I'm not sure how it is coing to get to the environment 8
from the PWR.
9 I'd suggest that vou try to out down in writing these 10 questions. You know, the only way -- vou see the concern as jj being related,that way and if it isn't, vou want to kno'7.
12 Get something to us and then come in and oresent something to 13 the full conmittee and see what feedback vou cet.
4
. .C:) You may be right, this nav have been a RNR nuestion 1
1 34 15 that just didn't get boiled down.
16 MR. BE?IDER: Well, I suspect it was develooed at the J
37 time when people had less understandinc of what the DM".
t 18 behavior was, than we do now. J 19 Farther, I susoect that the sublaties of a B"n. are 20 more subtle than many members of the subcommittee aporaciate.
j 21 Ne nay need to hear -- .
22 D.. SIESS: ?Iow, am I correctithat the se tNo items s
( )' 23 are not covered hv task action olans, thev are covered hv
^
24 research, in effect?
Ace +a ui nnmuns, tnc. l
- - 25 These are not -- nost of the other things we have 1 .
1 1
l l l
93 mm 1 discussed this norning have been on the staff's aeneric iten list, and have been under OAPs.
'\g-g/
2 Chese are not, right?
3 MR. 't9YER: That's oniv nartially true.
() 4 Instruments to detect fuel failures was deleted fron j
5 our' task action -- look, the task action plans aren't well ,
6 developed for these B itens. But instrunent",'to detect fuel 7 failure is B-22. Thev have all been lunned. tocether and called 8 fuel.
9 DR. SIESS: Okav. This.--
10 MR. 'iEYER :
Instruments to detect fuel failures was 11 carried under that 3-22 beforo we wrote this reoort,and then 12 we finished it. Chat was the end of it.
13 Sut we have a nunber of activities which would be 14 called " behavior of fuel under abnormal conditions," including 15 prooagation, failure cronaqation, currently in 3-22.
16 DR. SIE9S: So this TI-7 would also be under 9-22?
17 MR. M2MER: Yen,.it would.
18 DR. SIESS: Ohav.
19 MR. SUM 0ER- Mell, we have cone about as far as we I i
20 wanted to go here. I I think we have a better understanding 21 than we did when we started.
22 DR. SIESS: I think we see the oroblen.
rm
() 23 I don't think we are the ones to answer it.
24 'iR . SEN9ER: 'lext iten? i AceMetal Reporters, Inc, U 25' MR. CROC?'ER: "e are now on II-A-1, ice condenser l
94 mm 1 con tainments .
2 The effort here is crimarily involved with code 3 work. And as near as I can cather the CONT 9t?T-4 'nD 2 code
(} 4 down at 7.daho is going to be used now for verification of these t
5 calculations sometine durino this ne::t calendar vear.
6 This is a Category B iten on the staff's list.
7 It is receiving some effort,. but not too much.
8 DR. 9IESS: '7 ell , our writeuo refers to the rate of 9 condensation. It says:
10 "If current analvses nrove that the condensation 11 l model is suitably conservative, the problem nav be 12 resolved."
13 I don't know how analuses can orove the nodal was 14 conservative.
15 Do vou understand what --
i 16 tiR. CROCKER: I am not really sure what thev are 17 doing, Dr. Siess, other than that thev have gone to other 18 codes trying to calculate the sane obenonenon, nresunablv on 19 the basis if vou can calculate the sane way with two different 20 approaches, you mioht be able to say it is conservative.
21 MR. BENDSR: ife ll , let's corcede that it is still an 22 analytical question to be resolved.
() 23 OR. AIESS: How does it be resolve 4' i l
24 You either have an eva.luation node.'. fo~ *.ce q Ampdud Reponen, tnc. J l ) 25 condensers aporoved -- vou So,. don't you?
l l
,- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -m 95
'r mn I MR. CROCKER: They must have, yes.
2 a DR. SIESS: I just saw a safetv evaluation renort --
O- 3 no, that was UHI. Is there an anoroved evaluation nodel for
() d ice condenser containnents?
6 5
MR. CROCRER: I'm not sure if thev have done this on 0
an approved model basis, or on a case-by-case' basis.
7 DR.SIE9S: Nell, what are the cases?
8 Cook has been licensed, Catawba --
9 MR. CROC"ER: Vogtle (? ) , McGuire -- '
t 10 DR. SIESS: "ot OL. The.first OL-- let's see.
11 Sequoyah and McGuire -- has McGuire got an OL? l 12 MR. CROCRER: McGuire is right at the tan end of the j 13 review right now. I don't think -- thev are ahead of 9equovah, 14 DR. SIESS: And Sequovah is due for an ACR9 letter --
MR. CROCKER: Seruovah is cominn into ACD.9 in the 16 next two or three months, we hooe.
I7 MR . BEN DE R- The only one that has been through the l IO mill.
19 DR. SIESS: I would say that if there is an acoroved -
20
-evaluation nodel for the ice condenser containments, or 21 '
approved procedures, this is resolved.
22 MR. BENDE R: Nell, whv don't vou take a nosition on it,
() 23 and we will see if we can't nove in that direction.
MR. CROCKER: He will c rtainlv try to.
- Ace-Federal Rerx>rters, Inc. '
i MR. BE?IDER: MV imoreGsion once Nas that Dart of the i ,
T 96 mm 1 issue had to do with the need for, or lack of need of unoer 2 head injection for some of these olants.
3 DR. SIESS: That gets into - 'then I said etraluation, I
() 4 I guess I didn't really mean LOCA ECCS evaluation. I neant 5 containment evaluation. Because Cooke and Seguovah are
, 6 different, one has UHI and the other one doesntt. ,
7 But there is an accroved UHI nodel now, as far as ,
8 that goes.
r 4
9 MR. BDNDER: Chat, it would seen to ne, woul.d be the 10 iss.ue, whether there was adecuate canacity in the coolant >
11 injection svstem with tha cresent scheme, or whether we had 12 to have something else.
1 2
13 DR. SIESS: I think that this was talking about '
(
14 containments. I think it was talking about the containment 15 pressure, svsten overorescurization. And that the containment 16 pressure, vou figured, depends on the condensation model.
17 And there was a question as to whether the containmen:
18 pressure nodel was conservative. And that nust he resolved bv .
19 now.
20 MR. CROC"SR: They aooroved Cook on the basis of the !
21 models that thev used. I think it was basically'a confirmation,
- 22 trying to determine whether or not -- l
() 23 DR. SIES9: In ECCS --
'24 MR. B"MDSR: Mell, if vou brant to take the oosition i
! Adep+deraf Reporters, Inc, 1% )- 25 that it is resolved on that basis. I certainly don't consider e- ,
i i 97 4
mm I myself exoert on this generic item. It was created a long' time 2
before I became_very active on this committee.
O 3 MR. CROCKD": This v.'as a holdover fron many years
() d back.
5 DR. LAMROS*;I: Mell, as a II-A it is not as long as i
6 sone of the others we have been talking about'. ;
7 MR. BENDER: That's right.
8 Nhat's the next iten?
9 MR. CROCKER: The next item is II-A-2,'4hich is the 10 PMT pump oversoced which we discussed. --
M't . BENDER: I think we adequhtely covered that I2 matter.
13 MR. CROCKER* The next one then is II-A-3, steam ;
Id generator tube leakage.
15 This is being pursued under three seoarate Categor5r 16 A tasks by the staff, one for each of the reactor vendors.
17 You have had some words, I think iust at the last 18 meeting, regarding the steam generator reolacement for Surrv.
DR. SIESS: That's not the auestion.
20 The ACRS concern is ver'r linited here. It is the ,
2I effect of steam aenerator tube failures on nerformance durinq ,
1 22 LOCA. i
( 23
?!7. CROCKER: And that is part of the task that we 24 have got going here, just on that.
-(ye.est neponen, inc.
eS DR. SIESS: And I recall -- but all the rebt of the l
r
.. .a,t .
F 99 mm I reasons for failure, intenritv, are not cart of this carticular 2
item. And I recall a cresentation by the' staff on the effects 3
of different numbers of tubes failing on the LOC 4 behavior.
() 4 And also something on the probability of different numbers of r
5 tubes failing.
6 But I don't-recall ever seeing thdidocument.
7 MR. CROCKER: I don' t know that vou have. I have 8 not seen it myself.
9 DR. SIESS: And I guess that the experience with --
10 the recent e;.oerience with tube thinninn and dentino and II cracking and all the different ohenomena would have to be 12 factored into this probability of a given number of tubes 13 failing, as well as the tube alugging criteria, et cetera.
I4 You can't really seoarate that nrobabilitv from all l
15 of this experience that we are getting.
16 MR. CROCKER: That's right. These are all wranced uo I 17 in these three Chtegorv-A tasks: Corrosion insoection techniques.
18 how many to inspect, what assurance you have.
l9 DR. SIBSS: ' low sihich uronrans is it -- this is A-3, 20 4 and 5?
21 MR. CROCKER: A-3, 4 and 5.
22 DR. SIESS: Nell, it is unresolved then.
I 23 MR. CROCKER: It is right now.
24 MR. BENDER: It is not too clear at this stane that l Ace (4-9tal Reporters, lm 1 s,) ' ,
25 I we know precisely what will constit'Ite resolution. Somewhere l
ll l l
s v v r- , -rv---- .-.,_c, , , , , - ,
.99 1 along the line we ought to try to say what we are going to do 2 for that.
O 3 DR. SIESS: Nell, what I can visualize is various
'/~) 4 resolutions.
V e
5 One, is that we establish that the probability o#
6 the critical number of tubes failing is very.small.
7 There is one suggested in the oosition-8 "1 . .specifying a statistically sinnificant 9 level of nondestructive examination.'. ."
10 Presumably together with some croperlv based 11 criterion for tube plugging.
12 And I guess I can see a third which would change the LOCA ECCS evaluation model to assume a certain number of tubes o
13 14 failed,and check ECC9 on that basis. It can certainlv be a 13 resolution.
16 MR. BENDER- Me don't want three answers. It would I
17 be nice if the staff would say which one of the several it is 18 pursuing.
19 DR.SIESS: I don't think they know. 7ut,there are 20 ways of. resolving it. One would simply be to change the 21 evaluation model 22 MR. BENDER: Their directions in which thev are
() 23 going. And the direction they are going rinht now is to try 24 to show that the likelihood of the critical number of tubes ,
A*F,wteral Reporters, Inc.
'l 25 failing is small.
I f ~M
100 4
1 DR. SIESS: At some confidence level, don't forqet
(~g 2 that. "
(./
3 MR. BENDER: Some confidence level.
. () 4 I don't think we are going to resolve it here,but t
5 vou night try, if vou could. .Tust say what the directions 6 are that vou are trying to go.
7 DR. SIESS: I think it is so far down the line --
8 MR. CROCKER: These are aiming towards sometine in 9 the early '80 timeframe oc mar as coming to the end of these 10 tasks. Whether we then arrive at.the solution to the ACRC 11 problem at the same time, I reallv don't know.
12 MR. BENDER: Let's ao to the next iten.
13 MR. CROCKER: The next item is II-A-4, the ten-vear 14 review of operating reactors.
15 There has been no chance here since we last sooke 16 to the subconmittee. Basically the staff view, I think, remains 17 that the systenatic evaluation progran accomolishes what the 18 committee had in mind in the design.
I 19 MR. BENDER: I'm not so sure that isn't a 20 reasonably good resolution. But I -- !
21 DR. LIESS: Let me ask you one nuestion, though.
22 There are only what, 12 reactors --
( 23 MR. CROCKER: 11 reactors.
o 24 DR. SIESS: 11 in.the'$EP, there is 70 ooerating. ,
- Ace,**eral Reporters, Inc.
.). 25 Those 11, I think, are all older than ten vears or close to it.;
l l
)
. .. _ . ~ , ~ . . , . . . . _ . .
101 mm 1 'iR . CROCKER: They are the oldest --
2 DR. SIESS: They are the oldest, and some of them 3 aren't quite ten years old if vou count from OL staqe.
() 4 Do we know what the next sten is in the s'rstematic 5 evaluation orogram?
6 'iR . CROCKER: . Terry might be able t'o Selo vou a 7 little more.
8 My understanding is we were going to do these 11.
9 and sometime toward the end of that review, make a determinatiop 10 as to whether 6 continue this through the other olants as 11 well.
12 DR. SIESS: All right. Until that determination is
,e 13 made, this is not resolved.
14 MR. BENDER: 7e l l , it is resolved in the sense that 15 other things are resolved. The staff has a plan of action.
16 DR. SIESS: But we don't know what their olan is 17 for other reacters. There are 59 more reactors. And until we 18 know that they are coing to be looked at, this is not resolved, 19 strictly soeaking. They have only looked at 11 o' them. so 20 the ten years is how lon" it tahes.
21 MR. BENDER: If I look at the way we resolve a '.ot 22 of other generic items, I would cav this one is better resolved .
) 23 than others.
24 (Laughter;)
' Acentral Reporters. Inc.
ks) 25 DR. RIESS: It is certainly resolved for 11 olants.
l 102 l l
l 1 And the others haven' t reached ten vears yet. I 4
g- 2 MR. BE'1 DER: It is true that the basis on which --
U 3 DR. 91ESS: Mo, John is shaking his head. I know
() 4 why. Because the systenatic evaluation oronram does not do what 5 this asked to do.
6 MR . B E'!DE R : I don't. know, John. 'dh'at - . to what are 7 you referring?
8 MR. MC KINLEY: The systematic evaluation orogram 9 is a single-shot program. It has no periodicitv.
10 DR. LN4ROSKI: Right. i 11 MR. BENDER- But it did -- it is doing what Larry 12 suggested, namelv at the end of it thev vill trv to come to 13 some conclusion as erwhat thev need to do in terms of
, 14 systematic --
15 DR. SIESS: Yes, b ut there is another inolication in '
16 the ten-year review oronosal, and that was that you looked 17 at operating exoerience to see how the operator was doina, 18 whether he was having eroblems, whether the olant was havina 19 problems.
20 The systematic evaluat bn program, I'm sure, nust l
21 be doing some of that. But it is chieflv aimed a't uniatina 22 requirements, safetv requirements and documenting those that !
I
). 23 do not meet current criteria, whv they do not.
24 And I think that some aspects o# the ten-vear ,
- Ace ["~ Neat Reporters, Inc.
Al 25 -review, of that review of ooerating experience, have been
- ,,i
103 mm I embodied in other ACRS recommendations about lookina at LERs, 2
./ -
et cetera, et cetera. Some of it may have been enbodied in 3
this abortive effort by the staff to grade licensees on LERs O 4 end 9erfo=mence.
t 5
MR. CROCKER: I would say if you read vour nail vou 0
would find out I&E is going to have a continuous vardstick now 7
for all of the plants.
8 DR. SIESS: Ne never saw that one, exceot what was 9
in the newspacers.
10 MR. LM1ROSKI: I talked.to Ray this 7orning. He was 11 goina to try to get it.
2 DR. SIESS: But I think that the committee ought to 13 reconsider this ten-year review in terns of SEP and its O I4 recommendations regardinn LERs, and navbe rewrite these 15 words sometimes, Mike, to sav what we think about it in terms 16 of the SEP and other recommendations. -
I7 MR. BENDER: That is certainly an approoriate thing 18 to do.
19 DR. SIESS: It is ob'?ious that the staff is not 20
. going to do precisel'r what we said. hey have ant other things 21 they are trying to do, and maybe we ought to cons'ider what 22 thev are doing and whether we should change our advice to them.
23 MR. BENDER: This seens like a good item to cive the 24 Acefederst Reporters, Inc.
Ooerating Subconnitten to look at and redefine.
1 DR. LANROS".7, : Nhat is the largest sice unit that is l
104 mm 1 included?
f.
2 MR. CARTER: Conn. Yankee. That's about the biqqest.
3 MR. BPNDER: Gentlemen, we have been going since O 4 1o 'c1ocx- no< ebout e breex?
L 5 Why don't we break for lunch and come back at 1:30.
6 (FTnereupon , at 12:30 9.m., the hearing was recessed, 7 to reswne at 1:30 p.m. this same day.)
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 l
16 17 .
l i
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l 19 l l
20 21 -
l 22 (mj 23 24 .
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l l
105 mm 1 AFTERNOON SESSION 2
_ 1:30 o.m.
3 MR. BENDER: This meeting will now reconvene.
() d Larrv, do vou want to pick un' here?
e 5 MR. CROCKER: Yes, sir. .
l 6 The next item is II-3-1, comouter r'eactor protection 7 system. We think we are pretty well along on that one.
8 We have been into the committee on the CPCS for 9 Arkansas Nuclear 1. And also discussed with the connittee 10 the RESAR-414, integrated ifratection svstem that Mestinghouse l II is coming up with.
12 I do not believe that the B&W system has been 13 completely discussed with the committee.
gg ' Tot that I an aware V
I4 of, anyway.
15 But in any event,these tasks from our standooint, l 16 are primarily ained at coming up with sono generic review 17 procedures to hanf.le these d. 7 the future.
18 So far as I know we are oretty well unhanov trith I9 what they found out so far. The CPCS still has four, five, 20 six, maybe, unresolved items and the staff is working on them. I 2I 'IR . BENDER: I think you have stated the matter righti 22 though.
23 DR. SIESS: The ACRS statenont savs:
24 "It is necessary that the required systen
. AcejEa1 erst Fieporters, Inc.
(, 25 ro.'.iability, both during normal ooeration and 1 l !
1 I
h!
i1 . - , . _ _
106 mm I
under postulated abnormal conditions, be 2
established through an aooropriate combination 3
of tests and analvses."
() ^
And of. course the required reliability is what the 5
. staff is working on.
6 This doesn't even talk about software, and concerns 7
recently have gotten involved in software, in ours and vours.
8 MR. BENDER: 7e l l , I think the software was 9
interested in the original concern that just came uo.
10 DR. SIESS: There is a sentence that:
11 "The proposed systems would contain some tvnes 12 of components and subsvstems not oreviousiv used for 13 reactor ?rotection."
)
14 If it hadn't said that, I would sav the software 15 . .
was in it.
16 MR. BENDER: That's a oroblen we have when necole 17 write these documents, the ohraseologv is not --
DR. SIESS: We would be better off if we iust nut a l
19 title in without trying to c::71ain it.
20 (Laughter.)
MR. BDND3R: Anything else "ou want to 'say about that, Larrv?
3 MR. CROCXER: I don't have anvthing else on it.
24 Aa eral Heporters, inc, MR.BRNDER- I think if'we haven't anvthing- to add. '
(,) 25 I believe your definition of the resolution is about rinht.
w
107 mm I
DR. SIESS: I think it is coing to be with us for a 2
- ( ) while because we are coing to see more and nore orocosals.
3 MR. CROCKER: I would exoect that from here on in 4
the plants we are looking at all have some combinations o' 5
these computer orotection systens in then. -
6 II-B-2, new fuel oeometries.we talked about earlier.
7 MR. BENDER: I think we agreed that if you cive us.
8 something that shows what you have done, we vill trv to nresent i
9 this to the committee as resolved.
10 MR. CROCKER: II-B-3, the Mark III containment.
DR. SIESS: Also the Mark II and the 'tark 1.
12 tLaughter.)
(} 13 MR. CROCKER: $ty understanding of the 'iark II work at Id this ooint in time in that the staff basicallv is content with 15 what we have now. Ne are looking for the exocrimental confirma ;
16 tion when they actuallv get the hardware in olace.
I7 I may not be cuite right.
18 MR. BENDER: I think we are not -- our nosition really I9 is that the verification needs to be presented to us.
20 MR. CROCKER: Yes.
21 MR. BE"D3R1 And we are still waiting for that.
22 DR. SIESS: Thatoone should be resolved hv the time s I 23 we do an OL on Grand Gulf.
liR . BENDER: Or whiche cer one makes it tr the too, i
Awf-)ni
\_ -
neporters.
^5 inc l MR. CROCXER: That, I believo, is the first strinn now.
109 i
mm 1 .II-B-4, the stress corrosion cracking.
1
- 2 DR. SIESS: Small BWR -- no, it doesn't say small, j
3 does it?
() 4 (Lauchter.)
- 1 1
5 MR. CROCKER: "e eliminated that. )
6 DR. LANROSKI: How small is the R in resolved on 7 that one?
8 (Laughter.)
9 MR. BENDEP.: For this week.
10 (Laughter.)- . l 1 1 MR. CROCKER* There are several oroblems in connection l 12 with this, not the least of which is this now Categorv 4 task 1 i
13 we now have put together on the pipe cracking in SMRs. I 14 They have reinstituted the nice-crack task force. I l
15 They are expecting a reoort out, I believe, in Januarv from I
16 these folks, at which coint I quess we will have to make no 17 our mini where we go from there..
18 Two vears ago at first we allnthought we had this 19 pretty well whipped, but it has reared its un1v head again.
- 20 MR. BENDER- Anvthing new this week? I mean, I I 4
l l
21 haven't seen anvthing since a couole of weeks ago.
22 MR. CROC:mR: I haven't heard anvthing this week.
23 It mav just be because we don't have'the word vet.
24 (Laughter.) i
' Ace, nst Reporsers, Inc.
(-) 25 DR. LANROSHI: I thought I readdsonewheren that'the 1
-.1._.1..----.- 1, , - - . , ,
1 109 l nn 1 study groues that went over to' Germany and Tapan came back a 2 little nore encouraged than --
3 MR. CROC"ER: I have not talked to anv of the folks ,
1
() 4 .that went. I don't know what they came uo with.
, 5 MR. BENDSR: Ue still have Duane Arnold around.
6 DR. SIESS: That wasn't any different.
7 MR. MC KINLEY: That was pretty uniaue.
8 MR. BENDER: The first one is always unique. It is I 9 only when vou have two that they are no longer unique.
10 'iR . CROCKER: '3 hen vou n,et two it hocones "eneric.
11 DR. SIESS: The staff in th& unresolved safety issue 12 list has one item called BMR nozzle cracking, and another one'
. 13 called pipe cracks in boilina water reactors. ;
14 The BtfR nozzle cracking was that cracking --
15 MR.iAYCOCK: It was the thermal faticue cracking.
16 DR. SIESS: 9kav, I see. Thermal fatigue.
17 Unless vou can find some way to eliminate sensitiza-18 tion in the heat effective zone, I think we are noing to go 19 back to Mr. Bush's sugqestion:
20 " Current efforts are to minimize stress corrosion ,
1 21 by using other materials." -
22 MR.. BENDER: 7 hat's'hard to do in nlants that are 1 23 already built.
l 24 MR. CROCKnR: That doesn' t even seen to always work ,
Ace,)(EMetal Fleporters, 25 there,Inc.either. Somebodv iust ha6 a crack in inconel.
_' d.
110 mm.
I MR.' BENDER: Inconel 800 is the one that 6resentiv 2
is said to be more immune than some others.
p%,)
3 Anything else to be said about stress corrosion O. d creckine, bevond ehet v,u ere continuins to work on it2 5
DR. SIESS: And we will be as long as we have~.these 6
damn olants.
7 MR. BENDER: And it will~ continue to be a ceneric 8
problem, althouqh not necessarily one of immediate sa Stv 9
concern.
10 MR. CROCKE R: That's about the sun of it, I think.
11 That brings us to II-C-1, locking out of ECCS I2 power-ooerated valves.
13 It is included as a Cateoory B item in our technical O Id activities orogram. The task action olan is under develonnent.
15 I don't believe we have it out vet. And if we do, I am sure it 16 has not been anoroved as vet.
I7 MR. BENDER: Are ,vou going to do this nrobabilistically?.
IO Deterministically?
" MR. CROCKER: I don't know what aonroach thev will 20 take.
2I 'iR . BENDER: Or, seat-of-the-cants kind of ooinion.
22 I don't think there is any vav to do it DR. SIESS:
23 but probabilistic , to address _our concern. -
24 MR. BENDER: Mell, it is a orobabilistic concern i
' Ace-FMetal Reporters, Inc.
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,5 L that we ~ are dealing with. "'he issue seems to ne sonewhere between I
p.. j i
111 mm I human error and what contribution'it might make if you' continue r
2 th,e practice. And alternative desian, and whether that in
'a 3 itself would be a way of resolving the concern about human
() 4 error.
5 DR. SIESS: '1e ll , for some of the exanoles, the one 6 I gave this morning, vou could get around it bv outting in 7 series parallel four-valve systems. But vou can't do that i
8 and stav single failureproof without four DC systems.
9 So that becomes cuite a change. And evervhody is l
10 not going that route now, that I know of. ,
11 MR. CROCKER: No, they are not.
12 DR. SISSS: I don't renember standard 61 ant desinns, 13 whether standard plants have none that wav.
O 14 MR. BENDER: At the time this became a generic item, 15 it became one primarily because it was a matter of consistencv ;
16 within the staff's nractice that seemed to be unclear.
17 And I thinV if you can show consistent logic, that 18 would,go a long wav toward at least making the conmittee --
19 DR. SIESS: Mike, it also seems to ne Nhen this was 20 first put in here, the main case we were lookinn at was that i
21 RUR suction, or the low crossure, whatever. And since then 22 we have seen it on other things.
t
(} 23 Of course, the cumulator tank valves, thev locked 24 open. .The up9er head injection uses the four-valve svsten. , k
- Arm Federal Reporters, Inc.
() 25 'No way you can lock those out because they have to act within i
t i
1
- s~ ,
\
l c~
, l 112
, I seconds, right?.
2 MR CRDOKER: Yes.
O V 3 DR. CIESS: vou have got to qqt the water in, vou have
(} 4 got to keep' gas from gettina in.
5 But it seems to me I have seen two or three other 6 places where this is valve lockout.
7 MR. AYCOCX: I think some of the older olants had l
8 situations in the ECCS system where vou had a single nice l
i 9 and single valve that had to be locked open to meet the same 10 value criteria. .
II DR. SIESS: Yes.
l 12 I think the number of cases where valves are being l
13 locked ocen and locked shut, is increased.
L()
l 14 MR. BENDER: Also there have been a number of LERs,
]
15 more than two, in which valves have been locked in the wrong 16 position -- valves or come decent hardware, T. don't want to 17 restrict then to that.
18 D9. S IESS: Of course the staff has always required 19 redundant position indication when thev lock the valve ooen 20 or shut.
21 MR. CROCKER: Yes. -
22 DR. SIESS: And I think one of the coints raised about
() 23 that was, that told vou the cosition of the valve sten, but
- 24 not necessarilv the nosition of the valve disc. And we have ,
. Acep4mI Remum, inc.
()
25 had at least two instances I can recall, where the stem has
, i j l
l I*'* O 9
113 -
mm I separated fron the disc.
2 MR. 'BE"DET: But still vou could addres9 it 3 -orobabilisticallv.
4 DR. SIE9S: 'f e s . I'think that is the onlv one.
- i. t 5 The thing is, they night come out equal in both- ,
6 directions. Then you night be better off -- 5 7 MR. BENDER: Then you toss a coin, do it either wav 8 because it doesn't nake nuch difference, both are wrong. ;
9 (Laughter.)
10 DR. SIESS: In the probabilities I know, both are 11 wrong means some other solution. ,
. t 12 MR. BENDER: Let's go to the next iten.
13 MR. CROCKER- The next iten is II-C-2, -1.e nian O 14 features to control sabotaae.
15 The writeup in this renort, the 4 December reoort, 16 is a little more extensive than vou have seen before. There 17 is a- office groun that has been working on this.
18 .,a si cally , I think the bulk of the work is beine 19 dt ur bv or through Sandia, and thev are, in fact, 20 loor. Various means that they might encloy to get into
]
21 the desig,. of the plants. I am not'sure how we stand on time 1 22 on this.
(} 23 D9. FIESS: You hnow. I think from one rather narrow 1
24 viewpoint, this one is resolved. "ecause our oriqinal state-
. j
, Ace i ederal Fleporters, Inc.
25 ment said:
i I t--": ._. _ - , _ _ _ . ms
114 mm 1 "The ACRS believes that deliberate attention
^
-s 2 should be given to asoects of design that could f
3 imorove olant security." !
() 4 And I know the staff-is civing a lot of deliberate t
5 attention to it. And we have got the attention of at least; 6 a fair number of aoolicants, and certainlv standard clant 7 designers.
8 DR. LANROSKI: That is a summary wording. But really, 9 instead of reading clant security,that could inorove canabilitv 10 against likelihood of sabotaae or.miticate the consecuences 1 11 thereof, just'like the stafi's second line.
12 DR. SIESS: That's why I said it is a narrow 13 interpretation.
14 MR. MC KINLEY: The last line of our. statement.
15 DR. LVfROSKI: Yes.
16 DR. SIESS: Or mitigate the consequences. '4 ell, that 17 was separation.
18 '4R . SEN9ER: I norsonally don't see a discernible 19 change in the circunstances since the last time.
20 MR. CROC.'(ER: I don t:think you could see anything 21 right now. They are workina. Thev ain to annarehtiv net a
- 22 Reg Guide out in 'Sl.
() 23 D7. SIESS : *1 hen will.it be resolve., r "ike'
> 24 MR. BENDER: Never, in mv oninion. " hat is a oersonal '
Aces ei nenonm, Inc.
25 ooinion. I think.it is a fruitless reauest.
^
115 i
mm 1 DR. SIESS: No. The concern was that they nive !
2 attention to it.1And when thev give attention to it, to ne it 3 ought to come off thistlist.
4 Thev may not achieve nerfect orotection,bbt that 5 wasn't what the generic item was. '
6 The generic itemnwas to call attention to the fact 7 -that people were not doing anything in the criainal desiqn i
8 of the plant to make it more dif ficult to sabotace.
9 MR. BENDER: Mell, if I had a legalistic turn of mind 10 I would take vour oosition. But I don't believe the conmittee 1
members would view that as a resonable resolution.
11 12 DR. PIE 9S- Mhat do we accomolish bv leaving it on j 13 our list? i I
-O 14 MR. BENDER: I don't know.
15 What did we accomolish by outtinc it on here in the 16 first place?
17 DR. SIESS: Me not the attention of a lot of neoole.
18 9e sure not the attention of anolicants.
19 MR. R3'193R Mell, I am not a crononent of leavina If you guvs think it should be taken 0it, I an nerfect1/r 20 it.on. 4 21 willing to oronose to take it off. .
22 DR. SIES3: I'd like to bring it un to the full
(} 23 conmittee; have we gotten attention and should we drop it?
i 24 Staff is not going to droo it. Staff has it as an i AeFWerst Rewriers, lne. i
'OJ 25 action olan.
.h** 'v 21
116 l
mm l 1 MR. CROCKER: Yes. '
l 2 DR. LANROSKI: That's the hind of assurance I would
)' l 3 need.
() 4 DR. SIESS: Sandia has come un with some real 5 cute ideas, recent1v, about vital areas it nrotected. o n 1
6 know, adequate kind of things we have seen for oconee's bunkered i i
7 systems and other bunkered systens.
8 It has gotten a lot of attention.
i 9 MR. SENGERt Give us something that urovides succort l
10 for'the position as Dr. 9iess has suagested,and we will out it 1
11 to the committee. l 12 I think you have to indicate -- I 13 DR. SIESS: He haven't not an 07tinum design, l I
14 necessarily. l 15 MR. BENDER: -- that something is being done and 16 propose resolution on that basis. And we will try to nrocose 1 l'7 it to the committee and see whether the committee will accent 18 it. i 1
19 DR. 9IESS: Neoping in nini at the time we out that 20 on the list, all the enchasis was on access control, much of 21 which was not being desioned in the nlant. Nhat we used to see l 22 was nothing but access to tua site, fences, and naybe some
() 23 .outside doors. And since then we have seen a lot of access 24 control inside, 73S3 rules, separation we are seeing, cart of ,
Ace EMeral Heporters, Inc.
(_): 25 it brought about by fire orotection and part bv other things.
I 1
l
, 1
- - . . ,. --,,,=,-m
117 mm 1 MR. BE*1 DER - Can we no to II-C-3A.
2 *iR . CROCKER: necon tanination. This, again, is a 3 Category A task action olan, A-15.
()' 4 The immediate oush on this right now is to get the e
5 staff in line with the Dresden decontanination. Other than 6 that I don.'t know of any other terrible oush that Mc have on 7 the task at this ooint.
8 MR. BEMDER: Could we consider the results of the 9 Dresden decontamination a benchmark by which we will judge 10 this thing? ,
11 MR. CROCKER: I don't believe it is the oosition 12 that we will judge it hv. Me feel that we have to oct at 13 least far enough along by the time they are readv to do it.
14 to make sure we are not going to get into real trouble with it.
15 MR. BENDER: You have listed a few other thinns here 16 like the work that is beinq done in Canada, and he work being 17 sponsored by EPRI which is mainly, I guess, Dresden.
18 Anything else that is likelv to hapoen?
19 MR. CROCKER: I don't believe there is anvthing 20 else going on with then right now. As written un there, the 21 EPRI work is basically the stuff in connection with Dresden.
22 They have, of course, looked at or are looking at
() 23 various schemes for decontamination, more or less continuous 24 sort of things. Sono of'these have been nronosed if we can ,
AcePw eral Reporters, Inc.
k_) 25 get something in the.synten to keen it clean, rather than have
118 e
mm j to go bach for a real shock treatnent periodicallv.
f 2 '19. BE'TDER : Nell, we will leave this that 3 yor. are --
() 4 DR. SIESS: Let me ask something: T5ere are two t'
+
5 aspects to"this. One is the desirabilitv of decontaninatino 6 to meet ALARA criteria for neonle in the nisnt, I sssume.
7 And the other are the oossible problems related to 8
it, whether it can degrade the svstem in anu wav.
9 The thiro item is designing plants to reduce the 10 need to decontaminate, crud traps,, vou know, eliminatina those, 11 and socket wells and things of that sort.
12 That has alreadv been addressed,hasn't it?
13 MR. CROCXER: To a deqree it has been.
)
ja DR. SIFSS: That comeq in nartiv vith ALTRA too.
15 MR.CROCKER: It reallv comes in with the maintenance 16 and inspection tasks, that the folks have looked at as far 17 as the ALARA bit, the crew trving to hold down. The two of then 18 really go hand in hanr3 as far as plant maintenance is concernei p
l 39 This task basically, I believe, is aimed orimarilv -
20 at the problems that you might get into as far as natorials j 21 are concerned. -
22 DR. SIESS: The condern , the way i t Nas en7ressed, the O
's,) first one says there should be plans available.
23 And then it 24 goes'on and talks about some of the nroblems such as :
~ Ace (" Sal Hemnen, inc.
l i
$_/ 25 handling the decontamination solutions which is a waste I i
..v- - - - - - v
119 mn' 1 nanagenent nroblem.
2 " Potential hideout of radioactive nroducts, 3 enhanced corrosion and crud formation following
() 4 decontamination, and the possible incomnatibility s
5 of the different allovs in the cressure boundarv 6 with the decontamination solutions."
7 I assume that means sone 1:ind of corrosion, 8 corrosion-accelerating chenomena.
9 MR. BEUDER: Mell, the situation is still about the
, 10 same. And it will be for a while.
11 When the Dresden exoerinents arcJdone, I l
12 presume the NRC staff will then try to assess those results 13 and decide what else night need to be done before it can 14 establish the position.
l 15 MR. CROCXSR: Ohis is mv understanding.
16 MR. BENDER- At the noNent vou don't nernit decontamina-17 tion on reactors as a general nractice?
l 18 MR. CROCMER: Se do not have it, not that I an aware 1
l 19 of. There is none now.
l 20 MR. BE'10ER: Mhat was d.one at Pathfinder -- excuse me,
{ l l
21 Lacrosse? Masn't sono decontamination done there?
l 22 MR. CROCKDt: I'm not aware of anv.
() 23 DR.LAMRO5XI: I'm not either, even though there was l 24 i Am Fyrjeist Reporters, Inc.
an extensive fuel failure that was recorted to us. And that ,
(_) 25 should have released a lot of fission nroducts, the I i 1
i
120'~ I mm potential transoort by the coolant.
.j 2 MR. CROCKE9: Me could check that. J'. an not O 3 familiar, though, with anv decontamination procedures thev [
4 went through.
5 DR. IN770STI : I think the auestion was asked, did 6 that not complicate -- the cuestion was called.and I think we 7
were told that it did'not 7articularly conolicate it, which 8 was sonewhat of a surorise to some of us.
9 MR. BENDER: That is a matter of your oersoective.
jo Can we go to the next item.
-l
- i MR. CROCKER
- Yes, sir. '
l 12 The ne::t one was deconmissioning, Iten II r'
~4B .
13 This is neeciselv the same writena as anneared in 14 the Mav report to the comnittee. Basicall" we were still l 15 waiting for these two studies, one from AIP and another from I 16 Battelle Northwest.
j7 DR. LANtOSKI : Is AIF still --
18 PiR . C RO'r(E R : AIF in out, Battelle is still enroute.
19 DR. LAWROSXI: That's right. Battelle has --
20 R. BENDER- After which what hacoens? You will 21 establish a policy? ,
22 MR. CROC.';E7 : " ell I would assume that is whst l
23 happens. I am not too sure what we do after we qet these
[]
24 final recorts.
Ace Federal Fleporters. Inc.
[]! .25 MR. DEMDER: You have a Reg Guide that was out out to l
131 ,
mm I define the several aporoahces. ,
2 DR. SIESS: I just read -- I think it was th9 b
3 German quidelines on nlants. Chev had a whole section on
() 4 design features and things to do to facilitate decommissioning. ,
5 It was much more exhaustive than anything I have even heard 6 nehtioned at NRC. Such things as even videotace records of 7 the assembly of certain conoonents so ocoole could see how thev 8 were out in there and know how to take them out. Plans worked 9 out, as you built a clant, to be sure that vou can met in and 10 take things anart and ham the croper eauinment to do it and II proper room to do it. That kind of detail which --
I2 MR. CROCKER: I don't?.think that reallv is cart 13 of what we have done.
{
I4 DR. SIESS: I know it isn't. I 15 But to me, if we arc reallv going to talk 16 decommissioning and wn.ry about it,-- we exoect to build, you I7 know, quite a few additional plants, and the nore thought at 4
18 the design str.ge ,,nl the erection and construction stage.
I9 can make a big difference in the end.
20 gq. BEUDER: Nhv?
21 DR. SIESS: Now the Germans -- I don't know whether 22 they have pot _it yet, but one of the recommendations o' course
/"
()3 23 is that vou tva ab',e b remove certain ecuipment. I think thev 24 are coing to require now that vou be able to remove a steam *
, AceF5tal Reporters, Inc.
U 25 generator.
132 mm 1 'fe have got darned few olants in which vou cas take 2 a steam generator out.
O O
3 *iR. CROCKDR: Tha's true.
4 DR. SIESS* Oconee you can 40 it. Chat shic14 wall
)
5 has got a removable section. It was designed.for that.
6 But Surry and Turkey Point 1, the reason thev are 7 ' repairing it like they are is thev haven't "got a hatch hi7 8 enough to take the top of that steam generator out.
9 There are a number of items like havino enouah room 10 to use lift trucks in there; clan the eauionent handlinqr 11 document how the thinn was out together.
12 MR. CROC';E R - This was a reoort from the Germans, 13 you sav?
~
O 14 DR. SIESS: It is about so thick. It was a list.
15 essentiallv -- I just read one from the UK, from the $1uclear .
16 Inspection, Installation Inspect 6r And the other one ' ras 1
17 the Germans. '
18 PMI -- was that the one that was addressed to the l
19 three stages? But, it was very detailed instructions 20 coming from various sources. I 1
21 Now, the German one was all on decommissionino, I'm l 1
l 22 sorr". It is a document on decommissioning. It was o'It
. () 23 together by GRS, and it has recommendations. And they are 24 keved to where they come from. Some came from the ".SK, sone ,
l 1 Acepw3 erst Hmortm, Inc.
(i) 25 came from another study. 05ere'were soveral studies made and l l
l t
! , , ,__._,l
1.33 I mm ~ 1 they picked these out from various niaces.
2 And thev have not a series there on what to do 3 during design.
1
() 4 The others, you know, deal with the same kinds of 5 things you have. I 6 DR.LANROSKI: Some of these came out of a nublication 7 that I read, because it was a document that thick that'I 8 provided for Xeroxing.
9 DR. SIESS: This is a typed document.
10 DR< LANROSI(I : This was t' f ped.
1 11 11R. BENDER: Mell the AIF studv concluded,~I think, 12 that the plants as designed were decommissionable, j
, 13 I don't know what the Battelle study is going to 14 produce.
15 DR. SIESS: Yes. But a olant designed the way the 16 Germans prooose could be a lot more easily decommissioned at b
17 any stage, other than just nothballing. "? hat wouldn't make 18 any difference.
)
, 19 MR. CROCKE9: We will certainly cass this word to 20 the decommissioning folks.
21 .9 R . SIESS- It is an interosting thought. Things
- 22 that wouldn't bo difficult to do at all.
() 23 M7. BENDER: One of the things that I have norsonallv 24 .been interested in is the ability to decommission a reac tor
= Am? vd Reporim, Inc. '
(_) 25 that has had a maior -- an operational accident that involved l
134 l 1
- ~
.a fair amount of radioactivity dis 7ersal inside the nrimarv 1
2 ' coolant system that navbe made the olant unusable, but 3 nevertheless --
^
O 4 o' s1 css: tee me aive - e e sim 1e exeme1e-5 Oconee's shield wall, vou know the one the crane sits 6 on, has got a huge section that is made un of orecast'. concrete 7 panels prestressed into nlace. So thev can remove it, it is e
8 right opposite the hatch, if somebodv had to reoair a steam 9 ge ne ra to r , . 93. '.oc conden ser n.'. Tit .
- ~ ~ ~
10 %""- _ , _ . . . . _ - ._
11 Dut, 4f the lid on that ntea"1 generator conoartment 12 was removable, it was concrete prestressed into olace, or 13 something else, they would have a nuch simoler 105.
14 Right now they would have to no in there with t
3 15 jackhammers and chon that thing un to qet tot.the steam
) 16 generator.
17 MP. , CROCKER: It would probably be easier to build Yourself a new olant at that rate.
i 19 MR . BI21 DER: 'fe are not going to try to resolve the J
l 20 matter here.
21 DR. SIESS: I guarantee you that the next ice ;
- 22 condenser -- after the trouble they have had with steam l- .
23 generators, I bet thev think a little different.
24 *19. BE'iDER: Let's go to Item II-C-4.
' Ace [~,rai neponers. Inc.
d' 25 MR. C'logKE't: All right. .
l e
i 135 mm That is the asvnmetric blowdown loads. Ohis again j
2 is a Categorv A task action plan from the staff, ?Io. A-1.
O 3 '4e have -- I think I an pretty close to the end of 4 the line so'far as the cressurised water reactors are concerned.
5 !*7e actrequiring now that the apolicants make an analvsis of the 6 plant to be sure they have, in fact, included these loads and 7
have designed against them.
8 Apparently the problem now has been extended to 9 include boilers as well as '.he P'1Rs, the feeling being that 10 thev also suffer problens, although cerhaos not as severe, jj So our task action olan is in fact goina out to l
12 look at the boilers also.
13 14R . BENDER- Does that nean that G9 will have to O ja develoo an analvtical orocedure somewhat like the one that is :
15 being developed by '1estinghouse et al?
16 MR. CROCKER: I suspect that that will be the end j7 result of this, yes. -
18 MR. EENDDR: Does anvonc besides "entinqhouse have 19 metallurgical orocedures beinfi developed?
20 MR. CROCICER: I believe the --
21 DR. SIESS- You mean to comonte in the Load?
22 'iR
- BUMUER' YGS* ,
O 23 DR. SIESS: They nust'have, if they are doinq it.
24 'iR. CROC:(ER: I believe CE and B&'? folks are, in Ace -< tral Heporters, Inc.
y) 25 fact, c oming up with an analvtical orocedure. "' heir initial i
l 1
136 mm j aporoach to this was, "No, it reallv isn't a ornblen."
2 And the staff wouldn't bIV that.
3 DR. SIESS: Now on the boilers. is it the same kind of a oroblem? L5 you get a break at the nozzle it will be inside
/} '
5 that thermal shicid?
6 .'iR . CROCKER: I am not sure of what tha concern is, 7
really, with the boilers. ' Whether it is the internal vessel 8
itself, of the suoports.
9 DR. RIESS: It is succorted, bottom suonorted.
10 MR. BENDER: Let's go to the next item.
11 DR. SIESS: No will know when that one is solved'. I 12 think.
13 MR. CROCKER: The next one is II-C-5, water hammer.
O 1a DR. LAMROSKI: It is like stress corrosion, it has 13 been solved too on occasions.
16 MR. CROCKER: Well we have solved,<re think, larce !
17 Portions of it. The task is 'Io. A-1 on the staf"'s list.
18 ' fork is oroceeding and we are looking, reallv, for some autout j l
19 during the soring, early summer of next vear on this. And we '
20 should have it pretty well cleaned up, we thinh.
21 MR. BENDER: Is this qoing to consist of a number 22 of plant-specific solutions?
MR. C ROCKER : I think they will be nore in the
-( )- 23 24 nature of generic aporoaches to it that will have to be anolied'
' Ard -Nral Fleporters, Inc.
(f )
25 on a plant-soecific basis.
1
137 mm 1 DR. SIESS: Larrv, as I read this it looks like it )
I
? is looking nainly at the kind of incidents that have alreadv l
'O 3 occurred and the fixes for those.
{} 4 Is the feeling that we have enough experience now, 5 that we have had about all the water hammer conditions that we 6 are going to see?
7 MR. CROCKER: I suspect that is the feeling, but nart 8 of the task has in fact gone out to look at where else in the 9 ' system we might have water hanner events. I i
10 DR. SIESS: But all the tasks aren't listed here?
11 MR. CROCKER: No, thev are not all.
O 12 DR. SIESS: There has been a limited varietv of 13 water' hammer incidents. Ne have had quite a few reactor vears O 14 of experience. It nay well be that we don't see the others.
15 MR. 3EMDER: Me will presume that the task action olans -
16 will eventually address all the oroblems that exist on this.
17 MR. CROCKER: I believe so, i 18 MR. BENDER: Let's go to T. tem II-C-6, naintenance and 19 inspection of plants.
20 MR . C ROT'.3R: Ohis is the other side of the 21 decontamination oroblem we were talking about a few minutes 22 ago. This is a Categorv B item on the list.
() 23 "he staff'and the industry reallv are lochina at 24 this, and AIF and EPRI have a rather long-term procram to
. Am FMetal flerorters, Inc.
(,) 25 examine neans of reducing radiation levels, exposures in the
\
t
138 nm I plants. - But it is going to be quite a while before we come
(^s 2 to the end of the line on this one, I believe.
.y.
3 D9. SIE9S: It is alnost an onen-ended item and it
() 4 looks like chere will be some wav of gettinn it off the list.
5 Let's say, when vou know neoble are working on it. It is sort t 6 of in the same category as the one before.
7 There is no end of imorovements you can make as vou 8 gain experience. ALARA certainlv has caused some changes.
9 MR.CROC:IER: Yes, it has.-
10 Peoole are very seriously lookinc at this now trying 11 to deter 7ine how *.o cut. the radiatioh levels M.own. In many 12 respects we are our own worst enemies, because half of the ,
13 staff is requiring more and more inspections of all the 14 components, while the other half is screaming about the dose 15 levels getting too high.
16 DR. SIESS: I saw a letter fron one of the licensees 17 complaining that the staff wanted PT insoection of the numo 18 and renoving insulation and reolacing it and during the PT 19 was going to run some -- what, 500 nanrens or sonething like .
20 tha t . Burn out more insulation workers than thev had available.
21 MR. DENDER: Nell we would ha amenable t'o9amethinq that 22 would suqqest a way in which vou could say that: the matter 23 was' resolved, if we had a basis.
24 MR. CROCKER: I'll see if we can find one.
.AceArat Reporters, Inc.
U 25 MR. BENDER: It is not clear to us that the task i
- ,, , - w +
7 139 t
mm 1 action plans are necessari1v a mechanism for resolution, 2 although they may very well be.
O 3 DR. SIESS: On some of them, I think sinoly establishing a task action olan resolves an ACRS concern that
({) 4 9
5 people wereh't doing anvthing about it. Sone of our concerns 6 were simply th'at.
7 And it might change to what are they doing about it, 8 and when are they going to do it.
9 'iR . BENDER: Mell, that is a wav of cetting resolution, 10 The e::istence of the task action ,lan nor se, 9nesn' t nean verv 11 much unless it is going to do something that we consider d
L 1 12 approoriatelv useful.
13 How about II-C-77 O 14 MR. CROCICR: II-C-7 is the behavior of 9M7 *iark I 15 containments.
l 16 The staff really had two task action olans on this, 17 both Category As. Ono, No. A-6, which had to do with a short- 1 18 term Mark I program, has been completed.
l
{ 19 The other one, lonn-torn oronrams, Tash A-7, is I
- 20 scheduled for completion now in 1979.
21 The.writeup here in the recort goes into considerable i
~
22 detail on the various asoects of the efforts of this nronran
.( ) 23 that they are going through.
~
24 MR. BE9 DER: Do you anticioato sometime in 1979 all the 3
Ace,0*)derd
. (, Heporten, 25 testInc.
work
- will be conoleted, all of the olans for revision of
.i _ _ % y
4 140 mm 1 the Mark I containment will be established, and that will 2 constitute resolution?
3 MR. CROC'(ER: I would think this is the case. 'f e s .
() 4 DR.SIESS- It is more likely that the revisions will t
5 be made as the result of the short orogram ' and the inng-term 6 program will confirm that thev are satisfactorv.
7 MR. CROCXER: That could also be.
8 DR. SIESS: .The way the staff 'is onerating, that 9 is sucoosed to be the way it works out, isn't it?
10 MR. CROCKER: There is great hooe that is the wav it I
l 11 will work out. l 12 DR. RIESS: Everybody hooes that there won't have l
1 13 to be anv additional revisions because of the long-term l
() 14 program.
l 1
15 MR. CROCKER: Tlure still could be some revisions.
16 MR. BENDER: You will let us know?
17 MR. CROCKER: T?e certainly will. You will be one of 18 the first to know if we got it resolved, 19 PiR . BENDER- Thank vou, Larry.
20 DR. SIESS: 'fe have a similar item on Mark II?
21 M'. CROC'(ER : No. The committee never listed " ark II 22 as a concric item. l
() 23 DR. S IESS: You have task action nlans, though.
24 ?!R. CROC'(ER: Since we are very thorouch, we do ,
Am#*!atel HeWrters, inc.
l h) 25 have Categorv A tasks for Mark II.
I i,' I I
i
141
- i L
mm. I DR. SIESS: That's what I meant bv mv introt1ctorv 2 remarks. I N-) 3 (Laitqhter . )
4 MR. C ROC."ER: That progran also is croceeding.
5 DR. SIESS: You just don't need to bother to tell !
6 us about that.
7 MR. BENDER: For some reason or another the oroblem 8 became generic after all the Mark II containments had been 1
9 processed through the construction license chase I, and then 10 operating license chase vou had to --
l .
! 11 DR. SIESS: That's richt, we out it in three letters.
12 MR. CROCKS 7: The work on the *iark II was going 13 pretty good. I'm not sure if "ou were in on that subcommittee 14 meeting on the Mark II --
15 MR. . BENDER: I was. Yes, it was mv orivilege -- no, 16 it wasn't at the containment meeting. I went to Zinner, though.
17 DR.SIESS: Are vou talhing about the 9an Francisco 18 meeting? .
19 MR. CROCKER: San Francisco, 20 DR. SIESS: I had to skio that one.
21 MR. BEMDER: Yes, they had that meeting, And some 22 orogress was made on the Mark II containnent, but the interests 23 specific to ?.immer were care fullv shirted.
O. ..
!- 24
! Ace Federal Reporters. Inc.
MR. CROCKER: I didn't even get a feedback from it,
{) 25 except that the conmittee was interested in having another I L i l
'- - ~
,_...v
, - , . ..-,-me,, ry
143 mm I subconnittee meeting in Januarv on it. So I really don't 6.nov 2 what the oroblem-is.
O 3 MR. BENDER: The subcommittee chairman hadn't reached
() 4 a conclusion on when the meeting would take niace.
5 How about II-D-lA? I thouqht this one was resolved.
6 MR. CROCKEP.: 7 ell, I think it has been resolved 7 and I am not sure whv ve are still holding it.
8 MR. BENDER: 'Ve have never made a record of the 9 rresolution, but it seems tone that you have done all of 10 this.
11 MR. CR7CK"R: It is a natter of dotting the "i's" 12 and crossing the "t's" right now.
13 The Reg Guide -- we were just waitina for the final O 14 documentation. The Standard Review Plan includes this recort, 15 NUREG 0103, which is the interface report. It includes that as 16 Appendix. And once we cet this thing published, as far as we 17 are concerned,the thing will be resolved and we will so be 18 reporting out to the connittee. Me exoect this within the next 19 month or so.
20 09. SIESS: Until vou do an OL, vou really haven't --
21 see, a lot of the interf aces are a resconsibility of the 1
22 applicant in the OL stage, I think.
() 23 MR. CROCIER: Yes.
i 24 D9. . SIESS: You define those? ,
l I
AmfMaral Refortm, inc. j
(_) 25 MR. CRnCXER: These are all defined in the renort. l l l i
l l
-143 mm 'l DR. SIESS: You won't know how well it works until you 2 goethrough that. It could work as good as anything else.
3 This did sav something about': *
.( ) 4 "The depth of detail recuired at the stane of i
5 Preliminary Design Approval may not be adecuate for 6 construction approval."
7 MR. CROCKER: I believe our feeling now is that this 8 '1UREG that we have, the report nretty well lines uo all~.the 9 interface areas that neople need to be concerned with.
10 And this is now going to be soecified in the "tandard Review 11 Plan.
12 DR. SIDSS- Uhat is 1-B?
13 'iR. CROCMER: 1-3 is svstens interaction.
14 DR. SIESS: Okay. That's what got senarated. Mv coov 15 doesn't have a 1-A, 1-B.
16 MR. CROCKER: The committee did not specify that.
17 We elected to renort under 1-A and 1-B, where vou had just 18 a single subject of svstems. Your svstems, vour interfaces 19 as far as we were concerned really had two maior seoarable 20 components, one being the interfaces itself,and the other 21 the s.ustens interaction problem. -
22 MR. 9.T.in"R : Ohat is an anprooriate observation.
'( ) 23 Somehow or another we will break them acart the 24 next time.
AceMMeral Reporters, Inc.
/ i
(/ 25 DR. SIDSS: I reallv don't see it in the write'to I 4
144 f l mm' I have'got in II-D-1. It does-Mention"acorooriate interdisciolir rv 2 ' analyses to assure functional compatibility across the 3 interfaces."
l
' 1 4 Is that the cart you nulled out?
5 MR. CROCXER: Not reall'r to A.o with the interfaces. ,
l 6 The systems interaction part that we are going with 7 has to do 'with possible effect on one olant systen of a mal-8 function somewhere in another svsten o# the olant.
9 DR. AIESS: I understand what systems interaction is.
10 But'I don't see how you got it out of II-n-l.
11 MR. CROCKER: I think we got it out of there because --
12 and it nay be oral conversation with the committee,that this 13 was one of the concerns that they had lumped into II-D-1.
O 14 MR. SENDER: I don't know where we have lunced it 15 in, but at the monent let's onerate on the basis thi we are 16 going to do what you suagested and not auibble about it here.
17 DR. SIEGS- Me have another item conoletelv on 18 systems interactions which was AT9S.
19 MR. CROCXER: "' hat was common mode failures.
20 DR. SIESS: That was common nodo failures, I'n sorrv.
21 MR. CROCKER: m' 7t brings us then to the II-D-19, 22 which is systems interactions. This is a Categorv A task
(} 23 under our program. i 24 The task nanager met with the subcommittee, I nuess i Ace Federal Reporters, Inc.
. () 25 within the last nonth, on this matter. Ne have had to revise m l , .e , n - ..
145 mm I the program. It is now being done largelv bv sandia under 2
suoervision from'the staff.
O 3 It.really got started on ittbout Mav o' this vear,and
() 4 it looks like about a 29 to 37-month effort. So sometime ;
5 toward the end of 1980 we should have something coming out the 6 other end.
7 I did talk with the ta'sk manager the other day about 8 this. They had a meeting at 9ana.ia. One of the nuestions has 9 been, how far do vou go on this systems interaction; which
~
10 kinds of interactions should we really be concerned with?
II And apparent 1v the consensus now is that the ones 12 we really should be concerned with are those that ootentially 13 do a core molt. If you are stocoing sonewhere short of that O I4 as a result of the interaction, let's leave that for a second 15 phase or a third-bhase ef fort or something. we will concentrate 16 on the biq ones for right now. r 17 MR4 BE9 DER: Larrv, in looking through the list I've 18 got, I don't reallv have anythinq I.'.m sort of like Dr. Siens.
19 identified here that shows that as on our generic items list.
20 It is true we have brought it uo a number of times 21 and it is generic in nature. I wonder if we ought to -- I 22 don't think that we can arbitrarilv stick it in here without
() 23 it going :through the committee action. And there is no sense 24 in proliferating a list that we are trying to sh crten. i
~ At:e-Fpletal Reporters, Inc.
O 25 <teughter.)
I r _
146 mm j DR. SIESS: II-D-1 is oretty soecific. There is 2 a phrase that savs, "as well as for other sustens," and I 3 3 guess that could have been it.
/']
C 4 MR. BENDER: This interfaces came uo an entirelv i 5 different way than systems interactions. As a natter of fact.
6 I am sure I was the initiator of interfaces.
7 MR. CROCKER: I think it came out of these words 8 in your writeuo, this "interdisciolinarv sustem analvses."
9 That much of it was systens interactions.
10 MR. BENDER: Let me receat what I said, 11 Let's not include it as a ceneric item at the moment.
12 MR. C o.OC"." R : '7e would be delighted to renovo it.
13 MR. BEND"R: That doesn't mean we don't want vou to
'A 14 do work on it.
15 MR. CROCXER: "e are uo to our ears on doing work on j l
16 it.
17 Well, fine, 're will cut' it back to list the inter- !
18 face problem and get some documentation in,and resolve that f l
i 19 one, sir.
20 MR. BENDER: Can we go to II-D-2 --
21 DR. SIE33: 'tik e , we could easily ned sustems 22 interaction. It has been nentioned in enough letters.
f')
N-23 "R. BTlDER:
I'n not that enthusiastic about it. I I
\
24 DR. SIESS: I'n not croposinn it. ,
Acefmetal Heporters, Inc.
I\_,) MR. MC "ItILEY:
25 This was one o'.Tess 9bersole's. I
,3-147 1 MR. BE3100R: It is not onlv his. I think he 2 started it, but I think there has been succort of it.
3 DR. SIESS: Usually this connittee in the cast would
() 4 sit down and go through the letters and find out what had been 5 nentioned three times, and we would pronose it to the connittee 6 as additional generic itens. B.nd vou are not of a mind to do y that, I. gather?
8 MR. BE'IDER : I'm not of a nind to do it, at least 9 not todav. I may do it, but I don't think we have written 10 that many letters.
11 DR. SIESS: Frankly I think it looks a little ridicu -
12 lous for us to take up an item and add it to our list when 13 staff alreadv has it on their list and are working on it.
14 MR. DEtIDER: 'de ll , I think it is nore a natter o#
15 picking un things which the conmittee has been the initiator 16 of more than anything else.
17 DR. SIESS: You initiated that one, I quess. ,
18 We put the name on it, anyvav.
19 '4.R. CROCMER : You got vour name on it and got us 20 working on it. I'n not sure just how we got to the --
t 21 DR. GIESS: A lot of the aonlicants said thev were 22 already doing it, but they weren't calling it that. !
(). 23 MR. CROCKER: They didn't have the formal nano for 24 that.
Ar:e >*1eral Reporters, Inc, s,) '25 That brings us to II-D-2, the long-term cacabilitv i
e 1
m o -n,-m+,e- r,--s-~e--,e re-- - ~
g y
I 148 I l
1 1 of hermetic sealing.
l 2 This ils a Category C task as far as the task is (gm /
3 concerned. A task action plan has been orenared, but han not yet been accroved, and as of the nresent time no work is coin
(]) 4 i- 1 5 on in this area. I 6 Item II-E-1, soil structure interaction. This is a 7 portion of the staff's Task A-40 on the seismic design. j g Efforts are underwav here. Th e'r anticioate completind j
9 a report on soil structure interaction this nonth, nr at least 10 getting the data this nonth with the report to come out durina 11 the first quarter of next year.
12 DR. SIESS: That was contracted out, wasn't it?
13 Or, was that in-house?
O 14 MR. CROCKER: I beliove that is a contract effort.
15 I'm not sure with whon, richt now.
16 DR. SIESS: Nell that is a short-term orogram, Task I 17 A-40. And this is also part of the snismic safetv narqin 18 research nrogram?
19 MR. CROTOR: Yes.
20 DR. SI :S S - And I doubt if it will be comoletelv 21 resolved until that program is finished. But we might be willing 22 to accept the short-tern as sone resolution af ter we see it.
()
23 It looks a little ridiculous, with all the questions 24 we have.got about seismic, to have singled out --
Amf*4 pal Reporters, Inc.
(_) 25 MR. CROCKER: Soil structure.
1 2
i 149 mm l DR. SIESS: --- this one . And actually, there is 2 more than soil structure in there, because this level at
[}
3 is stuck in there, too.
which the motion should be apolied
(
4 And that is all being considered in A-40 and A-41 -- I nean, s
5 ssgnp, 6
So I say, wait until we see it.
7 '4R . " ENDER: So vour position is that vou have got the 8 studies underway and when the results are in vou will have a 9
procedure for dealing with this matter? And that will show 10 un in what, a Standard Review Plan?
II MR. CROCKER: In the Standard Review Plan, in the I2 Reg Guide.
13
. DR. 9IESS: It is in there now.
Id There is two procedures -- three orocedures in the 15 Standard Review Plan nons, aud I am not sure what the ACRS 16 concern is. Maybe they want to limit it to one.
I7 MR. CROCKER: I'm not sure.
18 DR. SIESS: There are crocedures in there for rocks I9 and shallow foundations and deep foundations.
20 MR. BENDER: Ne will wait for vou to tell us.
H 21 Let me get back to the hermetic seal thing. I 22 guess I missed in the process, knowing where that really was 23 going.
2d
'MR. CROCKER: We have looked at this on the basis i l
~ Awf-)trsi Tm -
nepo 25 ers, ine.
- of,the seals oroblem 'really is not one of materials or aning.
a l
150
, 1 or any of this. That is covered elsewhere in the qualification fS 2 orograms.
N) 3 As near as we could glean, the committee's interest
() 4 here was how do we assure that if a technician noes into 5 containment and works on an instrument, when he finishes it 6 is in fact sealed against the environment again,which throws 7 it primarily into a quality assurance sort o# categorv.
8 To data with the brief looks thi.we have done, no one 9 has discovered an instance where something like this has hacoened.
10 At least to our knowledge nothing,has been recorted.
11 And it was 5 thro'in into a rather low-categorv effort.
12 But, other than the preoaration of the task action 4
13 clan which has not vet been aooroved, no work has been done on O 14 it, nor is any work forecast to be done in the future that I 15 know of.
16 MR. BE'ME R : Okav.
17 Ne will be waiting to hear ~further from vou when v nu 18 have got something else to reoort 19 Let me see if I can summarize --
20 DR. FIESS: Then you don't consider what thev have 21 got in there as enough to take it off the list?
- 22 MR. BENDER: Again it is a matter of what we want to i 1
rs '
(_) 23 do to constitute resolution. In the end I would think that we 24- ought to see something about what the results of this work ,
Aor/~)9tal
(_ Reporters, 25 Inc.
is rather than just the fact that the work is 06qoing.
l l
l
151 1 MR. CROCKER: Like I say, we think it is orimarily 2 quality assurance. The task action olan really called to no out
.O 3 and find on the plants representative tvoes of instrumentation
(} 4 that might' le subject to this sort of a failure of the seals, 5 somehow. And then see what kind of steos we would have to 6 take in order to impose necessary checks to insure tha't the 7 instrument covers were cronerly reinstalled after naintenance.
8 This sort of thing.
9 We did not intend to go into design features on the 10 instruments to assure in somebody's words, hermeticitv. I 11 am not sure whether that is the right word.
12 MR. BENDER: It was coined for the purnose of --
13 MR. LAWROSKI : We couldn't find it in Uebster's O 14 dictionary.
s 15 513. BENDER: 9 ell, I believe we ornbably ought to leavq 16 it.
17 DR. SIESS- Ves. They have got a Category C nriority 18 which I think is adecuatelv high.
19 (Laughter.)
20 MR. BENDER: 9 ell I don't know if it is adequatelv 21 high or not, but they have not a clan of action that we ought 22 to see the results of.
() 23 D3. S IESS: Mhen I look at the thinas that have 24 '
gotten A's and B's, I would say C is high enouch.
Am Ffr$ erst Reporters, Inc.
h 25 ,
?tR. BENDER: Mon than lihely this will give nroblents i
152 mm j towards something else we have got in A category, nrobabilisiti-2 cally socaking.
3 Let me see if I can summarize the thinos that micht 4 have been accomolished in the way o" resolution:
-({} t 5 The new fuel geometrv, I.think we aareed. that if 6 you will give us somethina saving the qualification work is 7 comolete, we would submit it to the committee for acceotance 8 as a result. ,
9 The matter of design features to control sabotage, 10 we are willing to orocose to the committee that it should be 11 considered as resolved based on the fact that attention was 12 being given to the matte.", and that is what we were after.
13 Interfaces, item II-D1 is resolved based on beinq 14 included in'"the branch technical cosition.
15 Were there others that I missed? I wasn't score-16 keeping, unfortunately.
17 MR. CROCKEP.: I"hept some little noten here. I am 18 not sure that I have anv others.
19 MR. BENDER: II-C-6 --
20 MR. CROCKER: Yes, we were going to try to get some 21 documentation in on that. .
22 MR. BENDER: II-C-6 vou are going to give us somethinq ,
() 23 that says attention is being given to that matter. And if it 24 scens reasonable, we will try to get the committee to A*p~qrei neporieri, Inc.
(_)' 25 consider it as having reached a state of resolution.
i
153 nmt 1 Is there anvthing else vou want to cover in the
,- 2 unresolved items?
(-
3 MR. CROCKE7: I think that takes care of the l
() 4 unresolved items.
3 MR. BENDSR: Okay.
6 It has.been a more fruitful exercise than I had 7 honed it would be when we started.
8 Do you want to give us a quick rundown on the --
9 well, why don't we take ten minutes.
10 DR. LAUROSKI: Before we,do, I think you might need 11 more than just leaving it that way, Mike, to qet com.nittee 12 approval.
13 MR. UE'MER: What do vou sungest?
14 .,pR.] UAMROSKI: Moll, mernlv having words to the 15 effect thi. attention is beinq given --
16 DR. SIESS: It is uo to the conmittee to decide.
17 MR. BE'! DER: All Ne can do is lav it before the 18 committee and say some activity is going on.
19 If the connittee doesn't vant to do it -- if vou 20 would rather leave it, I'm not going to cress it.
- 2) DR. SIESS: I think the conmittee -- on'some of 22 these, I think the fact that there is activitv, and not iust 23 some but a lot, is enough to renove it from the ceneric itens 24 list because it was out on there to not some activity, and ,
Aces_{/3ral Reporters, 25 Inc.
not to get a solution.
I
156 1 ' And that's the trouble with'this list. A lot of 2 the. things nobody exoected to get a solution. If they give 3 more attention to this and more attention to that, there
() 4 will be no solution excent'to give it attention.
5 'iR . SEINER- If you will.give us something that vou 6 think represents a basis for resolving it, I don't have anv 7 objection to taking it to the full committee and have it --
8 they may not agree. As Steve has pointed out, it mav not be 9 adequate enough.
10 DR. LA'1ROSKI : I just caution vnu to take it with 11 some seriousness. Don't expect just any wording.
12 MR. CROCKER: Oh, no.
13 MR. BE'1DRR: As a natter of fact,eveh vo'ur carefullv 14 worded statements nav turn out to be inadequate, as vou know.
15 fir . CROCKER: Yes, sir.
16 But we will give it a try anvway.
17 MR. MC KINLEY: Do von Nan'c some sort of ^estinated 18 schedule?
19 MR. BSNDOR: I don't ask for a schedule. But 20 Presumably we will try to get this thina -- the qeneric items 21 will come up for reconsideration sometime earlv next v,ar.
22 And if you want us to consider it, you better not somebody
- 23 working on it.
24 DR. LAWROSKI: Larry gives us a schedule, doesn't he?,
' Ace 7"*pral Reporters, Inc.
d: ' 25 MR. MC KINLEY: I understani there are no orojects
155
"" scheduled for the Januarv meeting.
1 2 DR. SIESS: 9e are going to work on the research 3 report, this year's.
I) 4 MR. BENDER: If that turns out to be the case, we i-5 may 'have an extensive discussion of the generic itens list 6 that we haven ' t attacked.
7 MR. CROCKE R: Me night be able to net snmething ,
8 for the committee bv January.
9 MR. BENDER: As you are aware from this discussion, 10 there are a few items that we might ask other subcommittees 11 to take another look at.
12 DR. CIFSS: That is not on the resolved ones.
13 But I think if Larry put some words together and 14 brought in copies of the task action olans, and we went -through 15 then on some of these items, that night work in Januarv.
1 16 MR. BENDER: Mell, we'll see whether that is an l
17 appropriate time or not. But it seems like it would be l
i 18 desirable to tackle them.
19 DR. LA7ROSZI: Even if it worked on1.v on a fraction j 20 of then, it would be progress.
21 M3. CROCKER: Anvthing we can resolve would certainlv I
be a step in the right direction.
22
() 23 MR. BENDER: The committee will have lost its 24 current sterling chairman.
l Ace k-j")eral Reporters, 25 Inc. (Laughter.)
i 1
156
'mm 1 DR. CIESS: 'fe have got a listing somewheres of our 2 own that relate our generic items to -- oh, it is right in
(~%
i !
3 the back of that last letter.
(~\ 4 MR. CROCKER: On vour November 15th letter.
V (
5 DR. SIECS- It relates our items to their task 6 action clans. That probablv needs to be uodated a little bit.
1 7 We have got some new task action olans reoorted, 8 reassigned.
1 9 MR. CROCK"R: !7e reassign tasks, but we do not l
1 10 have task action plans for them.
11 , DR. SIESS: I mean you have reassigned some 12 priorities.
r 13 MR. CROCKER: Yes.
(m) d' 14 MR. BCNDER: Let's take ten minutes, and when vou come 15 back try to nive us a quick rundown on the status of the 16 implementation of the resolved generic items.
17 PiR . CROCMER: I will try.
18 DR. SIESS- Yes. Especially I-A-4.
I 19 That is a resolvei item that I would be interested 20 in knowing.--
2i (Laugh te r . ) .
22 That's one we wrote off as resolved.
c, l )
LJ 23 (Recess.)
I 24 MR. BENDER: Are vou ready, Larrv? ;
Am-f dust 3eporters, Inc. '
lb 25 MR. CROCKER: Yes, sir.
i i
i
157 mm 1 I can tell vou everythinq I knota about resolved r~s 2 items that are being imolemented in a very short neriod of time 3 here.
() 4 After the last meeting with the committee, subcomnittee 5 in, I guess November of last vear, early !iovember, 'ie nut- out a 6 request tythe Division of Operatina Reactors to olease no back 7 and look at the plants and see on all of these resolved items.
8 precisely how they had been resolved on each of the 71 ants.
9 And I guess vou --
to understand what is hapnening 10 you have to know how we operate out there.
11 MR. BENDER: We will never know that, Larru.
12 (Laughter.)
13 M9. CROCKER: I'n.sure we A.on't, either, to an 14 extent anyway.
15 The proiect managers get switched around and moved 16 hither and yon, and the branches get redesinnated and the 17 projects get moved. And when vou finallv net dot.n to the-18 end of the line, vou come un to the quv who is currentiv 19 the " bag-holder"'for the oroject and say, "Hev Joe, what did 20 you ever do about this on the plant?" and he savs, "I don't 21 know what happened to it."
22 And it is not in the documentation. You cannot find
( 23 ~it there either for many of the older plants as to what 24 reallv hapoened. ,
- Aw'werai nmorters, lm,
-) 25 So thev have, in f,.ct. established a crocram l
s
g~a 13g mn I within DOR looking not only at these resolved noneric itens, bitt
.fs 2 all of the other positions, generic concerns of one kind or
.Q 3 another, trying to establish really where thev stand on each
'() 4 of these plants.
i 5 The program is undervav. The word I net is that 6 we are orobably six months awav from reallv gettinn any output 7 from them.
8 DR. SIESS: Larrv, they are not all the sane, are 9 .they?
10 MR. CROCKER: Mo, thev are not all the sane. But 11 this is cart of the orablem.
1 12 DR. SIESS: If the resolution was a Req Guide, the i
13 Reg Guide could have been imolemented on a no-backfit basis.
O 14 MR. CRbCKE",: dhat is correct.
15 And if that is the case then it would be merelv a 16 case of checking when the operating license was issued, and 17 check against when the apolicability date of the Reg Guide 18 was.
19 DR.SI.",GS: And that is something thev are doing, too?
20 They are looking at that?
21 MR. CROCKER: Thev are looking at that ns well.
22 DR. SIESS: So they could cone in and sav on Iten
() 23 .so and so resolution was bv Req Guide. And innlenentation of
~
~24 Reg Guide was for all clants Sevond a certain date. Those
.. Aco F4eral Reporters, Inc.
L(_) 25 prior to that, they were not backfitted.
Er ' Di
159 ,
l l
mm j MR. CROCKER: Ves. ]
1 2 DR. SIESS: If it was case-bv-case backfit, the'y t-3 could tell us precisely what was done.
4 MR. CROCKER: That's true.
5 The question, if vou look iust at the verv first one, l
6 for example, this NPSH on ."CCS problems, which is Reg Guide 1.1. I 7
8 I think the feeling is that we are in oretty good 9 shane on all the.plantson this basis.
10 Nhen it comes to actuallv have a oroject mananer 11 at this coint in time put his finger on the documentation 12 somewhere back in the files that aavs, ves, we reviewed this 13 for this particular plant and it was all right when we 14 reviewed it, and.it is almost all riqht, but ne left a fotr 15 little things hanging here which is more than likelv the case 16 for the older plants. It becomes a real came trving to 17 establish oreciselv where you stand on these.
18 And thev are having that tyoe of troubl.e. I 19 sympathine with the oroblem thev are going through trying to 20 get.the documentation.
21 MR. BENDER: Nhat if you out the onus o,n the licensees 22 to update their oosition on all these items?
() 23 MR. C90CMER: This is a possibility. I don't know 24 whether they have e::oloited it or not.
Ace Federst Ficporters, Inc.
() 25 MR. BE:1D3R: It seems to me if you are havinn trouble s .
160 mm I with the recora that tha t is --
r - 2 09. SIESS: If there was a uhvsical chance that would
.t 3 be clearlv documented.
f) 4 If it was a colicy decision as to whether sonethinq 5 was ok.i or not okay, that is in corresoondence somewheres.
6 I susocct if they nade a ohysical change everybody --
7 the licensee would know darn good' and well thev had.
8 But, if it had been unresolved as a nolievntvoe 9 question, somebody submitted some calculations and somebo.va 10 looked at them, that would be a little harder to document.
11 MR. CROCKER: Right.
12 And cart of the oroblem, reallv is one o' time. Thesel 13 guys are floundering on a number of nlants ar one time trvina
.O 4 14 to keeo the amendnents going throuqh and the olants coeratina, 15 and it is just a case of trying to find time to go back through 1-6 the inclenentation and so forth.
l 17 DR. SIESS: Basicallv the kind of auestion I had 18 about resolution, I'd say the resolution is a Req Cuide.
19 Now as for imolementation, what was innlementation 20 to the Reg Guide? '? hat did it sau it was?
21 MR. CROC .;.7R: That is easy to find out.'
22 DR. SIESS: That's easv.
~
23 Then if it was case-by-case what was done, or if 24 it was completely backfitted, was it done. That is the third l Ace Arsl Reporters, Inc.
i - 25 level of detail.
l l
161 1 But I think that iust going through the first sten, 2 the nature of the resolution, which we have in here, and then O 3 the required implementation, let's say -- you know what I nean by that, don't vou?
(]) 4 e
5 MR. CROCKES.: Yes, i
6 DR. SIESS: Because there were some other items 7 like inspection of BNR steamlines, 12. It is covered hv A9M9 8 Section 11.
9 Nell, I know Section 11 is being required of all 10 licensees to the extent that thev can meet it.
11 MR. CROCKER: That's right.
12 DR. SIESS: Now, if we are really interested in 13 to what extent can they meet it, who can meet 90 oercent and
( '
14 who can only meet 10 percent, that does require a lot more 15 effort.
16 But, to know that Section 11 has been aoolied to 17 all licensees to the extent that thev can meet it would be 18 something.
19 ' Tow , if it is not being backfitted to evervbodv, that 20 would be of interest too.
21 You nee? -
22 MR. CROCKER: Yes.
(f 'e 3 DR. SIESS: I think it has been backfitted to
-24 everybody.
AcePterst Reporters, Inc.
() 25 MR. CROCKER: To av knowledce it is being aonlied to l
16.1 1
mm 1 everybody now.
2 DR.SIESS: And they have to justifv any excentions.
3 MR. CROCKER: Yes.
MR. BENDER: There are a couole of favorite itens
(( ) 4 t
5 of mine. One is instrunentation following a course of action 6 which was resolved on the basis of a Reg quide.
7 I know the staff was havinn some difficulty 8 implementing it. And really it is that catenorv as nuch as 9 any that I an interested in.
10 DR. SIESS: And that one I know nore about than --
11 MR. CROCKSR: That, o# course, is new enough. Ne l
12 still remember the story on it. 1 1
13 DR. SIESS: And then there is ATws, vou know, which l
) .
14 is the other extreme. .
l 15 MR. BENDER: That is another one where we thought 16 something was hapoening, and it turned out not as much hanoenedi 17 as we thought.
18 09. LANROSF,I : Nhat did vou finallv decide that 19 you were going to imolenent. Mas it Section C.l? I 20 'DR.SIESS: Nide-range instruments.
21 MR. CROCKER: They got into some real difficulties 22 with this lead-olant conceot they were trying.
() 23 They backed off now and are working with AIS on an 24 overall inclementation orocran for this.
'AceMetal Heporters, Inc.
k) 25 And the word we get now --
I i
e o
163 mm 1 MR. BENDER: Is AIF one of vour licensees?
.I 2 *iR . CROCKER: No, thev are working on behalf of the O 3 licensees.
(} 4 DR. LANROSKI: Did they back off on Diablo Canvon, 5 too? Because it was one of the -- 1 6 MR. CROCKER: I don't know soecificallv where --
7 DR.SIESS: Some olants have committed to wide-rance 8 instruments,which is only one part of this, which was more of 1
9 an ACRS concern than some of the other things. l l
10 DR. LANROSKI: But there were four blants that were 11 being designated as sort of lead clants. LaSalle was one --
12 MR. CROCKER: There were sucoosed to be four lead 13 plants selected. They worked a program out with these four and 14 on the basis of that fact --
15 DR. SIESS: But that was 01the overall inclementation, ,
16 Steve.
17 DR. LAWROSKI: Right.
18 DR. FIESS: That was on this business of reviewing 19 the DBAs to see what information was needed and so forth. That 20 really was quite an effort. And that is what they were trying tb j i
21 do with the lead plants. .
I 22 .MR..CROCKER: Yes.
(} 23 DR. SIESS: Not just the requirement for wide-range 24 instruments.
Ace Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 DR. LANROSKI: Nell thev soecified --
'( )L l
?
, r-- m ,
164 mm 1 DR. SIESS: That was almost all the oositions for 2 the lead olants, wasn't it?
p -
V 3 There is no need to have a bin araument about the ,
1 (l 4 wide-range instrumentation. That is something we iust out in.
\_/ l l
5 DR. LAWROSKI: They specified the numbers though.
6 There were four olants.
7 DR. SIESS: There were some arguments about numbers.
8 DR. LANROSMI: Big arguments.
9 MR. BENDER: Nell there were some serious con.cerns 10 about the pressure range that was recruired for the. 4.nstrument 11 to monitor the primarv coolant oressure.
12 DR. LANROSMI: The hiqqcst one was the extent of 13 radiation to which--the --
O
\
14 DR. SIESS: Well these are arcuments about numbers 15 in the Reg Guide and not about imolementation, thouch. j i
16 MR. BENDER: Nell, Larru, what else can vou tell us --
17 DR.SIESS: Nell 197 hasn't been inclemente?.
'n. C70CKER: That is correct, 'it has not been l 18 l
{
19 imolenented vet.
20 D". ."I379: ' nean it is i* tot that sinnlo a.n t'.i e rc !
21 are reasons for it.
22 DR. L%NROSMI: I thought thev were trving to
() 23 imoloment it on these four clants.
24 MR. CROCK 3R: No, thev are not. They have backe?. off. ,
Ace-FMerd Resorters Inc.
ll 25 DR. LANROS:'I : Thev did back off nn all four?
I 1
165.
mm I MR. CROCKER: As far as I know.
2 DR. SIESS: That's been true for a year, Steve.
3 MR. BENDER- No, it isn.t true for a vear.
8
'4 DR. LA.NROSKI: flot that long, I'm sorry,Chet.
9 5
DR. SIESS: I had one of them to review and I know 6
what the situation was. And I have known for a vear that thev 7 went to a generic solution and dropoed the lead plant. It 8 may 'be eight months instead of a year, but I have knownthat l
9 they dropoed -- l 10 MR. CROCKER: It is less than a year because I 11 think it was December last srear when we accroved thatrReg 12 Guide.
13 DR. SIESS: Nasn' t Diablo one of then?
Id MR. BE'JDER: Let's see if we can get a little order 15 to what we are talking about.
16 Can you tell us anything more about generic items I7 status?
IO MR. C ROC'3R: Really I cannot at this time.
I9 Let ne ask if you would then, if you MR. BDMDER:
20 will give us something telling us what vou are noing to do 2I to update the status of imolenentation of the resolution 22 actions associated with the resolvdd generic itets.
O V 23 And if it turns out it is going to take six nonths, 24 i tell us it is going to take six nonths. It -mv verv well be
, Ace &deral Reporters, Inc.
& 25 that.you can do part of it, and not all o# it. If that is ,
l 9
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166 mm j appropriate then the committee and the subcommittee would find 2 that helpful.
O'
' DR. SIESS: How are vou workinn? Are vo't noing 3
/'\ 4 item-by-item trying to get the complete story?
V '
5 Or, are vou doing it in the stens like I said, what 6
is the resolution, what imolementation schedule is called for 7
bv that resolution, and then to what extent has it been carriei 8
out?
9 If I got the whole picture iust on two levels, that ;
g) would be helpful.
jj MR. CARTER: I am Jerry Carter, 007.
12 We have done it both ways, and are working on it 13 both ways still. Ne are trying to determine what the evaluation N ja may have been for each of the resolved items on:a olant-hv-olant' 15 basis. And if possible to identifv the documentation feeling 16 that this would be heloful should the olant be involved in the j7 SEP program. )
18 If it is in the SEP program, the data would cone from I t 1 I
19 that effort. -
l 20 In addition, we are looking at where is the 21 implementation being done, or has it been done fo,rnallv?
22 Technical activities, programs like we talked on with the
[}- 23 instrumentation to monitor the course of an accident is to j t
24 be implemented, but there is no imolementation being done non.
Awfweral Reporters, ine,
. () 25 Therefore, the answer is no imolementation done. But we would {
i l
e -- y g
167 mm 1 like to be able to identifv to vou where it is being done 2 and what is the monitoring vehicle, if you would.
() 3 In other cases we nav refer to activities that l I
4 have been nonitored in the old Pink nook, the status of some
)
5 generic items that are covered. Some issues have been resolved.'
6 Those we know.
7 In many cases the activity has not had a conscious !
8 decision to imolement on an operating clant. The oosition is 9 silent.
10 One example that we started with, a Reg Guide --
11 actually it is Guide 1.1 -- is comolet61v silent on 12 imolementation. It just states the position.
13 Should it be implemented? Has it been done? l
(} 14 I think we could very easily sav to vou across the ,
l 15 board, generically it has not been imolemented. However, vour I 16 'likelv next question would be, well, where do vou feel clants I
17 have met it? That is what we are trying to give vou an answer i 18 to. I 19 DR. SIESS: Now yoa are in DOR. Are vou iust lookina 20 at ooerating clants?
21 'i". . CARTSR : I an looking at the imolelentation on i 22 operating plants, yes, sir.
() 23 DR. SIESS: But see, some of these things, there are 24' a lot more plants /that aren't ooerating than are, and there ,
- Ace Federst Reporters, Inc.
will be some things that_will be imolemented on olants under
)(]) 25 ,
+
s ,
163
- ' construction but not on coerating clants. Me ought to know 1
2 that.
3 And if you iust look at the coeratino -- vou knov (m)
\
us 4 we also -- for example the B"R oumo trio, we Aon't even know 5 what the status of that -- that's not an item which is soelled 6 out. But, what is the status of that on plants under construc-7 tion in the commitments, as well as on coerating clants?
8 M R .. CROCKER: Some both wavs right now, as I understand.
9 Most people are committed b the pumo trip and I believe some 10 have backed off until we finally resolve AT'M in December.
11 DR. AIESS: I'll admit the coerating reactors, of 12 course, are the crimarv concern because thev are ooeratino.
13 But we would also like to know the status of O '
14 implementation on those under construction. And again the 15 Reg Guide implementation date tells you a lot about that, but 16 not comoletely because there nav be a olant coming un for 17 an OL ne::t month that is grandfathered under half of the ".en 18 Guide.
Up MR. CARTER: Some of the old Reg Guides are so old, 20 there is no implementation date.
21 DR. SIESS: Yes. -
22 MR. BENDER: Mell it is clear we Nant the status for n
' _)
( 23 all plants.
24 '4R . CROCKER: That Ne can come no with, i
Aco;c7 tat Reporters, Inc.
() 25 MR. BE'lDD R : It is also clear that if you are short i
l
169 7
mm 1 some information we would just as soon you told us what vou 2 have ,qot and not hold uo because a little bit of it is lacking. i 3 DR. SIESS: Yes, the important thing, as 'iike said,
() 4 the status for all clants, all kinds of plants.
5 But, for goodness sakes, I don't think we want to 6 see the plant-bv-plant list, necessarily. I think th4 first 1 7 thing we want to know, since we haven't even looked at this )
8 is in general, what kind of inclementation has been done of
, 9 these things?
l 10 There is some we know haven't been innlemented.
1 11 ATUS is an obvious one. 197. we know roughly what the status 12 of that is. And some of these are obviousiv comoletelv 1 1
13 implemented.
O 14 What about oice breaks outside containments? ? ?nt 15 was essentially a backfit to every olant that existed, vou see.
I 16 And there may be two or three that had exceotions i
17 and had to go around this way. That is not too in70rtant.
18 But, if you are having a real oroblem in some area 19 maybe, we would like to know and follow it un with more detail. l 20 MR. CROCKER: All right. Let us get vou a story 1
21 together on what we do know now, what we can n111 together and 22 tell you at least where we are coing.
() 23 MR. BENDER: If the committee decides to take un the 24 generic subject on the natter of generic items next month, we i Ace /Neral Reporters, Inc.
(_) 25 may want some kind of current report on this natter even thouch
170 nm I it is incomolete.
2 DR. SIESS: Just to say that you are doing it, would 3 help.
4
. (r'.J MR. BENDER: Just to let the committee know what is 5 happening.
6 MR. CROCKER: Right.
7 MR. BENDER: Anything else vou want to sav --
8 DR. SIESS: In the SEP olants -- vou are saying this is 9 being done in the.SEP plants as cart of their review?
10 liR . CARTER: Yes, they are an operatinn olant and L
Il they are just:)being included in this effort iust like anv 12 other.
i 13 DR. AIESS: That wasn't what I meant.
14 .7, Is it a part of the SEP orogran?
l 15 MR. CARTER: No, it was seoarate.
16 DR. SIESS : It was not. That was set un on a different l
17 basis?
18 MR. CARTER: Yes.
19 MR. BENDER: Does the subconnittee have any other 20 items it wants to take up on the ceneric i'. ems?
21 ('!o re sponse. ) '
22 Dick riajor has nade notes of the itens which we have 1
(~ i :
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23 suggested we should refer to subconnittees. And when he gets :
l 24' those collecte d ' -- l acer-- *rsi neporrm, Inc.
\.J 25 p- ' IESS : For redefinition? , j
! l
i
171 I
mm 1 MR. BENDER: For redefinition or whatever it is we
.r'g 2 want done with them, I would crocose if the subconnittee anrees, V
3 that we offer this suguestion trthe full committee when we take 13 (m) 4 uo the generic items.
5 DR. SIESS: Mr. Chairman', this SECY 78 16. is that 6 going to the whole committee?
7 MR. BENDER: I don't know. The first time I saw 8 it was this morning.
9 DR. SIESS: It is a verv interesting document and 10 I think it should he because it is verv nertinent to a lot of 11 things we are talking about. I haven't read all of it, but S
12 there are carts of it I want to read.
13 MR C. ROCKER.:,, Sike.wduld like to at least fill you in pg. 3A 14 briefly on what this is and what we are trving to do Nith it.
15 MR. BENDER: '?e would be delighted to have that 4
16 conmentarv. Go ahead, Mike. .
17 MR. NYCOCK: Okay.
18 I believe we sent out 20 cocies, so I think there are 19 enough for the full committee.
r 20 DR. S IDCS : You have no obiection?
21 MR. AYCOCK: Mo.
22 DR. SlESS- ~das this a draft?
.m
-) 23 MR. AYCOCK: No. This has been submitted to"the 24 Commission. Unfortunate 1v tve didn 't have the right conv hack Aco ^gsl Reporters, Inc.
'-) 25 yet when we had to make cocies of this. This came down -- it l
._-_-----------a
173 nn I was cooled last week bv the Connission and distributed.
2 Nhat' I would like to do is just ' ind of introduce vou 3 to it and trv to explain ' hat we have done and whv we had to do A
(/ 4 it, and how we did it.
S tiv understandinq is that we are coing to make a 6 oresentation on this to the Commission next "ondav. This 7 information has to he sucolied in'the Annlal '.eoort rhich 8 the Congress has requested we qive them b*r the end of i
9 Tanuarv this vear, instead of a' number o5 nonths lator no l 10 they could have it availhSle crior to coing throu"S our i
II budget in Februarv and March, whenever. So there is some 12 urgency for the Commission to act on it. I 1
13 If you have ever read :iURJG 0410 trhich was the
~ ^ #
14 report nie gave to the Congress last vear, this described 15 what the NRR orocram was. And also nro'rided some conies of 16 task action olans, those were :tnnroved at the time.
17 DR. SIESS: That is II-A-$0, wasn't it?
18 !R. AVCOCX: Chore were onlv 31 of the 49 nians l
19 approved Nhen we submitted those to Congress.
20 DR.SIESS: Okav. That Ne have seen, ven. ,
l l
21 'iR . TYCOC"- But, Section 211 of the P.nerqv i 22 7eorganization Act recuirei us to develo? a olan for the 23 resolution 'of unresolved safetv issues to he submitted to l 24 Congress on- or' hefore .Tanuary 1, 197 0. Shat was !!i?R""r 0410. ,
- AesOral Reporters, Inc.
-) 25 It also required that we renort on the nroaress of j l
1
173 mm I those issues in each Annual Renort thereafter.
2 Me had the 'IRT nrogram undervan when we got this
)
3 directive from the Congress. Ne onl" had about a nonth and a
) 4 half to put this thing together, so we sinp1v described the 5 program we had and issues that were in there at that time.
6 Go we did tell the Congress, hev, this nrogram is considerab1v 7 broader than the unresolved safety issue olan vou reouested.
8 We have gat environmental issues in here, we have got tasks, 9 generic tasks aimed at im7rovin" our own indenendent review 10 capabilities and things like that.
II And that in later years we will correct that and 12 tell you which issues are th6'"unresolv6? safetv issues' that 13 vou want to hear about. i O. l 14 So that is essentiallv Nh'.t.thi.s nacer tries to do, s
15 to take the 133 generic issues in the "RR nro~ ram and decide 16 which ones of these c.ualifv ?or reoorting to Congress. i 17 It was our feeling thi he intent o' Section 210 was 18 to assure that> plans were developed and inolemented on 19 substantive questions regarding safetv. ,
20 So, I think this 19 consistent'with the va" we 21 report abnornal occurrences to Conaress. Me certa'iniv don't 22 report all LERs. It wouldn't be useful to them at all.
A
(_/ 23 DR.S7.ESS: Nhv not, I "et them all.
24 (Lauqhter.)
At:e4-deral fleporters, Inc.
(_). 25 'iR. BT:nE2: 71at's whv we know they aren't noina to 1
n 175' mm I be useful to Congress.
2 =iR. AYCOOK: This'Conmission nacer simniv describes O. 3 the processtthat the staff used to identifv the issues we
() 4 reported to Congress, and identifies issues resulting from 5 that process. It is basicallv in three narts, or four narts.
6 There is a main bodv which P.ind of summarizes 7 everything. And enclosure one,which provides draft and renort 8 sections which describe the nrogress of those issues we have 9 selected. And enclosure two, Nhich is about a n.uarter of the 10 way bach, which describes how we did it. \nd encl.osure 11 three, which urovides the draft report nrenared bv the 12 probabilistic assessment staff, one that '3as mentioned at a 13 meeting I guess hack at the beiinning of October hu nel O .
14 Sunch, that nrovides a risk-based look at each of the generic
,h 15 issues.
16 And we used that recort -- it was Sqveloned to 5019 17 us prioritize these things, and we use it in this nrocess 18 also.
19 D7. SIESS: I thought it was interesting how manv 20 Group 3 and C items got into Catanorv T.
21 ^17 . .T Y C O C M : The unresolv4d sa.fetv issues that we 22 arrived at are listed on. pane 3 of the main bodv of the recort.
() 23 You can see there is 14 issues which are addressed bv 19 24 different Category i task action nlans. "a lumnei some o'
' Ar:e FMerel Fleporters, Inc.
-t y)' 25 them, like steam generator tube integritu, we have not threa I
l
175 I
mm nlans there addressing tha.t marticular issue.
2 The' issues were se'.ected by our Technical Activities 3
Steering Committee, which is chaired by 'tr. Case and the O 4 esteing memse=e ere the four :1v1 divie4.en airecto s.
5 I will try to Srieflv run throuch the selection 6 procedure.
It nav Se a little comolicated to do it quick 1v, 7
but we selected a definition- of an unresolved safetv issue.
8 It took sometime'to select the definiti6n. It is not obvious 9 exactly shat the right wordinn is.
10 It reads; %n unresolved safetv issue is a natter 11 affecting several nuclear nower nlantssfor which it is likelv 12 that actions Nill be ta. ken to; one, connensate fo" a 13 possible major reduction on the denree of nrotection for i
% l Id oublic health and safetv; two, nrovide notential sinnificant 15 decrease in risk to oublic health and safetv.
16 Slow the nhrase which seems to cause so'.e n*ohlems is 17 the uhrase "which it is likelv that actions will be taken." ,
I 18 -And let ne try to exnlain what that means. It real'.r aonlien I9 nore to the second cart of the definition which involves 20 9::oviding a notentiallv significant decrease in risk.
l 21 '
'"here are certain things that vou night' do in 22 nuclear power olants to nrovide a large incronental decrease
]
23 in risk, although if you are reducing the core melt orob wilitv 24 from that carticular event secueice from 10 *o the minus 7th
~
.. Ace 7-teral Heporters, Inc.
k) 25 to 10 to the minus-9th, it is not likely that the staff is 1
. ~ . , _ , ..#~ - . , - ,_ . , , - , - - , , = , - . , ,,
176 mm I coing to take actions to do that.
2 So that was trying to, I guess, indicat, a iudnnental-rS V
3 factor that was used by the committee.
( 4
!s_) 17e can no to encloqure two, which I said was about 5 a quarter of the way back on cane 5, and iust trvina to 6 indicate what kind of information we use in doina this.
7 No use the task action olans for Cateaorv 3. , some 8 oroblen descriotions for Bs, Cs and Os. '?e don ' t have anv 1
9 task action olans aporoved vet for the 7s, Cs and Os. Ne 10 use the draft risk base evaluation in Onclosure three, and II we had at that time some -- a oreliminarv revie1 bv the '!R" 12 staff of enclosure three. And so there were some conments f-s I.3 provided as a re.sult of that review which 4e almo used.
ij '-?g-Id And we used a list of abnormal occorrences that we 3 15 oreviously rooorted to Congress. And a thinn called t1RR 16 Grouoings of Generic Activities into eimht "rnuos Sv tune of I7 activitv. That is another list. It h=.0,ons to'.be 4.noendix A I8 to enclosure two.
I9 t1R. BENDER: Are vou furnishing a road man of this?
l 20 (Lauchter.) l 21 *1q. AYCOC": '
think it is - T hooe it' is fairlv vell 22 exclained in the text. I may be over familiar with the subject 7
<~N j
(_) 23 too. l D
24 Nhat we did was trv to groun all of the 133 tasks AN hwal Regrters, Inc. j f ) n5 i
'w/ bv tvoe of activiti: so we could summaril" 9.ismiss some that 7re )
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177 mm' 1 environnental or develooing inde76n dant revie'r canabilities 2 or those tvoes of things.
3 Ne didn't want to consider them exnlicitiv for
() 4 inclusion as aunresolved safetv issues because sim71v they i
5 are not the' type of activity that is even directlr related to 6 safetv. i i
7 So we have grouned them in these eight ornuns. ;
1
. 8 The first three nf the einht grouns are orohshlv the 1
9 most inoortant. Thev are the onlv ones that really have anv i
10 potential for us upgradinn our renuirements, issues thn.t fall 11 under those grcuos.
12 '17 . Sn*103R: You are saying the ones that are most I
d 13 important are those that renuire olant ohvsical chanqes?
O A/
14 51R . AYCOCK: I don't believe I said that.
15 $1R . BE'10"A : '.10 , I did. But I am trvina to find
} 16 out whether'that is what vou mean.
17 MR. AYCOCK: 21 0 .
18 I think issues in groups one, two or three are i
19 issues that could result in ungradinn our recuirements. That l l
j 20 may he only for interolants, such as 7eg Guides that are forward 21 fit. Or the end of the task maybe we don't need to do any-4 22 thing. But there is the potential there to A.o that, h 23 So that we are including groups _ono, two a".d three 24 as coposed to something we nut in, say, groun four, which is~
Ace;?~*erai Reporters, Inc.
() . 25 confirnatory.
- Y e
179, -
mm I Ne feel pretty strongly that we are chav, but we 2
need to conftrn it.
3 MR. BEM9ER: All right.
() 4 Thank vou. I think I needed that clarification. ,
1 5
MR. AYCOCX: So, let me confuse vou more by acino i
6 into the steos that we have oursued, so that we are sure we l 7
considered all the issues that could onssiblv nualifv as 8
unresolved safety issues for reportina to Congress.
9 The first step is we took our arouos one, two and 10 three, and'that was about 71, I holieve, of the 133 that fell i
l 11 into those three aroups. And we crosscut that with those that !
I2 the Research Risk Reoort said were notentiallv. risk sinnificant ,
13
('i Me took that crosscut of issues and '.cohed at them
%)
Id 7
first. Ne felt those were the nost likelv candidates. Tnd we 15
( compared them against the definition and said yea or nav, and 16 we e:: plain in here anv that we said from that croun didn't I
' l I7 aualify. No explained whv we thought it didn'tnualifv. ;
18 Steo two we said, well, mavbe we nissed sone. '?o I9
-will look at all the rest of the issues in crouos one , two 20 and three, the rest of the 71 and see if anv of those cualifv.
21 And we found, I think, three more out of that grouo that we 22 thought cualified.
23 And than wo went and said, well, le+1 s cover all 24 Ace"" tral Reporters, Inc, the bases and we looked at all the rest that.research said i k-]' 25 were ootentially risk-significant that weren't in our arouos 1
y , y , - , , , - , , , , , ,
'179 a
mm .1 one, two and three,.and we came out, I think, with ' five more. !
2 There were five more like that, and we cane un with two more
.( } q l
3 fron there.
4 And then finallv, since our definition of an !
5 unresolved safetv-issue in - '.' ell, the first cart of it is T l
6 quess aligned somewhat with the abnorn*.1 occurrence definition, 7 that is a major reduction in the denreo of orotection, we 8 looked at all the abnormal occurrence events, tried to deterninc 9 which ones were generic, had not alreadv been resolv31and 10 see it we had anv more that should be a acneric issue, unresolvc:S 11 safetv issue and addressed bv the staff. !
12 Because of the recent events, nine cracks in boiling
( ,
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() 13 water reactors, that one jumoed out of the abnormal occurrence l
14 report.to Congress.
j- 15 Now we have these 19 tasks which we believe are the 1
16 most imoortant, I think, from the safety standocint. *hev will i:
17 receive priority'in our assinnnent of resources.
18 DR. SIESS: Shere did vou get 19?
19 MR. AYCOC.'(: If vou look on nage 3, there is 14 --
20 DR. SIESS: Oh, 19 tasks, I'm sorrv. 19 tasks. !
21 MR. AYCOCH: The follow-on effort, the 'one that we 22 have to concleto, the one that'Mr. Bunch discussed back in the 23 October 6th meeting with the committee is to complete this 24 ordering of priorities. I Ace ^ r# Heponers. Inc.
V 25 We'are in t%e orocess of doing that. tight now. In
i 190 '
mm I other factors such as i that orocess we will consider i
2 environmental significance, what kind of efficiencv or 3
effectiveness we en get as f ar as the licensing nrocess is [
L O 4 cencerned, ere we wey down the reed in come1eeine e tesk such 5 that stopoing now would be very wasteful as far as resnurces 6 what kind of AC7S interest do 're have, thinns like that, to 7 come uo with a final orderina of oriorities which we will 8 present trthe connittee.
9 Rignt now I don't hnticinate -- Larrv, do vou think )
10 we are going to come up with any that will be hinher priority II than these 19?
12 There is a possibility that something else, because 13 of this extrene -- or its value in imroving the licensinq Id process or something like that, could be hicher nrioritv than j 15
.some of the lower ones here. But I don't anticinate anv 16 doing that riaht now.
17 DR . '3IE 9 S : Let ne ask you, on na.ge 3 vou indicate 18 for each of these issues the task action nlin. Por examnle, I9 under seisnic design criteria vou list A-40.
20 Now theres.is also a research effort in that area.
2I '"'.. h.YCOC'!: Yes.
22 DR.'SIESS: 90 vou consider the research effort Ce. 23 separate fron the task work, or simolv that the research 24 effort is lo'nger tern?
Aes?qerat . Reporters, Inc.
(_) 25 Is that why vou don't toll the Congress vou are l
i l l
181 I doing research on this as well as technical assistance tyoe mm L 2 '
4 stuff?
3 And how many of these have generated re~uests to '
('\ d
(/ Research? I know some of them have. .
5 7,m trving to aat vour chiloscohn.
6
.MR. AYCOCX: Some have. I think with renard to 7
seismic design criteria, the committee believed that the 8 unresolved safety issue here was the seismic desinn of ,
l 9 That we are going to rereview onerating l operating plants.
10 plants -- .
11 DR. SICSS: So it is a question of time. ;
12 MR. AYCOCM: -- it is likelv that we are noing to 13
{) Id take action on sone af those nlants. And A-40 is prettu nuch geared in trying to give us the technical tools to do those 15 rereviews.
16 DR. SIESS: That is the technical tool vou can not I7 short-term, state of the art, okay?
18 Because vou have also cot the SSMRD which is 19 essentially your old A-41.
20 MR. AYCOCK: Correct.
2I DR. SIESS' Okav.
22 In vour definition on Let me ask another cuestion.
i
() -23 page 2"of unresolved safety issues, vou have two categories.
24 And one is concensar.e for nossible maior reduction in the 1
Ar:ejMetal Fieporters, Inc.
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25 degree of . protection.
i L ____ w
182 1 And the other one talks about a ootentiallv 2 significant decrease in risk.
f'T J
3 Now I was trying to sort those two out because
'( ) 4 the language changes from " degree of nrotection" in one case, r 5 to " risk" in another.
6 Nhat is the distinction vou make between degree of 7 protedtion -- whv don't von sav in the first nlase it is a 8
maior increase in risk, and the other is to orovide a decrease 9 of risk?
10 Nere there reasons for choosing those words 1
11 that way?
,2 MR. 4YCOC2: ' lith regard to "maior reduction in l
13 degree of nrotection" it is fairlv well snelled ont in the -
O 14 abnormal occurrence criteria. You can find a maior desiqn 15 de ficiencv , dearadation of reactor coolant nressure houndarv.
16 DR. SIESS: Mbich could be internreted in terms of I 17 risk.
18 MR. AYCOCH: It could be, but doing a risk assessrent o
19 you might find that dearaded stean generator tubes inn't 20 affect the risk that nuch.
21 DR. SISSS- Then is it a naior reduction.in the 22 degree of protection'if it doesn't affect the risk?
() 23 MR. AYCOC'C : Yes it is because it is a denradation 24 of the reactor coolant oressure boundarv. I AceAMerci Reporters, Inc.
},) 25 DR.SIESS: But if it doesn't affect the risk -- what l
1 I
i
183 1
mm I are we orotecting the aublic against if it isn't risk? l l
2 900, what you are saying is, it is an increase in the
- ) !
3 consecuences. But the orobabilitv might be so low that the j
() 4 risk is negligible. That is, degraded steam. generator tubes l 5 could increase the consecuences of. a LOCA. But if the LOCA 6 orobability is low enough in combination with the degraded tubes, 1
7 the ri sk is not great. l 8 MR. AYCOCK: Right.
9 DR.SIESS: So vour item 1 reallv addresses 10 consecuences of an event, without 9robabilitv.
And in the 1
11 second one, when vou say risk now vou orobablar will need l l
12 the frequencv of crobability.
l 13 It is just that the change in language bothered me.
I 14 MR. AYCOCX: Nell, I think the defense-in-denth 15 conceot certain1v depends on certain phvsical barriors such I i
16 as reactor -- l 17 DR. SIE9S: I have no objection to that.
l 18 All I am questioning -- both concents I find ]
19 accentable. Now I can argue, you see i# you not the sano 20 risk, I night want three levels of defense-in-denth acainst 21 one kind of accident, and four against another. But I can 22 understand defense-in-deoth as a non-stochastic annroach to
() 23 safet nd I could understand rink as an annroach to safetv. I 24 T am cuestioning is, whv nhrase one objective AceP1 erst Fleporters, Inc.
(,) 25 in one term <3d one in the other,' because the second savs E. . 4
i t
18A i mm i I if you could get a significant increase in safety, vou would
() 2 add it. "A potentially significant decrease in risk."
t 3 MR. AYCOCK: That's correct.
O. 4 DR.SIESS: ind that is decreaminn helow the nresent t
5 level, which is acceptable, right?
6 MR. AYCOCK: Some peonle nicht consider ATNS to be 7 that type of issue.
8 pq, sInsg: yes, 9 And mv onlv c.uestion was, in one caso the decree of -
10 nrotection, the other case the degree o# risk. Thev were the >
II two thoughts mixed, and I wasn't sure whether thera wered S 12 two ways of savf.ng the same thing, or whether they '-rere savin, 13 two different things. And I think thev are saving two differenc
(])
I4 things.
15 Gne is to restore the sustem to the level vou thought 16 you had. That is what the first one cavs.
17 And the second is, to make it better if it looks 18 like it was cost effective or risk effective. I I9 MR. CROCKER: I think this BN7 nine crank nroblem 20 is one of the first instances there, where vou obviousiv 21 don't have in the field what we thoucht we had when we licensed 22 the plant.
23 DR. SIESS: That is restoring it to where vou thouqht 24 you were., i Acr erst Reporters, Iric.
(/ '
- S I MR. CROCKE': Right.
i
183 I
mm D't . SIESS: It doesn't cone throurth that clear, 2
because~ both of them talk about a reduction. One is, restore 3
redudtion and nrotection .and the other is to add reduction and 4
risk. g 5
!iR. BSNDER: Settina aside Dr. Siess' co'rten t s , I 6
was a little surorised to see that most of the things on the 7
list, if not all of them, have to do with the ohusical nlant 8
itself.
9 There seems to be verv little associated with matters that are site-related.
- l DR.SIESS: Seismic is in there.
12 MR. RTIDER: Only to the extent it involves the I3 need to undate the seismic desion.
14 DR. SIESS: It is about as site-related as vou can 15 get.
l 16 I MR. AYCOCK:
Did you have anv particular issue in I7 mind?
I IO DR. SIESS: I can't think of a site-related issue 19 that is anywhere near the importance of the seismic. ;
20 MR. BENDER: The kind of thing I had in mind were 2I matters like the incrovements that. night be brou ht about to i 22 reduce occucational exoosure.
23 I don't see that on here. And vet, that is an 24 Acem rat Fleporters, Inc. issue that is of naior concern within and outside of the
(. 25 nuclear industry.
l
136 mm 1 DR. cIns1- I qot the impression -- if vou look at 2 their definition --
3 .?U1. BE'iDER: I understand. But if I look at the.
() d definition I get one answer.
5 DR. SIESS: If vou accent their definition, it savs
- 6 "public health anA safetv," and I think thev have been 7 interoreting "oublic" to mean those outside the olant.
8 MR. AvCOCK: I don't think that is necessarilv true i l
9 here. We did consider several task-related occupational 1
10 radiation exoosures, one of which.is B-34, which is a task 11 that simply says, let's continue to incrove our nuidance in 12 occuoational radiation exoosure.
13 Certainlv occuoational radiation exoosure O.
14 reoresents a significant risk if you are netting 590 manrem 15 per year exposures. But our conclusion was that our orocedures 16 now, we believe our sites, ihat dromdntaininq risks -- I mean 17 exuosures,as low as reasonablv achievable.. 7.nd we don't 18 exoect to get. by imorovina these crocedures, anv significant 19 further decrease in risk.
20 .sig. BENDER: Hell I am not trying to argue with 21 either your list or vour doEinition' . I an iust m'aking a 22 conment that it would seem to me that looking at the way in I) 23 which the public miqht react to '79C's views concerninn 24 unresolved safet'r issues, that their percontion micht not be 3 Ace Merst Reporters, Inc.
25 the things that are involved mainlv with the nhusical --
4 i
187 mm Not necessarily 1 design of the physical olant. --
,. 2 DR. SIESS: I bet their oorcention is the oublic, f
( 3 a hell of a lot more than the guvs working in it. I don't
{) '4 think the public has gotten very e:: cited about NLARA in olant.
5 Not nearly as excited as we have.
6 MR. BSND3R: ' ? ell , I am not willing to debate the 7 matter.
8 MR. AYCOC.'(: Mell one thing is, if you solve some 9 of these unresolved problems here, such as steam nonerator 10 tube oroblems and nine cracks and so on, ' iou are coing to 11 significantly reduce occuoational exoosures.
12 MR. BENDER: I am not arguing with you in an 13 engineering cense. I might accoot everv item von have not 14 here as being the right answer. I am just trying to out myself 15 in the olace of the oecole that are out there in the hustings 16 and how they would'resoond to a list like this.
17 DR. SIESS: Mike, the imoression I qet out of this 18 is these are very stronq1y weighted toward the issues that 19 relate to coerating clants.
20 MR. BE'1DE3: 7 hat is about what I a.m saving.
21 MR. AYCOCK: I believe that is true. .
22 DR. SIESS: Because some o# these, for examole, 23 . asymmetric blowdown loads,we know is noing to be s63;voi on new 24 plants. 7e don' t even have to arque about whether the snuare Ace Federal Fleporters, Inc.
( ). 25 root of_the sume of the squares is an absolute sum. They can
109 mm 1 ' design it for whatever they have got to M.o.
N 2 It is the e::isting olants that alreadv sit there.
(d 3 Scismic is about 70 percent in the same category.
() 4 ?iR. AYCOCK: That's right.
5 DR. SISSS: Decause a new plant is desianed for .25 6 G, and the uncertainties about the steps of the process 7 aren't as important as the .1 G olant next door.
8 So I assume without having read through the 9 weighting svstem, that that was a maior weight given, ooeratina 10 or near-operating plants. ,
11 'IR. AYCOCK: I don' t think in itself tht was a 12 weichting factor. Where we have identified problems that we 13 felt qualified as the major reduction in denree of crotection, ;
O-14 in other words things are wokse than we thought they would be, 15 it usually identified an onerating nlant. ,
16 A couple of them navbe you identifv a desian 17 deficiency, or the design is not what vou want it to be, such 18 as the asymmetric blowdown load. *1ost of them are oroblem, 19 at onerating clants. And in that sense vou are goina to net 20 then --
21 DR. SIESS: But on the steam generator' tube intake 22 you list tube nroblems.
(
~
23 How do we build steam qeneratorq that won't have 24 tube failures? That is a uroblem for new nlants. Peoole i
. Ach')
k_ erst Fleporters, Inc.
25 think they have got some answers.
l
+ - . , - - . , , - ,
189 l l
nn I But the orablems vou are addressing is,not ho" do 1
2 we buila better ones, it is ho'i do we live with the ones that 7,s Y-] 3
\
we have got, a nd wha t is the significance of it?
4 (m) How do we develon criteria for olugging, and when do 5 we reolace them, right? That is a n onerating type oroblem.
6 It is a differdnt kind of oroblem for a new olant. l 7 MR. AYCOCK: How we build better onen is mart of the 8 overall task.
9 But I agree it is a small oiece of navbe 12 different 10 subtasks.
Il DR. SIESS: Yes. If vou know what is causing it, 12 presumablv vou can build better ones.
13 13, 7E'iDER:
7s w e ll nost of these seem to go to the t I a
14 natter of whether you are going to make the licensee soend some 15 monen to do something, look at them. That would be the mau 16 I would characterize the '.ist.
17 DR. SIESS: Mell. that is in it too. Excent there 18 is not much he can do about seismic design criteria. He l9 might do something about seismic design.
20 M9. BEtJDE7: He can unarade some of the olants if 2l they don't conform to what -- -
22 DR. SIESS: More likelv thev would channo the criteria
(
23 than change the olant.
(_)\
2d MR. BT.1D"R: 3.nd nv reaction is, I an not sure the Ar:efederal Reporteri, Inc.
lll 25 oublic would nercieve of the risk quite in terms o# the
t i
190 l mm I importance being assessed on .the basis of whether somebodv l
1
("% 2 needs to spend noney to change the olants around.
(
3 Dq, SIESS: Mell, that's a pretty nood neasure of
() 4 how serious it is. If it takes a clant change to fix it, it i
1 5 is a nuch more serious oroble, than i' it takes a Tech 90ec 1
6 change, which vou could probably do tomorrow while. von were 7 thinking about it.
8 MR. AYCOCK: That's right. Tech Soec changes don't 9 generally show uo in nenoric issucq.
10 D7. SIESS- You just make them and then arque later.
Il MR. BE'IDER: " T h a t.'.s t r u e , they are easier to do.
12 But it would be nice if some of them fit that categorv, in 13 my opinion, so it woQldn't turn out that everv one turnei O
14 out to be a cocketbook kind of answer.
15 DR. SIESS: I think that is a danned nood criteria.
16 I think I could convince the nublic that these were imoortant 17 because it was going to cost somebody to fix then if thev 18 come out wrong.
19 fir . BE'1 DER
- That is an unfortunate thing about the 20 whole business. It is too wrapoed un in that.
21 DR. SIESS: Like putting better bumoers' on automobiles.
22 MR. BENDER: Anythina else vou want to tell us, 'iike, L 23 about this subject?
24 .MR . 3.YCOCI* : '70 , I don't think so. i A:ef" tral Reportees, Inc.
x- 25 DR. SIESS: I do thinh this ought tn no to the i-
~. -
1 191 I committee, all of this about how'they made their selections
-~ 2 and the stuff from crobabilistic assessment staf fits riqht
't 1 3 in with the things we have been talking about.
() 4 MR. BENDER- I had presumed that the staff was going e 1 5 to do that. Thev normally do anyhow.
6 DR. SIESS: But in answer to nv cuestion about 1 l
7 research, because these are the urgent tvoe of oroblems, nost l l
8 of these you exnect to try to qet state-of-the-art answers on, I
9 is that right? And they haven't cenerated much in the wav of ]
10 research questions or research requests.
11 MR. AYCOCK: For instLnce, with regard to seismic 12 desinn, the research orogram was considered f or reoortina 13 here.
14 The feeling was thdithat procram might result in some 15 change in the item design basis. It could. But we didn't 16 know enough right now to be able to sav that it is likelv that 17 it is going to result in that.
18 DR.SIESS: 'Now I am sure you realize that vour 19 state-of'the-art solutions to these oroblems.are not always 20 going to come out with answers, at which noint you will 21 presumably put a request in for Research to an a fter it.
22 Do you do that sequentially, or do vou hedge bv
$) 23 thinking about what you might do i~ you don't qet all the 24 answers you want from state of the art"and tell Research to Ar:eNotat Reporters, Inc.
$m). 25 start looking at it?
! i
7 192 i
mm 1 M7. AYCOCX: I think we do it at the sane time. ;
/s 2 The task action plans include a section which describes our 3 relationshio with other offices incl'tding ResoTrch when thev f( ) 4 have related programs.
5 DR. SIESS: Sometimes that is iust a cart of the 6 program is assigned to Research, and another cart is assigned 7 somewhere else. And I don ' t -- I quess I would have to wait 1
8 and take an examole'sometime to see.
9 The seismic safetv margins research crogram, 10 the A-40 and A-41 essentiallv war, done simultaneousiv.
It 11 was set up as a short-term procram and a long-term crogram.
12 Presumably you realize?. the short-term orogram either wouldn't 13 give you the answers vou need, or wouldn't cive vou all the 14 answers.
l 15 MR. AYCOCK: I believe Research is doing some work 16 for us in the area of steam generator tube intenrity and also 17 in Mark I pressure suncression containment nroblems.
18 DR. SIESS: I guess what I am suggesting is that the 19 short-term /long-term crogram is a good concent on a lot of 20 these problems. On some of them ? quess vou can sav, well, we 21 don't need a long-term program, we just need a shbrt-term 22 program to tell us what to do, how to nahe it safe, and it will
!() 23 be fairly single.
24 MR. BENDERt I am not sure that this is noina to "et Ar;eh-Srst Reporters, Inc.
Jk l 25 us much further.
I
l 193 l l
l mn 1 Are you exoectinn the committee to comment on this r'g- 2 document?
V 3 MR.AYCOCK: No, I was not.
() 4 He were really just wantinn to .1 l. vou know it is 5 here, what is in it, what we are trying to domso that it wasn't 6 too confusinn.
7 MR. BENDER- All right. l l
8 Are thero other matters?
l 9 MR.MC KINLEY: Also they can tell the Commission 10 they have given it to the committee. Me have been informed.
11 MR. BENDER: Anv other natter the committee wants 12 to take un?
fg 13 DR. SIESS: The question of distribution of these he V
14 said is up to us. He said he cave us 20 conies.
15 MR. MC KINLEY: That's right.
16 MR, SENDER: IT not -- Steve?
17 DR. LANROSKI: I would like to ask the staff whether 18 the nonth of Decenber is such that they can give us a neaningful 19 report for the January meeting?
20 December is a rather bad nonth for ornanizations. I 21 think we ought to think about that a little.
22 MR. CROCKER: we can give it the acod old colleae
() 23 try. I don't know how well we will do.
24 DR. LAMROSKI: Fine.
Ace?Merst Fleporters, Inc,
- 25 MR. CROCKER: Sut looking at the Januarv schedule e
I i
194 l 1
l I right now, it would acoear that most anythina we can come no mm ,
.1 2
('t .with will be a nlus.
V 3
DR. LANROS2I: It woQld be desirable, inasmuch as
( )) 4 you are working towards a tight; timetable on this thina, I t
5 guess. )
6 l MR. BENDSR: Nell, I personally wouldn't care'if -
7 l the committee cancelled its January meeting.
l 8
MR. CROCKER: Mell I would vote for that, too. l 9
(Laughter.)
10 DR. LANROS2I: You wouldn't find this member voting II against that one, either. l i
12 MR. BENDER: But it scened coportune. And 7r. Lawroshi's 1
13 observation is certainly appropriate that if vour staff can't
-)
Id have something meaningful, there is not too nuch coint in 15 having a neeting to discuss it.
1 16 DR. LNMROS2I: Right. Because it often tends to l I7 put farther off in the future a reallv worthwhile meetina, 18 because people say, "'?c11, you just heard about it, didn't you?*
I9 MR. CROCHER: I should be able to get at least a 20 quick reading on it by the time we come down Fridav to talk 21 about it.
22 DR. LANROSZI: Ohi would be good.
23 MR. CROCKER: Mavbe we could kick it around then.
2#
MR. BENDER: Any other matters?
Arm >"~mt Reporters, Inc.
U) 25 (No resoonse.)
I.
1
e
-l 195 mm194 1 If not, the neeting is adjourned. I l
2 Thank vou.
G 3 (Whereucon, at 3:40 o.n. the hearing in the above-l entitled matter was adiourned.)
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- O- 3 24 Ar:e?-yeral Reporters, Inc.
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