ML20148P231
| ML20148P231 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/09/1981 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T-0813, NUDOCS 8101130278 | |
| Download: ML20148P231 (174) | |
Text
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l NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
OLJ ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACiCR SAFEGUARDS r
f In tian Mah of:
249 th GENERAL MEFTING OF THE
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ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 1
DATE:
January 9, 1981 PAggg:
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8 The full committee ccnvened, pursuant to notice, 9
at 8430 som.
10 ACES ?EM9ERS FRESENT:
11 J. CAESON MARK, Chairman P AUL G. SHEW MON 12
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MR. MA?'<4 The meetinc will now ccme to order..
3 This is'the second day of the 240 th mee ting of the 4
Advisory Committee on 3eac tor Cafeguards.
5 The specific items on the agenda for today are the 6
proposed SEC rule on requirements for near-term construction 7
permits and manufseturing licenses and also the Sequoyah 8
Muclear-Power Flant.
That is for the morning.
9 In the afternoon we have a meeting with the 10 Commission 9rs and a meeting with the Executive Director for 11 Operations, the latter to discuss TXI-1 restart.
We will 12 then return to considerations of the report to Congress on 13 the Saf e ty Research Program and have a discussion concerning 14 proposed actions and positions regarding several saf ety
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15 related matters.
16 This meeting is being conducted in accordance with 17 tha provisionc of the Federal Advisory Committee and the 18 Government in the runshine Act.
jg Dr. Fichard havio is the derignated federal 20 employee for this portion o f the meeting.
21 A transcript of the cron portions of the meeting 2;
is being kept and it is requected that each speaker first 23
.4entify himself or herself and speak wi th sufficient 24 clsrity and volume so tha t he or she can be readily heard.
25 That part of the meeting devoted to the report on t
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1 the Safety Pecearch Program will, I presume, be closed, but j
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2 tha rest of the meeting, tr. indicated, I believe will be i
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open.
4 There is a subcommittee discussion Cf our first 5.
item whien must and by 11:30.
That is the rule on 6
requirements for MTCPs.
Th e Ch airm an, Dr. Ckrent, will 7
steer us through that part of the meeting.
8 "3.
OKRENT:
You shculd all have received a copy.
9 of a memorandum that Dr. Ssvic wrote and I will arsume you 10 have read that.
11 What I will try to de and not take more than 10 12 minutes is review a little history and leave the bulk of the 13 tine for the staff and any representatives of the NTCP O(}
14 plants.
15 Pack last spring we met with the staff in 16 connection with wha t they had in.tind with regard to 17 possible requirements for dTCP plante.
At that time ! would 18 say they had in mind certainly the specific requirements 19 that were being applied to operating plants and near-tarm 20 operating plants and the situation was not completely 21 defined with regard to other things, things in the Action 22 Plan which were sort of under study and thic sert of thing.
23 The reeresentatives of NTCP plants identified in 24 the order of six issuer where they thcucht it was relevant i
25 to have some kind of an interim policy guidance so that they OV ALDF.ASoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., W?.SH.h0 ton. D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 could'have a-basis on which to proceed with the licensing
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2 and so forth.
3 At that time we wrote a letter to the Commission 4
discussing thic and indicating that in fact it was relevant S.to try to develop guidance in tnese areas.
I would say at 6
that time I arsumed that we would te hearine from both the 7
staff and from the NTCP group with regard to possible 8
a pp roa ch es to this.
9 I guess, if I understand the situation correctly, 10 the'NTCP group worked on the mstt9e but didn't arrive a t 11 some kind of joint recommendations.
At least none were 12 presented.
13 The rtaff did develop an approach which they sent n
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14 to the Commission and which was put out for comment.
To 15 refresh yoJr memory, they identified three possible 16 options.
Jne was to resume licensing using the pre-ThI 17 con etruction permit requirements augmented by the 18 Commission's June 16th, 1900, statement of policy regardino 19 ope ra ting licenses.
20 That would then treat the pendinc construction 21. permit, and there is one manufacturing licence involved 22 here, as if they were the same in all respects, let's say, 23 with the prior pisntc.
24 The second cptien was to take no action en 25 construction pormits or man uf acturing license applications (p.
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1 until the rule-making actione described in the Action Plan
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2 had been complated.
3 The third was to restime lica n sin g using the 4
p r e -T '.H requirements a ugmen ted by th e requirements for OLs 5
and then require certain additional measures or commitments 6
in specific areas that were coing to be the subject of 7
rule-making.
8 The staff favored option three.
In cCnnection g
with option tnree they iden tified come specific things that 10 they thought chould be done as a part of thet third option.
11 The matters that ended up, let's say, of 12 particular interest or that received the bulk of the 13 attention related to what might be required with a cereview I
of the site,'what might be done in the area of reliability 14 y.
15 engineering and what migh t be done in the area of degraded 16 core or core melt accidents.
17 With regard to reliability engineering the staff 18 in tha prior document had proposed that each plant do a 19 reliability study, not a tull-blown WAFF 1u00 study but a 20 reliability study and f acte r this into the design of the 21 plant in some way.
That is about the essence and the degree 22 of specificity.
23
'41 t h regard to degraded cores or core melts, they 24 again we re supposed to look at their plant and possible 25 design options and not foreclese possibilities or words O
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something of this sort.
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2 This wu. sent up for comment in October.
The bulk 3
of the commente came from the nuclear industry although 4
there were some others.
In fact, there was one from the 5
Department of the Interior recommending tha t they not issue 6
any more construction permits until they resolved the siting 7
matter.
The nuclear industry in general liked option one 8
which wa s to just trea t the plants as all the prio r plants g'
with nothing additional unless at lator r ula -m akin g it was 10 required.
11 Offchore Fower, which is the applicant for'the 12 manufacturing licence, preferred one but they said they could live with three, which was the one tha t the staff had 13 14 proposed as their praference.
15
'd e h a d a subcommi ttee meeting this week.
At that 16 tima the staff indicated thay were rethinking their position 17 on each of these three ma jo r areau, siting, reliability and l
l 18 deg raded core and core melt.
Although they gave us some 39 ideas, just scre options that they were thinking about on 20 Tuesday, they indicated that they were in the process of 21 trying to decide by I suppose it was Thursday evening or 22 something just what their position ac coina to be that they 23 w uld not only tell us but send to thr Commission as I 24 understand the sequence.
25 I think they we re in the process of sending some
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1 kind of a discussion paper to the Commission.
My. impression 4
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from what I heard Tuesday is that they expect to meet with 3
th9 Commission some day next week I don 't know whether to 4
talk about the matter or if they hoped to resolve the 5
matter.
That we will hear about.
6 The only other bit of information that I want to 7
mention is that at the subcommittee meetine there was only, 8
.o h I guess we could say, incomplete representation from the 9
utilitier.
Thay were all invited to attend and we tried to 10 invite them in whs teve r way we could to comment as 11 specifically as they would on the previous proposal.
12 We did hea r that Houston Power and light, which is 13 the applileant for Allens Creek, has commissioned a study to
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14 look, if I understand correctly, at both reliability and i
19 degraded core kinds of design options.
That study is 16 ongoing.
They said thi they expected the results to be 17 reported to Houston Power a nd ligh t around the middle of the 18 month and they asked for the Oppportunity to meet with the 19 AC2S at the beginning of next month.
20 I am hoping there is somebody here from Houston 21 Power and Light who will describe at least what it is they 22 would like and maybe a bl.t about what the nature of the 23 study is.
'J e h <2 d a representative from one of the other 24 25 utilities involved --- I believe it wa s Euget Sound Power (0
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I may not have the exact name.
2 70ICF4 That is correct.
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- 12. CK3?FTs Thank you.
I never can remember 4
whether it is power and light or electricity and gas oc 5
something elsa.
who described the status of their plant and 6
7 indicated they preferred option one very stroncly.
8 One of the concerns that-certainly was present in g
the minds of the utilities and others was that if the 10 Commission adopted wording tnat was open ended in a sense 11 that each licensicq board had to look at this and try to 12 decide whether this had been T,et in detail and had to look 13 at all the options and so forth that this could pose just a 14 very lengthy process even if there could be an end.
15 This was certainly one but not the only concern 18 that was raised in the written material.
I guess you have 17 gotten a packe t of the public comments today that the 18 subcommittee had some days earlier.
I said I was going to be finished by a quarter of jg 20 nine so I have now a minute to call ycur attention to what I 21 think is a proposed agenda from the staff.
If we are to 22 stick to the 11:30 completion which I think we have to, I think we de have to sort stay with the two hours shown for 23 24 the staff presentation, including questions, and I think we 25 lo wa nt to hear on all of.hese items.
So I assume that
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1 they have a presenta tion that if uninterrupted won 't take
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2 more than about an hour and 15 minutes.
3 It might be best if we try hearinc each section 4
and tnen maybe have a general discussion at the end.
So 5
don't shoot all your questions necessa rily on a crecific 6
topic during that segment.
See how the whole picture fits 7
together and it may be useful.
8 This is not a sim ple issue I should note.
Ve vill 9
have to see how it goes.
I am waiting to hear myself just 10 what it is thet is going to na proposed.
11 Any comments from other rubcommittee members at 12 this time or any short quentiens f rom the committee to me?
13 (No response.)
O 14 I would suggest we move with the staff, Mr.
15 Chairman.
16 (Paure.)
17 MR. OKRENT:
I will assun e you said yes.
10
'4 ho is up first?
19 MR. FUR?LE:
hy name is Eob Furple from the SEC 20 staff.
21 First, I would like to describe ve ry briefly the 22 handout you were handed thic morning.
As usual with things 23 related to TMI it is alwayr an inch thick or more.
There 24 are five enclosures in that package.
The first one is the
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25 copy of all the ccamen ts that have been received.
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dE. MIE3s Excuse me.
') C u ld scmeone identify the 2-handout.
3
' E. S H I'4 2 0 N s It is the cold one.
4 (lauchter.)
5 MR. FURPLEs The TMI ralated one.
6 ZF. KE3Rs With the rubberband around it?
The one 7
that has "Public Comments" on the front?
8
- f. E. PURPLE It says "Enclosuzs One - Public 9
C o.Ti m e n t s. "
10
?. R. KEBR Okay.
11 MR. FURPLE:
There are actually five enclosures 12 there.
Those are enclosures, as a matter of factr to a 13 staff paper that is going up to the Commiccion today we hope.
14
.The.first enclorure is simply a copy of all of the k
15 public comments received.
16 The second ancionura is a copy of 'the staff 1
17 response to those comments.
18 The third enclosure, and ! am sorry we don't have gg them tabbed, is s twc-page listino of the categor'f changes 20 of the Action Plan itens that had been listed in the draft 21 NUREG 0718 that was out for public comment.
We can get into
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more detail what those categories are a little later on, but 22 23 it is revi:. ions to how these particular items are to be 24 treated at the CP stage.
The fourth enclecure is an actual copy of the 25 ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINOYoN, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 final revised'NUEEG 0718.
2 Finally at the end is a small enclosure of 10 or 3
12 pages that has in it a preliminary site assessment of 4
these six CP sitas as well as a discusrion of the hydrology 5
of those sites.
We will ba talking $ bout that in some of 6
the later speakers.
7 Yes, sir.
8 SR. SHEW 30Ns I have now two copies of this t:UREG g
both labeled finsi report and both labeled draft.
One has 10 January 5 and one has Janua ry 8 stamped on it.
Ere-they the 11 same thing?
12
/.B. PURPLE:
They are not.
Use the January 3th.
13 MR. KEERs What a minute.
The one I just got 14 that is in my package is labeled January the 5th.
15 MR. SHEWMON:
Well, if you keep going through the 18 cold handout.
17 YR. KERRs Well, that is what ! have.
It is 18 stamped January 5th.
19 MR. SHE'dMONs Well, some of uc have it and scme of 20 us don't.
21 MR. OKRENT:
I have two that are January 8tn 22 somehow here.
( Laucht er. )
23 24 MR. FUEFLE:
January 8th is the latest version and 25 I hopa we can 7et each one of you one.
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MR. KERBS Is it labeled January 6th, ?oman t
2 numeral one ma ybe?
3 MR. FURPLE:
Perhaps.
4 (Slide.)
5 I have put on tha screen an agenda which we also 6
passed out.
It is the same as an earlier agenda that your 7
staff had passed around with just a light rearrangement of 8
the order of speaking.
9 As Dr. Okrent mentioned, since our meeting. with 10 the subcommittae on Tuesday the staff has settled on 3 11 specific approach-in the three areas tha t he identified of 12 degraded core, reliability analyses and siting.
We do have 10 a Commission paper, as I said, hopefully going up today for 14 a Commission meeting on Tuesday where the staff is 15 recommending that the Commission approve the approach that 16 we have selected.
17 What I an giving your right now is the 18 introduction which is Item 2 of the agenda on the viewgraph 19 up there.
20 Sow we will go to Item 1 which would be some 21 policy overview rema rks by Ha rold Denton.
22 FR. DENTON:
We have delled on what we are 23 recommending to the Commission.
It has been ureful te get 24 the public comments at AC?S subcommittee meetings.
It is a 25 difficult topic.
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Let me begin by talking about the scope of this I,
2 activity.
We intend that this interim rule policy that we 3
are talking about only apply to those currenty pending cps 4
before the Commission.
This is not intended to be policy 5
for next year's or any new cps that might come in the door.
6 Now, I also think that certsin parts, if not all, 7
of what we are talking about we may also apply to plants f
8 which have cps but have never begun construction.
There are g
a number of plants which received construction permits that 10 have never exercised that option and I can't distinguish 11 between those plants and the plants we are talking about 12 here.
Se there is a class of plants that have cps for which 13 I would expect the same approach to be followed.
14
.N o w, we regrouped following the subc0mmittee 15 m ee ting and went back and said what was our policy, wha t did 16 we want to accomplish?
We are not in favor of option one.
17 Option one is business as usual.
18 Option two is to defer any action until all the jg rule-makings are completed, and that doesn't seem to be a 20 particularly attractive option.
'J e were not able to move on 21 those rule-makings as fast as we wanted so we at.e still at 22 option three.
23 Now, option three we intanded to be let's don't 24 foreclose unnecessarily those commission options, especially 25 those ones which we think might be areas in which there are Od ALDERSoN REPo3 TING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE. S.W., W/.3HINGToN, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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new initiates or Vill be forthcoming.
So in developing in 2
our proposed approach we have stuck with option three but we l
3 have sharpaned up considerably what we meant by not 4
foreclose.
5 Let me go first to what we have concluded wi th 6-regard to siting.
Sitina was one of the four difficult 7
areas that we have had in this rule-making all along.
We 8
didn't want to go forward on cps that had obviously bad 9
sites.
That was the intent of flacging siting as an issue.
i 10 We have not been able to compare the six sites 11 thst are proposed against various criteria of risk.
Our 12 bottom line in that we see no barriers to issuing licenses 13 at these six sites.
I don't anticipate that the 14 Commission's siting policy initiatives will turn out to be 15 ones that will rule that these sites a re unsuita ble.
16 We have looked in sone detail at both the 17 demogra phic. statisics acound these six sites and at the 18 hydrology of them.
What you find in general stout these, 39 and this will be covered in more detail by a discussion on 20 siting, is that five of tha six sites fall within the 21 example of 0625.
ri o w, we intended that example as only an 22 exa mple and it is not our final policy.
In fact, the sixth 23 site falls within the example of 0265 when you consider the 24 demographics of the region in which the site is located.
25 We have also compared these sites, as you will
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1 note in Attachments 4 and i of your paper there, to all the 2
othe r sites.
" hat you find is tha t these sites do fall into 3
different categories.
Two of these sites are in the 4-category of the best sites in the co'untry.
Tso of them are 5
in average I believe and two of them are in slightly above 6
average.
Sone of these six sites fall into the top two 7
categories of demographic statistics.
8 So I have concluded that there really is nothing 9
about th ese sites that warrant a review or a comparison any 10 further in the process than what we have done.
So with 11 regard to siting I have come to the conclusion that we don't 12 need to establish new criteria for these six sites' based on 13 a hard look by the staff of where they all fall and I don't
[ 'h 14 anticipate tha t the Commission actions with recard to siting U
15 would foreclose the location of plants at these six sites.
16 Now, the next issue of not foreclosure is 17 foreclosure in the design ares.
At one time we had a lona 18 list of what design options we would like to be designed 19 conceptually so ss to be sure the design didn't foreclose 20 these options.
21 Taking the same sort of look at what do we mean by 22 not foreclosure, we have concluded there is only one area in 23 which I am really sorried about foreclosing possible new 24 Commission initiatives and that is what I would es12 the 25 civil structure of the building.
Almost in any other area q
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2 instrumentation and whatevar we eventually detarmine 3
necessary over the next few years while these plants are 4-under construction except for the fundamental civil 5
st ru ct u r e itself.
6 So we now propose to replace what we had 7
recommended with regard to our requirements in the degraded 8
core section with a requirement that says, No.
1, build a 9
strong containment.
I have become unenamored with very low 10 pressure containments, soma of which are represented in this 11 sam ple of six.
12 So I want to push the design strength of i3 containn.ents up to about the maximum that can be obtained
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14 with these concepts.
Wha t this means I think is to raise U
15 the desion of t he.*.a rk III 's a n d ica condensers that are on 16 this list up into the u0, 50 and 60 pounds that can be done 17 by increasing the thickness of the steel and addina 18 additional stiffners and this sort of thing.
Whereas I l
19 don't want the Commission to lose its ability at the end of 20 the rule-ma king on deg raded core tc conclude' that. stronger 21 containments a re necessary.
22 The other feature I sant to have in these 23 containments is a large pen etra tion installed that could be 24 used for filter containmona vent connections in that is the i
25 outcome.
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Mo th e two things tha t we have jelled on is bei'..g 2
required so as to not foreclose alternatives in this area j
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are stronger contair. ment and a large penetration such as a 4
three-foot penetration designed in to the shell rich t f rom i
5 the becinning so that it will be there for a connection.
6 So we see these as really the two areas in which 7
we would be concerned about real f oreclosure of ability to l
8 change the design of this plant in the future.
9 The one thing that I don't get from this approach 10 is a core catcher.
I had hoped that core catcher ideas 11 would be further sl'ong and would be something that we could 12 have addef to the list.
I still don't fael knowledgeable is enough about ultimate designs'and the effectiveness of core
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.h 14 catchers to put this in the list.
V 15 1 think that 'all o+.he r ini tia tiv a s tha t will be 16 coming over the next f ew y2ars can be designed into these 17 plants as s result of tha normal rule-caking.
By this I 18 mean equipment that could be desicned to withstand hydrogen gg fires and this sort of thing.
20 Finally, with regard to risk assessment, we have 21 had difficult in this area in the absence of a safety goal 22 and knowing what to do with the results that we have bad on 23 a partial risk assessment.
Eo we have decided to require i.
24 here is a commitment from these utilities to do a 25 comprehensive risk asress7ent, including probabilities and
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1 concequences, to be submitted at the Ci sta ge.
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This would identify for the staff those principal 3
contributors to risk and would allow us at that time to te i
4 able to work on those high contributorc for each one of the 5
plants.
This would sweep in by doing this sort of 6'
comprehensive risk accessment the citing factors such as*
7 they are at each one of these arete and would allow us if 8
necessary to make compensating design changes at that time l
9 in the plant.
10 I think these are the three principal constituents 11 of our recommendation.
Emercancy planning hai been a major 12 issue.
That has been taken care of by Commission action.
r3 The other requireman ts tha t were in the proposed rule have
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t.4 been recategorized where they do encompass all these that we 15 would require on operating plants.
16 90 this is what we intend tc re co m T.e n d tc the 17 Commission next week.
'4e would appreciate your views on 18 this approach.
I think what this does is provide come jg specificity, it.is doable, it is not an area in which we are
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20 requiring things by which there are no criteria about which 21 we can measure success.
22 In other words, what we have tried to do is
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1 23 identify an approach in each area where the utility e1.early 24 knows what it wants to do and we een litigate whether or not s
25 they have done this thing.
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What ! would propole to do from here after any.
2 questions is go into the details of each one of these three 3
areas.
4 With regard to the beefing up of the containment 5
strength and the penetration, we think that providing those 6
two fe:tures provides substantial potential for risk 7
reduction in that area and we are not foreclosing using a
those two as a result of th e Commission 's rule.
9 MR. OKRENT:
I would suggest we hear the detailed 10 section and then come back.
I think that was a very helpful 11 summary of where you stand now, Harold.
12 iR. DE!!TO N :
Thank you.
13 The first presentation is on the accident
.p mitigation aspects and Denny Ross will make that 14 15 presentation.
16 3R. ROSS:
The subccamittee on Tuesday had a 17 discussion on the various options as well as classes of 18 mitigation f eatures.
19 What Harold told you this morning was that as far 20 as being prescriptive and adding features two were 21 selected.
One had to do with making provision for 22 installation a t a later time should such installation be decided for a penetration.eufficient to accommodate a filte r 23 24 vented containment system.
25 At this time what we are talking about in effect
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is just a hole in the side of the containnent with a flance k
)
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2 suitably blanked off.
It is a blind flance, if you would, 3
that just sits there.
You design for it now so that you can 4
build it as you go.
It may be that over the 40-year life of
. 5 the plant it never gets used, er it may be that at some time 6
in the future when rule-making or other regulatory actions e
7 indicate that the flange would be opened and the filter 1
8 vented containmer*. system would be put in.
l g
The specificity that we think is needed at this l
10 time ir should be a 3/10th of a diameter hole, 3 feet or 30 11 feet, numbers like that.
12 What we did was make use of some studies that had 13 been done with the ongoing IIP study to see about what size A
U) 14 diameter uould be useful and, given that you had that
/
15 diameter penetration flanged off, what core melt sequences 16 would this give you protection for later on should a filter 17 vented containment system be used.
18 Based on the calculations from th e ZIP study, the 19 Zion and Indian Point stuty, it looks like a three foot 20 diameter is about the right size.
21 Fow, this is subject to refinement a little bit 22 because we a re still looking at the EU s and the 3WR effort 23 and this area has really just 7otten started.
This is just 24 a ball-park number.
It says it is 3 instead of 30 or
.3.
25 The sequences tha t you would accommodate vary from t
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the so-called slow to moderate overpressure avents, which
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2 would be the sequences involving loss of containment heat 3
sink or con tinued blow-do wn, sa y, f rom a 3'.fR to the 4
suppression pool but no active containment heat removal 5
syctem.
So the sequences that were protective both for the i
6 Mark III, the most dry containment, and the ice condenser 7
vary from hours down to minutes.
8 Some cf the saquences would involve larce energy
}
9 a dd it ions' in a matter of a few seconds, for example, the 10 steam explosion.
This barely discernable symbol is an 11 alpha.
This size penetration connected to a filter vented i
12 containment system would not protect against the steam 13 eXP10510D-
'T 14 There are several other sequences for which this 15 VCS would not protect of course.
That would be event "V"
16 the interfacino 10CA, the contingency that the plant wasn't l
17 isolated to begin with, and this really should stand for an
?
18 eipsilon, and a melt throu7h or the basemat penetration.
39 It is this degree of specificity that we think is j
20 probably enough for construction permit p ur p o se s.
21 NR. KEER:
In the parenthetical statement where 22 you cive the flow fate inside containment, that assumes what 23 sort of pressure outside, ttmospheric?
M3. RCSSs These?
24 uR. L'3RRs Fo, above that, the parenthetical 25
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remark at 100 psia pressure in containment.
t.
1 2
MR. EOSS You are talking about the blow-down 3
rate.
This would be blowing down to an atmospheric pressure 4
filter vented containment cystem.
There might be a little 5
bit of back pressure.
6 3R. KERR:
I wasn't trying tc disagree with you.
7 I just wanted to know what this assumption was.
8 MR. ROSS:
Right.
It is a worthwhile point.
Some 9
suggestions have been not blowing down to a filter vented 10 containment system but a second balloon of some sort that 11 was there just for this purpose.
If ycu had ruch a thing i
12 that could be slightly subatmospheric, but the flow is 13 critical and it wouldn't make any difference anyway.
r 14 The other aspect of the prescriptive measures for
(
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l 15 a d egraded or melted cores had to do with the containment 16 strength.
17 Mr. Vollmer was going to speak to this.
So I 18 guess I would pause and a sk if there are any questions on 19 this area.
20 KR. KERR You might discuss the location of this.
21 MR. POSS:
We looked at very roughly where the 22 penetrations should occur.
Our feeling now is roughly at 23 grade level.
ubviously you could put it below grade where a 24 good number of penetrations might be thought to take place 25 so they could oo into the auxiliary building, recondary
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^
1 building or fuel handling building.
2 chould a filter vented containment system be 3
neaded it is thou;ht that it would be located more or less 4
at groun level although some sunterranean concepts have d
5 been proposed.
So we thought that this is something th a t 6
would be derign specific and could be worked out with each y
a pplicant as the design progressed but roughly at grade 8
level.
Done correctly I would think that these blind flange g
concepts could be made in the strongert part of the 10 containment and should not represent an additional bggja there.
11 contributor risk just 12 The second half on the centainment ultimate 13 strength beefing up will be discussed by Dick Vollmer.
/h 14 3R. 70LLdER:
Thank you, Denny.
15 Since I don't have a slide I will fust speak from 16 here.
I wonid just like to amplify a little bit on what 17 Harold had saide 18 As Harold indicsted, we believe that substantial gg additional protection can be gained by containment 20 strengthening.
This protection would be afforded in the 21 areas of hydrogen turns and certain potential stream 22 exple sion scenarios.
It would give additiona' time to accommodate generation of noncondensible gases other than 23 i
24 hydrogen sty in the event of s : ore melt and it migh t well 25 give us protection a gainst scenarios that perhaps have not v
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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been well identified a t this time.
1
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t 2
?ather than pick a sequence or a specific 3
mechanism to define exactly what th a t pressure would he we 4
chose rather to try to set a pressure goal that would not 1
5 invalidate the basic containment design concepts that we tre 6
addressing in these near-term cps, namely, the ice co nd en se r 7
for the nanufacturing license f or the floatino plant and the
]
8 Mark III containment.
9 We feel that thest specific desiccs car be 10 upgraded by thickenino the shells, for example, by providing 11 ctiffeners ---
12 MR. KERR4 Excuse me, Mr. Vollmer.
13 EE. YOLL3EE8 Yes.
/
14 MR. KERRs You said rather than something, rather 15 than calculating a pressure you chose te?
16 MR. YOLLMESs R2ther than settting a pressure goal 17 based on, let us say, a specific amount of hydrogen 18 generation and subsequent burn, in other words, picking a jg specific scenartio or mechanism to set the pressure, what we 20 were looking for was what is the best pressure capability we 21 co:11d get out of there particular concepts without 22 invalidating the concept itrelf, in other words, without 23 making it impossible to be an ice condenser or a Mark III containment.
24 We feel that keepina the same equipment 25
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.1 arrangement, the same diameter and basically the same form t
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2 of the structure that one could design up to the order of 50 3
or 50 rounds by increasing the plate thickness, by putting 4
stiffeners in the shells, by modifyinc the geometry of the 5
head, for exampla, in the ice condenser from a rather flat 8
head to a hemispherical head and by design modifications t
7 where the basic containment shell is tied into the base 8
plate.
9 UE. TE334 Thank you.
I think,I understand.
10 MR. VOLLMEn:
Nev, obviously we have not reviewed 11 the designs to the extent of dcing any cost effectiveness of 12 doing this.
I think I would have to characterize it that in 13 our best judgment these things could be accommodated by N
14 these containment concapts.
I think we have examples of
'~#
15 containments tnat are of the sa me sire and indeed ha ve been 16 designed to the 50 or 60 pounts pressure range.
p 7 hat do we buy with the 50 or 60 pounds?
A few 18 weeks acc wa discussed wi th the Commission at their request 39 how much margin containment designs afford when you look at 20 ultimate capability.
21 It wa s our conclusion based on these analyses tha t 22 we had done by the staf f and a number of consultants that it is reasonable to expect that the containment design 23 24 integrity, that is, it would keep close to its basic leak 25 rate and hang together well, could be expected at b
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containment-pressures of two and a half times or so the
+
2 desian pressure.
3 So that if one were to design a cCntainment for, 4
say, 60 pounds it is not unreasonable to expect that up to 5
150 poundu it might have an ultimate capability.
It is not 6
s om e thi ng that we are desuning for, but certainly, speaking 7
of the code design of 60 pounds, one feels that you would i
8 have an ultimate margin of protect:.on significantly hicher 9
than that.
3 10 I quoss that is about all 7 have to say ut.less you 11 would like to speak to additional details.
Some Of the 12 structural people are here.
As I say, we did not do a 13 cost-benefit study.
It is conceivable that imposing a 60 14 pound design on these particular containmants that it would 15 he found better to another design or another type.
We don't 16 know that.
What we are saying is that we feel that such a 17 capability in terms of pressure could be accommodated by 18 these derign concepts.
19
?. R.
.f A R T :
r. 7o 11 m 9 r.
j-20 MR. VOLLMERs Yes, sir.
21
$3. 3 ARK:
In principle the pressure and the
~
22 volume are both egaally significant terms here.
You ara 23 just using 60 pounds f or all sizes, but for some small sizes that may not saem very reassuring.
24
- 3. R. VOLLXFR That would be another option.
In 25 s
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1 oth er words, raising these containments in the upper half N,)
2 would give you substantial additional free volume and would n
3 not chance the basic flocr plan or arrangement of the 4
containment.
So you could buy some margin in that regard.
5
?R.
ARK But you *rould have the same margin if 6
you had a bigger volume an1 a smaller pressure an compa red I
7 to your standard volume at 60 pounds.
8 MB. DENTOHa The way I itave approached this is not 9
to'zero in on the 50 or 60 pound s as a nything magic or on 10 the amount of metal / water reaction it could sustain, but !
11 asked Dick what could you reasonable push these existing 12 designs up to without invalidating that design concept and 13 it might include both wall thicknt3s stiffners and volume
[
h 14 increases in some sort of containments.
U 15 Then I ssked Tom Murley if you push those to the 16 limit and you juct accept whatever pressure capability would 17 result from that, and it might be in the range of 50 pounds, 18 and combine that with the filter containment vent 19 penetration what sort of risk reduction are you getting, and 20 maybe Tom would like to talk about this.
21 For some scenarios the strenghening contributes a lot and f some scenarios the filter containment vent adds 22 a lot.
lut taken together they seem to be the best we can "3
24 do in not precluding f uture o;tions f or civil structures.
I find it rather attractive to be able to push a j
25 s
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Mark III or an ice condencer up towards 50 and r ea lize then 2
tha t you have got a capability before failure of up above a 3
hundred.
4 So I am not trying to puch any given pressure, but 5
rather ask our structural engineers to look at these 6
containments to make sure that they are designed for as far j
7 as you can push that and that there are no weak lengths in 8
the penetrations of those thinos which would fail first.and 9
to assure that we have got a re all y high capability.
The j
10 thaory being that I don't want to foreclose an outcome of 11 the rule-making that might find that strong containments are 12 very desirabla.
If I had let these plants go with the 13 low-pressure design I would have in effect foreclosid~that
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14 option in certain critical design areas such as the ba.cemat b
15 tie-down.
16
.4 8. 2 3 E L L F o.s You have presented the concept of an 17 increased rontainment pressure in the sense that that can be 18 dealt with independent.
I am just curious whather it might 19 lead to systens interactions that might bring problems or 20 whether, for example, all of the instruments within 21 containment and se forth, will they perform as effectively 2
22 at hiqher pressures as they would have at what they were 23 designed to do?
24
- 33. VOLL2FF:
'4 e are talking about containment 25 pressures of levels that are already out there both steel Y\\
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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and reinforced concrete in the 60 pound rsnce.
p 2
MR. MOELLER:
Right, but you are imposing this 3
upon a system that was not intended originally to operate at j
4 that pressure.
5 "R.
VOLLMER:
You are saying, for example, the 6
back presrure on the torus or something like that?
7 MR. MOELLER:
Yes.
8
R. VO LLM ER :
I agree, that would have to be 9
considered and we have not done that.
10
'!R. ISERSOLE :
On tha t subject, along with this i
11 idea do you contemplate getting some of this rather 12 vulnerable and sensitive out of the containmen t which is nov 13 in it?
[
14 "R.
VOLLMER:
I think you have already exceeded t
i L
15 the level of detail that we have had the opportunity to 16 pursue, but certainly in such a thing one would have to look 17 at "he tots 1 system rather thsn just bssically the structure 18 itself.
39 MR. OKRENT:
I think it. night be useful to ha ve a brief discussion from your structural peop'le who have 20 21 something mors to tell us in the structure area.
22
.t3. VOLLM ER :
This is Franz Schauer who is Chief 23 of the Structural Engineering Branch.
MP.. SCHAUER:
We have looked at some of the 24 25 options and problems involved in extendino the strenoth of
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thase part.cular concepts into a higher pressure regime.
(b 2
What you of coursa obviously 7et as you go up in trying to 3
build in more strength capability, as you push the pressure 4
up farther you get into a sundry assortment of probicms.
5 For examole, if one takes a look at the Mark III's 6
in principle, they are down around 15 poj design pressure.
7 If one would want to mandate 20, you crobably could get in 8
that rance with existing deciens and sharpening the 9
analytical pencil a bit.
If one pusnes up in the range of to 25 or so or maybe aven to 30, you probably are going to have 11 to change, for e" ample, the head design for a tark III steel
'2 containment.
You probably sould have to make some increase 13 in shell thickness.
You might also have to beef up the 14 connection of the cylinder into the base plate.
\\
15 If you start pu.ching it into the 40, 50 and 60 psi 16 range, then you are looking at containments which cbviously 17 aren't a great deal different than what we have in the large 18 dries in that they are reflective of these particular 19 pressure regimes.
20 Mcwaver, we do have containments in the 40, 50 and 21 60 psi range which have plans that a ren 't greatly diff e rent 22 than the ire condensers in Mark III's.
23 MR. P E s
- hich have what did you say?
24 MR. SC9 AVER:
Ihat have basically the same layout, 25 the planned dimenciens of a Park III. In other words, it 1
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1 would not perturb the internal or external layout of the t
2 plant, ve don't think.
3 MR. K ER P r.
Thank you.
4 MR. MARKS As you take a given design let's 5
pratend the Mark III pressure containment with its present 6
pressure were to three times th at pressure with the same 7
dimensions.
!s the resulting structure better or less able 8
to survive seismic situations?
More sensitive, less 9
sensitiva, the same?
10 MR. SCHAUERs With the same dimensions otviously 11 it would survive seismic quite a bit better or at least as 12 good.
13 MR. MARK:
I vacn 't sure it was obvious, but I can
/i 14 easily believe you.
% )>
15 MB. SCHAUER:
Well, what you are saying is that 16 basically with the same dimencions in tho 50 psi range you 17 are new movina the pressure into a critical loading on most 18 of the shell, including the base.
So whereas for a jg particular event such as seismic where overturninc moment 20 high stresses at the base would be important you are no w 21 adding thickness a t the base for other reasons.
22 MR. MARKS The fact that it is heavier doesn't 23 make it more MR. ECHAUEas Well, there is an added mass which 24 25 has to be considered in the seismic reanalysis, but tha t ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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would.be a secondary co nsid er a tio n.
2 hR. GKR?NT:
Have you looked at the floatlag 3
nuclear plant to.see whether at the joint, or the base plate 4
or whatever it is called, you can go up to some pressure 5
such as you are talking about?
6 MR. SCHAUER:
'ie have not examined that in detail, 7
no, sir.
8 MR. XERE:
I guecs at this point I am not quite 9
sure what precsure capability you plan to require for the 10 Mark III.
Have you decided, or is it just going to be 11 bigger than it now is?
12
- 33. DESTCN As I said, I don't want to pick a 13 pressure.
It is really to ask the staff workina with each O
14 designer of these small containments to push it to its V
15 limit.
I think our best estinate is, isn't Dick, that it is will turn out to be in the range of 50, but I am really not 17 particularly concerned whether it is CS er 52.
I don't 18 foreclose the option of the Commiscion picking this 19 somewhere later.
20 MR. KERR I was just listening to his 21 presentation which it seemed to me war fairly lucid and I 22 got the impression one could so to 15 or 20 without any 23 serious modifications, but if one went to 50 you had quite a 24 different struture.
Did I misunderstand?
SR. SCHAUER:
I would say that when you ao into 25 o
ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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the 50 psi range, well, really you might want to look a t a f
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2 change in containment type even.
You might wcat to switch 3
from steel into concrete.
You probably are pushing the 4
range in which you are soing to have to, if you stick with 5
steel, use post-said heat treatments.
You are coming into 6
the limit of the shell thicknees without post-weld heat 7
treatments, for example.
8 MR. KERR4 Mr. Denton, in the con text c f what he 9
is saying, what do you mean by pusb.ing it as far as it can 10 be pushed?
11
'{ R. DENION:
I think Franz thinks that if you push 12 a Mark III ss far es you can you may decide that you want to 13 build somethinc else.
I wasn't going at it to build
/' T 14 something mise, but merely to ray, Franz, push it as far as U
15 you can and keep a Mark III, get the steel thickness up to 16 the maximum it can be witbcut r eq ui rin o post-weld hea t 17 treatment, put as many spacers snd backups as you can, and I 18 don 't know where that will come out until some of the more 19 detailed calculations would be done by the A/E's.
20
'! E. FERE:
It might be 30 or it might be 50, but 21 sach of these would be acceptable to you provided that it 22 had purhed the technology to its limit?
5!R. DENTON:
Righ t, pushed the basic shell 23 24 technology to its limit and make sure that the penetrations 25 are not any weak links in that shell.
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MR. KER9:
Is this going to be decided on a es 2
plant-by-plant basis or an engineering basis or do you know 3
yet?
4 MS. DESION:
Well, I think there are several of 5
those that have the same type containments, but I understand 6
tha t even the three Mark III's that are represented in this category of plants are differnt kinds of Mark III's.
7 8
4R. SCHAUER:
There are of course design 9
differences between all of the plants, but there is a high 10 degree of geometric similarity between all of the basic GE 11 st?el designs hs we see it.
12 MR. DENTON:
You get the maximum reduction thrauch 13 the filter containment vent concept if that proves 14 feasible.
Tow, the pressure strength is an additional risk s
15 reduction potential.
The direct answer to ycur question 16 would be, yes, I would push these virious designs as far as 17 you could push that design and I would tend to accept that 18 unless there was a design that had no potential to push at 19 all.
What I would want te see are shell thicknesses up to 20 one and three-cuatters and I would want to see a lot of 21 toinforcing a r.d so forth behind it.
I think that is going 22 to provide up toward 50 and a capability to failure up above 23 a hundred when you multiply that design by' the two and a 24 half.
What I am tryinc to get away from is a 12 to 15 pound 25 containment.
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1 MR. FENDER:
Is your approach inttaded to 1
t 2
establish the capability te handle some specific quantity of 3
fuel damage or just ar much fuel danage ar you can tolerate?
4 MR. DENTON:
The latter, just as much as it turns 5
out you could tolerate.
It is mora on the foreclosure.
I 6
am not trying to establish a new desi;n basis for 7
metal / reactor reaction, but to say that these plants are 8
ess en tially designed, their layouts are there and the 9
- ontainment and the piping is all designed in these areas.
10 Ta k e tha t basic design of the plant that they have and make 11 sure that the civil enginee ring structure around it is 12 pushed to its capability limit whatever we determine that to 13 be case by case and then add this penetration for the filter m(b i
14 containment vent.
15 If the filter containment vent turns out to be 16 workable, then it is not all that critical what the ultimate 17 design may be in a sense.
Then there is always the 18 potential to install ignite rs or even inert sore of these if jg it turns out to be necessary.
20 tiR. CKRENT:
If I could interject an historical 21 note, I think it was around 1976 plus or minus a year, in 22 one of the letters we wrote on a floating nuclear plant we 23 suggested that they look at increasinc the design pressure 24 cf their containment, among other suggestions.
I just 25 wanted to rall that to the attention of some of the new
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2 MR. " ARK 4 Max.
3 MR. CARBON:
Harold, when you push these 4
containments as far as you can in your words there, 5
certainly as you go farther and farther the cost is gcing to 6
increase dra stically.
What sort of a limit are you going to 7
impose or how are you going to impose some kind of a L
8 stopping point there in a sense?
9 MR. DENION:
I guess I base this position on 10 con versations over the past years with A/E's and no one will 11 say that tney can do it cheaply.
But I have had indications 12 from GPS, for example, that they could raise their design 13 capability considerably and still preserve the ice condenser 14 concept.
~
15 My concern is also about weak links in the 16 structure.
We went back and looked at Cook, for example, 17 and found that the weak link in that containment was not th.e 18 containment shell but rather a penetration.
To I think an 19 equally important part of this is to be sure that while we 20 have raised the fundamental shell membrane strength we also 21 vant to make sure that at the ultimate failure that none of
^
22 these penetrations are the weak links and tail.
23 I will rely on Franc for a cost estimate.
I think 24 you said in the range of $10 million, ten to twenty, 25 depending on how they choose to go up and it depends on
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ALDERSoN REPo9 TING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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whether it is reinf orced concre te or a f ree -sta nding shell
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2 and what it is presently desi0ned for.
This concept i
3 wouldn't touch those dry containments which are out there 4
4 very much becausa by and lar7e they tend to be designed in 5
this big range anyway.
6 I come back a t it that I am not trying to specify l
7 for all time any design criteria.
This will be set by tne 8
Commission 'during the rule-making on degraded core perhaps 9
for future p1&nts.
But here I sm just trying to get over 10 this hurdle of what do you do with this handful of plants in 11 the meantime when we don't quite know where the Commission 12 is going to come out on degraded core requirements.
1 13 M3. XTRE:
Is the implication tha t you probably
[h 14 won't do anything about the large dry containments at this s_ /
15 point?
16 "R.
DENTON:
Yes.
17 MS. PENDEP.s Marcid, the quertion cf inerting 18 involves some foreclosure considerations as well.
Are you 19 going to aske certain that inerting is r.ct foreclosed?
20
'E-DESION8
! 7uess I have in the back of my mind i
21 the schedule for these plants anyway is quite long.
In 4
22 other words, they have to get back in hearing and they have 4
23 to succeed or not in finally obtaining s CF.
Hopefully 24 before we havs actually built very many of these plants we 25 will have zerced in and settled many of these more profound
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questions is to where we want to go and we would still have 2
the option to do quite a bit with regard to equipment 3
placement and equipment desian inside the shell.
So this is 4
intended to be a decision to at least lat civil structure 5
construction proceed while we have the time to debate the 8
squipment location design issues us I am sure we will.
7
' r. R. MARK Harold had a question over here.
8 MR. ETHERINGTON:
I d id have a question but I 9
don't think I will raise it now.
J 10 MB. PURPLE:
We can offer a few remarks on what 11 the risk reduction potentials are from the two options of 12 penetrations and strengthen containment if you would like to 13 hea r tha t now f rom Dr. Murley.
'h 14 MR. CKRENT:
Let's hear briefly.
d 15 MR. MURLEY:
Harold asked us to take a quick look 18 at the potential f or risk reduction through these f ea tu res.
17 If you apprecista, we have had one day to look at this.
Our 18 staff and the research staff have looked at the dominant 19 sequences for core melt saquences for Grand Gulf, a Mark II'I 20 and for Sequoysh, an ice condenser, using the techniques of
)
21 WASH 1u00.
22 The dominant sequence f or Grand Gulf turns out to 23 be loss-of-heat sink which is in the neighborhood of four 24 times ten to the minus four per year core melt probability.
25 Here th e vant is the major feature.
In fact, that is really
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all you need to prevent this sequence from leadine to core b
2 melt.
3 MR. " ARK:
Dil you mean the core melt of the 4
co n taintaen t failure?
5 MR. URLEY:
Roth.
Just being able to relieve the 6
pressure ---
7 MR. MARK:
Avoids the core melting.
a void s the core melting, yes.
You 8
MR. F.URLEY:
9 have got time to restore your heat sink.
10 The next one on the list would be ATWS and that is 11 in the neighborhood of six times ten to the minue fifth per 12 year.
Here we expect tha t the ATWS rule when it is 13 implemented will reduce this frequency substantially.
We 14 haven't looked at how much but enough to remove it from the 15 dominant estecory.
16 The next one, about the same level, in fact 17 somewhat higher, is about nine times ten to the minus fith 18 is failure to replenish the coolant after a loss-of-coolant 19 accident of some sort.
20 3R. KERB.
Excuse me.
Does the number that you 21 gave for ATWS refer to a plant that has met the A?WS 22 requirements or a plant that hasn't?
MR. XURLEY:
A plant that has net.
Thic I 23 24 emphasize comes out of the so-called ?SS?AP effort which is 25 the application of the WACH 1400 techniques to other plants.
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MR. KERRs so is it possible that by this
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2 cantainment strengthening the licensee doesn't have to sorry 3
about ATWS any more or is that a separate issue?
4
,i R. MURLEY:
I would say it is a separate issue.
5 My point here is I am getting to a bottom line of 6
wha t this buys you.
7 MP. KERRs No.
I am looking at risk reduction and 8
you are telling me tha t I get this much risk reduction if ~I g
look at the plant before ATWS has been fixed.
Well, now, 10 presumably ATWS will be fixed before the plant goes into 11 operation.,
12 MR. MURLEY:
That is right.
13 MR. KERR:
So I am not getting any risk reduction
['
14 because the risk is not there.
15 MR. U R L E Y :
That 11. right.
16 1R. DENTGN I don't think we are claiming any in 17 this category.
Maybe the thing to do is brine ATWS into it, 18 but why don't we Jo to the tottom line.
MR. MURlEYa Okay, the bottom line is tha t for 19 20 this as well as the ice condenser it looks like you can get 21 substantial rick ceduction and the main benefit ic through 22 the vent.
23 For those sequences which lead to hydrogen 24 generation, and there are some dominant ones, the one ! just 25 men tioned, you will also need hydrogen control features.
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The strengthened containment buys you at least a few things 2
that we can see.
One is it protects against pressure pulles 3
from steam explosions, it protects against pressure pulses 4
from potential large hydrogen conflacrations and it gives 5
more options to the operator for a vent policy.
For 6
example, it would allow the policy of forbidding 7
anticipatory venting.
In other words, no venting before an 8
operator is sure that there is a serious core damage 9
accident.
10 I micht add with regard to the strength of the 11 containment it could very well be that one can get most of 12 the benefits of strengthening containment somewhat below 50 13 or 60 pse that were T~alked about today.
I think that is one
[}
14 thing we are coing to have to look a t over the next few v
15 months is whether you can nearly all the benefit from maybe 16 a 30 psi desien, for example.
17
.13. KEER:
Row, I thought that Mr. Eose said tha t 18 one of the things that wasn't protected against, well, I 19 guess that was the pe ne tra tio n.
It didn ' t against a steam 20 explosion.
You are saying that strengthing will crotect 21 against a steam explosion.
22 ME* MUELEY8 YOU*
23 MR. CKRE:iT By the way, do we have the report 24 from which you extracted these Grand Gulf numbers?
s h3. ?.UR1IY:
It just came in yesterday.
So it 25
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1 will be coming, yes.
2 MR. PURP1Es In the area of these two design a
modifications, strengthened containment and modifications, 4
we have no further preparad presentations.
The naxt~ topic 5
ve would move to would be the reliability studies.
6 "el Ernst.
7 MR. KERR Did we hsve a number for the risk 8
reduction other than substa ntia l ?
I was waiting for'the 9
bottom line and what I heard was substantial.
I am willing to to accept that, but I just thcught maybe you had 11 MR. YURLEY:
let's take the Grand Gulf figures.
12 If you accept the conditions under which this was done, 13 namely, using the WASH 1400 methodology and data, the loss
[
14 of heat sink probability, four times ten to the minus four 15 per ye?.r could be reduced probably a couple orders of 16 magnitude.
17 You than run into the next ene which is failure to 18 replenish the ecolant after a less-of-coolant a ccident which jg is nine times ten to the minus fdth, and that can be
\\
20 protected against to some degree.
So you have at least 1
21 bought an order of magnitude in the Mark III.
The reason I 22 bro ugh t ATWS up is it is presumed that that is fixed also.
23
- f. R. MERR:
I am not trying to disagree with you,
(
24 Mr. Murley.
I just wantad to know if I missed a number 25 because all I heard was substantial.
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3R. MURLET:
.Yes.
I migh t add on. the ice 2
condenser so I don't mislead you, on the ice condenser the 3
two dominant sequences have nothing to do with centainment.
4 They bypass ~ containment.
One is that interfacing system 5
LOCA, the so-called event "V".
We a re presuming that is 6
going to be fixed through design changes.
The second is a 7
loss-of oolent accident in which the Jrain ' plug between the 8
upper and 17wer compartment has been left closed during th e 9
refueling operation, and thst leads to a secuence in which 10 the containment sprays pump into the upper sump and it stays 11 there.
It doesn't drain down into the lower cump.
So you 12 lose recirculation and ultimately break containment.
That.
13 can be handled by design and administrative cha nges.
I 14 So presuming those two sequences are removed 15 through design changes, then one cets into the classical 18 so-called core melt sequences which is small LOC A with ECCS 17 failure, loss of feedwater and so forth.
With those en the 18 ice con denser the main benefit is, as I said, a vent, a 19 filtered vent and Vith some hydrogen contrcl as well.
20 MR. KERR:
But for the Grand Gulf thing you get 21 about an order of magnitude in risk reduction s is tha t 2.2 correct?
MR. MUELEY:
At least.
23 MR. KERR:
Thank you.
24 MR. PUPPLE:
Mel Ernst.
23 VT ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 SR. ERNST A s was :ru tioned earlier, the or.ginal
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2 proposed rule in the area of risk analysis' called for a 3
performance of sis;11fied reliability analyses on some 4
iden tified critical. systems; this being done'in a post-CP 5
mode.
6 The staff reconsidered this pesition and.ciscussed 7
with the subcommitt9e earlier this week a modification that 3
would leave open the possibility of requiring a full risk is study.
The reason-for this position a t that time was a 1
10 slight reluctance to commit at this time the performence of 11 a full risk st say because of the strain on PR A rascurces 12 that is currently beine noticed, competing priorities to 13 perform riaA studies on other plants and a desite to make O
14 sure we have a batter developed methodology or mora 15 standardized methodology in hand before making a regulatory 18 commitment.
17 Y sterday, however, ve did reconsider this problem 18 and decided to assign the priorities to these six plants at this time and to require a full risk stud y again post-CP, jg 20 bt+ require the study to be done and evaluated at the OL 21 review stage.
22 The details of exactly what is meant by a 23 f ul l-ri s t. study is still soscevhat in question because I 24 think there is a lot of experience to be gained based on 25 studies currently being performed by both the NEC and by the 5
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1 industry.
'4e would expect a reasonable, what you might
(
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call, state of the art or at laast profit by the experience 3
th a t will be gained over the next couple of years in this 4
area.
5 I would want to point out, hcwever, that implicit 6
in th e reauirement to perform a full risk study and to have 7
this analyzed at the OL stace I certainly think it is 8
p ruden t for the utilities to do at least what.was going to g
be require 1 in the originally proposed rule, and t ha t is to 10 do some simplified reliability studier while designing 11 systems so that they aren't surprised after they convert 12 design into hardware, that they aren't surprised by some 13 weak areas in reliability.
So I think inherently the
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14 reliability should be engineered into these systems before sj 15 it is converted to hardwure.
16
'13. CK3ENT:
Can I ack on this last point, are 17 those words somewhere in what you are recommending to the 18 Commissior., this inherent look at reliability and design?
39 MR. ERNSTs I think one ic talking about what it 20 would be in a rule what it would be in a rule which is a 21 requirement for a risk study versus what the ingredients of 22 this are and what one prudently would do in recognition.
25
.t E. DENTCNs It would be our intent to condition 24 the licenses to require this along the lines that Mel has 25 said.
In other words, this would be a license condition to I
v ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W. WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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perform this and incorporate _the fact.
What we don 't want
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rather.make it an integral ; art of the design f rom the l
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4 beginning.
Why knows, maybe by the timc *ke CL application 5
is received we will have a' safety goal to compare them I
6 against.
7 3R. OKRENTa Let me just ask a spr-cific point.
8 Dr. Murley mentioned a number of I think three times. ten to j
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g the minus four or loss of heat removal.
MR. KERS:
I h a ve got four times ten to the minus q
iu 11 four.
12 MR. OKRENT4 Four times ten to the minus four i
13 which is even larger.
I assume that was a best estimate.
I 14 don 't knov whether the other Ma rk III's and BWR V!'s 15 involved have the same design for heat removal or not but,
'/
16 if they do, it would seem to me that the staff would look 17 toward that being modified in desien independent of what Q
else was being done.
19 Similarly when you did your aux. feedwater studies 20 on PWR's you do get a rance cf relative r elia bili t ie s.
In I
21 some of the kinds cf systems you lookcd they were generally 22 ranked good u-der all categories and some were only average.
For PWR 's in vci ved do you propose to let them 23 24 design,.for exemple, auxiliary feedwater systems to moet the 25 minimum that you neve accepted or currently have accepted on k.
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opere, ting plants or would you somehow plan to encourage them 2
to get what locks to be the optimua configuration among 3
those you have looked at?
4 MR. DENTON:
I would remain silent.
We have 5
really no ability to assign our valuable resource to plants 6
which aren't built yet.
I would pick these plants up in 7
some yea rs f rom now, but I would not propose to try to 8 r ev iew this.
! vould much rather have my staff review 9
Limerick and Indian Point and Zion and others.
10
! would just make it a license condition to do 11 this study and, you know, sometime later we can come back 12 when we have get this technique developed and pick up ones.
13 I just would hate to get into a big harangue on this
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14 particular plant on a particula r number when I just don't
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15 have the resourcas and the information on an operating 16 plant.
17 I think we are coing down the road to start having 18 comprehensive risk studies from every plant.
If they make a 19 goof and thel come in with an auxiliary f eedwater system 20 that is unacceptable, sobeit, they won't operate a t the OL 21 stage.
M P.. POSS:
Dr. Okrent, let me follow up on that 22 2?
with an example.
What we have been talking about on Grand t
24 Gulf that the dominant contributuor to containment failure 25 is the slow overpressurination, one way that vs have talked
' /'h ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.u. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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about to avert this is to somehow vent the pressure.
k/
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licensees in General Electric, if it is within their scope, 4
clearly.could do during this construction process while they 5'
are going the risk assessment is to look at the passive 6
containment heat removal.
7 Ihe Mark III design has a pool of water elevrted 8
and it is somewhat ideal for this type of-feature.
The g
licensees in conjunction with GE could well decide, even 10 though they put in this flange or manhole cover that we have 11 talked about, they could well decide, based on the risk 12 studies that they would be doing, that they would not only 13 get a more reliable device in terms of it being a passive 14 containment heat removal that also gave this same order of d
15 magnitude but it could' conclude that it didn't hav? the 16 disadvantage of venting any of the nobel cases anywhere.
17 So it is this type of thing that would be the 18 burd.en of the licensee to do during construction.
Before 19 they have got the roof over the building they would i
20 obviously have to make some decision if they were going to 21 put in this passive containment heat removal.
22 MF. KERE:
I hop 9 you won't let Dr. Okrant talk 23 you out of making rick ctudies.
YE. 3355:
No.
I am just trying to point out one
(
24 20 possible benefit.
You mean talk us out of re qui rin g the
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1 licencoes to do it?
.i C, no.
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2 MR. KERR I think what you a re proposing sounds 3
to me like a good idea.
There is an interesting part of 4
this, it seems to me, that may occur when you ge'; to the 5
review stage, and that is since we alraady ha ve f airly good 6
hardware, as even th e Xemeny Commission pointed out, we may 7
be entering a mode in which the principal-risk contributors 8
will be maintenance errors and operator errors.
!t is going 9 'to be difficult to judge that for an individual plant at the 10 OL staae it seems to me.
I _ don ' t know what to do about it, 11 but it could be an int + resting part of the evaluation it 12 would seem to me.
13 MR. DENTONt What I see of the risk study mainly
/ ~
helping us is to catch outliers.
In doing do you would 14
'A'~'
15 hopafully pick those up.
16 MR. KEFRs I assume, for example, on Grand Gulf 17 with that loss of heat sink there is a probability that the 18 Mississippi River will go dry some summer or something like 19 that.
20 (lauchter.)
21 MR. PURPLEa We are prepared to move now to a 1
22 summary review of +he ctaff's prelininary assessment cf the 23 quality of the sites of these six cps followed by a bri ef discussion of the hydrolocy of thosa sites.
24 25 Dan Muller.
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(Slide.)
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2 MR. MULLEE:
This viewgraph t.as the same fiour.es 3
tha t are in Atrachment 5.
Just for clarity on the screen I 4-have divided it into two separate viewgraphs.
5 Cr. Ckrent requested that we do a comparison of 8
the illustrative criteria in NUREG 0625 with the six 7
neur-term construction permit sites.
8 I would like to underline what Harold said g
earlier, and tbst is that these numbers that we usad in 10 NUREG C6 25 were clearly illustrative criteria just to i
11 illustrate the concept and there was no technical basis for 12 these numbers.
In fact, in a rew minutes ! will discuss 13 what we are doing relative to coming up with more definitive 14 numbers and it turn out that those numbers are somewhat less
(N iN' 15 res trictive than these.
18 Nevertheless, the NUSEG C625 recommends 100 per 17 square mile or half of the regional population density, 18 whichever happans to be larger.
Then I have ccmpsred with j
19 this with the six sites.
As you will notice, the only site 20 that ir higher than a hundred per square mile happens to be 21 Pilgrim.
22 Then we go to tne regional popula tion density 23 approach and it turns out the regional population density in 24 the State of Lassachusetts, we chose the state as the s
25 region, th e regional population density is 363 and that J
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compares with 122.
So in that regard Pilgrim still meets
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2 the illustrative criteria.
3 Similarly, from 5 to 10 miles all of the sites are 4
less than 150 per square mile, and from 10 to 20 miles all 5
the sites are less than the 400 per scuare mile.
6 MR. OKRENT:
Excuse me.
This peints out a problem 7
in this use of regional criteria because there ir, no good 8
way of choosing a region if Ecston seceded from 9
Massachusetts and became a state.
t 10 (Laughter.)
11 3R. ZULLER Then Massachusstts would have a much 12 lower popula tion density.
13 MR. OKRENT:
You could built one richt in Boston.
/N 14 (Lauchter.)
U 15 XR. MULLER:
Unless another site were available 16 somewhere.
17 ZE. DENTON:
One other facet about all of these I 1g think, Dan, is that when these applications came in we did 19 have in place our Reg. Guide u.7 and our look at alternative 20 sites if they tripped the popula tion den sit y.
So I presume 21 here that even the Pilgrim site if it tripped the 500 22 anywhere did get a comprehensive look at the alternatives 23 that were in that area to Pilarim which was not true for
(
24 some of the much older plants.
25 So regardless of the number that we might pick in
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1 an area, the real test if are there any obviously superior
/9
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2 sites that could be. found in that -service a rea.
l 3
(Slide.)
4 ME. :iULLEP s Going on to the other part, this, l
5 discusses the maximum sector total population, the sector 6
being a twenty-two and a half degree sector.
7 The first column is zero to five miles.
The 8
allowable population within that lector would be 3,925.
As g
you see, all sites meet it except Filgram.
However, Pilgrim 10 meets it on a basis of. region.
11 Then going on, the next column is 5 to 10 miles.
12 You would :ompare 17,6 70 wi th,the actual sector popula tions 13 for all of those sites.
'"h e y a re all below anti.similarly 14 for 10 to 20 miles.
All of the sites meet the example of 15 criteria.
16 What I would like to do now is just give you a 17 little bit of insight as to where we are going rela tive to 18 coming up with more definitive numbers with some technical jg basis.
20 We have done a rather detailed study of the risk 21 from a spectrum of accidents with the upper limit accident 22 bei ng one involving a core melt and release of a relatively 23 large f raction of all of the fission products t.nd then other
.24 accidents to test also.
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1 with now appear to be in the range of something like 500 per
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' 2 square mil 3 out to about 30 miles, however, with some 3
additional rectrictions very close to the plant, like within 4
about two siles or so because this is where the prompt 5
fatalities would dominate-6 So in order te decrease the number of prompt 4
- 7 fatalities we would put some additional limits within about 8
two mi.1.es of the plant.
But thereafter it seems like 500 9
per square mile or a number in that range and possibly even 10 higher is certainly feasible.
11 MR. " ARK 4 Excuse me, I missed what this 500 was, 12 people, man-rems or prompt fatalities?
13 MR. MULLERa People per square mile.
i 14 XR. 30ELLER:
To help me understand tha first 15 slide that you put up, for Massachr<etts are you saying 18 there are /26 people per squ'are mile for the state on the 37 a ve ra ge ?
i 18 MR. MULLER:
Yes, 363 times two.
j 39 MR. MOELLER4 That is the average for the entire 20 sta te ?
21 MR. MULLER:
Yes.
MR. XCELLER:
Thank you.
22 23 MR. OKRENT:
I assume you will act assume that 4
silence means assent.
24 25 MR. MULLER:
Yes.
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- 23. OKREt;T Dr. aoeller undoubtedly wi31 vant to r
4 2
explore with. you your thinking on siting when you are ready.
i 3
XR. MULLER Yes.
The numbers that I am giving 4
vou are just rome of our preliminary thinking.
What we will S
probably come up with is considerably less rectric;ive than 6_ the. numbers in the NUREG.
7 MR. CKRENT:
I thought that it was worth herring 8
the trend of their thinking because if they were going to 4
9 still lower nur.bers tnat would,be of interest maybe to one 10 or more of these sites or if tneir
- t. rand is toward higher 11 numbers.
12 MR. KERPa I think it is interesting that' 13 Bostonians are vorth only about half of the people.
I had
(
34 suspected that but 15
( La u gh t er.-)
16 MR. MULLER:
No comment.
17 MR. DENTON:
I don't want to put er awful lot of o
18 weight on the comparison with 0625, but we do it to show you 19 that those things are not way ought in front of 0625.
I 20 don 't consider them outliers taking as a category all the 21 sites we have approved.
22 I would like to recall yeur attention to one of i
23 these last enclosures where we have grouped all the sites that have ever seen considered by us seriously in the five 24 25 Categories.
You will find that none of these six cps that
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we are talking about fall in th e tuo highest categories.
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2 So I have come to the conclusion that while we may 3
well develop much better siting criteria for the f.utare, and-4 there is some variability among the six, I think it is not 5
unreasonable to consider these in the bottom half and not 6
warranting any special treat? mat at this time.
7 In fact, two of these sites before us are among 8
the best sites we have ever seen with regard to g
d e r.o g ra p hic s.
Two are in the average and two are just 10 slightly above s'v e r a g e.
11 5R. FURPLE:
Our final speaker will be Dick 12 Vollmer'to review the hydrology considerations that ara in 13 Eaclosure 5 of the handout you have.
e~N 14 ME. VOLLMEE.
One of th e recommendations of the j
15 Siting Policy Task Force was that there be reasonable 16 assurance that indictive measures will be possible to limit 17 or mitigate groundwater contamination from Class 9 accideats 18 within the immediate vicinity cf the site.
19 The committee had asked us to take a look at these 20 particular sites with rescect to hydrology and possible 21 3roundwater contamination.
22 Cur evaluation of this is presented in Enclosure 5 l
23 site assessments.
The summation of this discussion y
(
24 indicates that for sites such as Alleas Creek and Black Fox 25 it would take we feel on the order of tens of years to
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contaminate groundwater for the nearest po table source.
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2 Pebble Springs and Perkins we are locking at the order of i
3 200 or so days, half a year or : omething like that.
For 4 -Pilgrim we fasi that 5 0 ds ys is a reasonable estimate f or 5
the shortest possible time to reach contamination of usable
-6 water.
7 W e feel that these times would allow interdictive 8'
measures to be taken.
In the event of a ma jor accident 4
9 these interdictivs mearures would of course b+
very site 10 dependent, such things as pumping out of the ground water, 41 just lowering the table and depressing it around the site so 12 that the flow is into the wells, construction of slurry 13 Walls or some sort of a pressure greuting, again dependent
[N 14 on the site.
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'J e feel that these sites do not foreclore any 16 these options and therefore tha t from the hydrological 17 consideration they would he an acceptable site in the event 18 of a Class 9 accident.
i 39
%y hydrologist did not show up.
I would try to 20 answer any more detailed questions, but the sites are 21 discussed in some detail in Enclosure five.
ME. aAEK:
You didn't mention Skagit.
22 MR. 70LLMERa Here he is.
23 (Mr. Bivins enters room.)
24 s
MR. ARK You did not mentien Skacit.,
25 I
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1 hP. VOLLMER:
I am'scery.
Ekagit, s't the current 2 ' site we are talking about three years or so f or Skagit.
3
/R. HARK:
That is to a well, but I imagine that i
^4 people drink from the rivar.
l 5
MR. VOLLMI?:
W911, they are mos:nq the site.
6 Have you looked at the propcsed location?
7 2R. EIVI:iS
'de have not looked at the proposed 8
location.
g' MR. MARK:
Okay.
So it is no longer Skagit.
It 10 is reall) Richland anyway.
11 SR. CXRENTs I can't tell from what you have said 12 and also really from the more detailed information than the 13 several pages describing this whether everything is in fact h
14 in a situation tnat you could take such nieasures in an V
15 effective way that it would be practical to do given the 16 event.
17 Also, I can't tall from what is there, although it 18 may be there, whether one is talking about sort of a larger jg source, even though it may be three years, but then you have 20 got a big problem, or it is one year b ut it is a small 21 problem.
Do you understand?
I don't have any se.nse of how 22 to go from the information presented to a clear decision 23 judgment and see by what criteria I might arrive at that decision.
Can you help me in a brief '.ay?
(
24 MR. VOLLM"R Lat me give ycu a very b rief answer 25
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and then ask :lli to address it more specifically.
~s 2
I.think it sort of goes along the same way that 3
these sites do in our ranking and population density.
These 4
aren't amonc the. sites that it appears that we would have 5
any major hydrologic problem in the event of a Class 9 6
accident.
Rather, they fall in the grouping of sites that 7
would be an average to good.
8 Is that not true?
9 ER. BIVINS:
Mr. Chairman, I am William S.
10 Bivins.
I am the Section Leader of the Hydrologic 11 Engineering Section of the N?.B staff.
12 The initial evaluation or ascessment of these 13 sites was done in lieu of a more detailed study such as 14 suggested in the Action Pla n III-D-2.
The analysis was of j
i 15 very conservative estimates of permearility gradients in 16 order to determina groundwater transit times to the nearest 17 surface water body or user.
18 Ihese snalyses ignored absorption or radionuclides 19 in the sour;e.
It ignored the delay in cetting the fluids 20 or in leacning the solids from the melt-through type 21 accident.
22 These numbers which you have then represent a 23 very, very conservative upper-bound estimate of the 24 groundwater travel time end not necessarily the nuclide 25 travel time.
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We have assumed the'cosition that these sites
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2 should receive a more detailed evaluation'to respond in a 3
more realistic manner, Dr. Okrent, to your question about 4
how bad the concentrations migh t be, whether they are bad at 5
all or whether they will even get off site.
6 What we have don? is taken in upper bound and 7
assumed if they get off site this is the minimum time that a
a n y t!)f.n g could happe n in a rather conservative and g
unrealistic manner.
10 Even with these times, and based upon studies 11 which are being done by Arconne studying the physical 12 interdiction methods which might be used which are 13 construction of slurry walls, grouting curtains and this 14 sort of thing, it is our conclusion that even with this 15 highly concervative analysis there is still time to do 16 something after the accident.
17
".R.
OMBENT That may be so, but I must say I am 18 somewhat doubtful that if you had 60 days er 90 days to do 19 som e thing that it would be straightforward to get to the 20 vicinity where you needed to do something.
3R. BIVI"S Ch, we are not saying it wouldn't b e #'
21 22 a catastrophe to have a melt-through at any site.
What we 23 are saying is that these sites don't a ppear to represent an unusual situation such that we should preclude going ahead 24 25 with them and developing a nes policy in this area.
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Certainly core melt-throughs in the groundwater 2
are a serious problem.
We are not saying that is not a 3
problem.
What we are saying is with regard to the 4
characteristics of these sites I den't see anything 5
particula rly unusual tha t would be added greatly to sccietal 6
risk if we add these six into the existing population of 150.
4 7
1" think the whole issue of the consequences from 8
groundwa ter 1 7e that does need more exploration in 9
general, snd I am sure that is going to be a continued topic 10 of development in emergency planning.
11 5R. OKEENT4 Mr. Chairman, I suggest we take a 12 break and then hear from the representstives of either the 13 NTCP applicante or the manuf acturing liransees may wish to 14 offer comments and then cet back to a general discussion.
('
15 MR. MARK 4 Sobeit.
We will take a ten-minute 16 break.
37 (Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)
MR. MA3K:
Before goinc ahead with the new 18 39 sta t emen ts Harold Denton would like just a Tiin u te 's time.
XR. DENION.:
I would like to clarify my use of the 20 21 word " limit " in terms of beefing ur tha containment 22 capability.
I wasn't sufficiently precise.
What I really meant was treserving the basic 23 i
24 layout of the plant and using the same tyce of materials and c on str uc tio n techniques tha t they had planned, do those 25 ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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1 things that are reasonable to increase the capability of the 2
structure.
Ey'that I had in mind thinos like plate 3
thickness, stiffeners and b ra ce s, increased size of rebar 4
and strength of concrete.
I didn't mean coing to titanium 5
shells or esoteric methods because that is too open ended.
6 I thought that between us and the individual 7 _ licensees we would be able to arrive at some practical 8
increase within those convantional restraints.
I wasn't 9
implying that it was completely open-ended as to what the 10 pressure would be.
11 The actual number may be different in each case, 12 pending ca the types of materials.
I would be catisfied 13 with that provided they are up in a range which pro vide d
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14 ultimate f ailure ca pability above a hundred pounds sort of 15 thing.
16 The reason I have hecitated to pick any number is 17 I didn't want the imagination of engineers just to stop 18 there.
I wantd them to actively look at ways to increase 19 the strength without thinking that any particular number was 20 a go or no-go number.
21 1R. OKRENT:
Harold, if I were to look in the 22 January 9th version would I find the right words?
"R.
DENTON:
I think in there we say siy.ty becauce 23 24 that is the number that our staff had estimated would result 25 from this kind of an approa ch, but I think the number might u
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vary a bit, depending on the individual design that 1:r 1
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2 before us.
I ha 9 got to find a way to sta te tha t with more 3
precision and still recognize the likelihood of differences L
L.
4 among the types.
5 M R. OK'4 EN T s Do you think sometim e toda y I could j
6 get what you think those words in the January Sth version 7
should be no January 9th?
8
~
MR. PENTON:
Let me hear what ind ustry thinks they 9
vill provide end then ': will see'where I come out.
10 dn. OKEENT4 All ri g h t.
11 Mr. Chairman, as far.as I know, M r. 'lalker f rom 12 Offshore Power Systems and Mr. Lowenstein, who is a legal 13 representative t'or Housten Lighting and Power, a re prepared h
14 to make statements.
I don't know if there are others.
G 15 MR. MAEK:
'n' o u l d you call tham up then.
16 MR. CKC'liT:
Is M r.
'a' a lk e r h e r e ?
17
.iR. VALXF.Es I im going to use viewgraphs just to 18 save time and allow me to 7et through some of my material 19 more quickly but I won't particular refer to th'em.
j 20 Before addressing generally the questions on the 1
21 NTCP/ML policy statement I would like to just review for you 22 quickly th e status of our application.
o 23 NRC staff has issued a:/ RER in three sup;iements 24 and they have been reviewed by AC'
- ACRS has issued 25 interim letters on our application, including a letter on D
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1 the core ladle.
The need for at least one more SER 2
supplement following staff review of the CPS responses to 3
tha T5! Action Plan is an ticipa ted.
4 Such respenses were submitted as a topical report S
last July and copies wers provided to ACRS at that time.
6 The only item not addresssd in the topical report was 7
degraded core rule-making, an item which I shall address a
later.
1 3
With regard to the hearings, we have completed our 10 hearings except for TMI matters on all existing 11 contentions.
Both we and the staff have filed partial 12 findings with the Hearing Board.
So except for TFT matters, 13 sur licensing Iaview is essentially complete.
/'
14 I would now like to, if I could, address the k
15 proposed rule and the two issues we have talked about here 16 today.
17 First, just generally a comment on the pr) posed 18 rule.
We at ^ffshore Powar Systems, as wa s mentioned 19 earlier, commented on that rule and indicated that we 20 pref 9rred Option one, although de did believe that either 21 option one or option three could be used for resumption of 22 plant licensing in the near future with regard to ultimate 23 plant safety.
'4e divided the requirements in the pro;osed rule 24 into five general ca tegories.
As yo u will notice, two of 25
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them are not applicable to us.
We responded to those s
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2 related to plant design administrative controls, as I 3
mentioned earlier in our July submittal.
We generally 4
lumped within degraded core conditions those items that had 5
to do with degraded core itself and th e reliability 6
engineering aspects of the review.
7 Now, as ACBS is a ware, we have taken significant 8
action with regard to degraded core conditions.
'a'e h a ve g
complied with the NEC staff requirement to add reft'ctory 10 ladle benea th the reactor vessel.
The purpose of this 11 device was to delay the release of core debris to the basin 12 in which the FMP floats for sufficient time to permit 13 interdictive actions to be taken.
[4 14 In addition, there was a substantial evaluation
\\nj) 15 performed regardicq degraded core conditions as a result of 16 questions posed by ACES in a letter of July 25th, 1979.
17 In addition, tnere were included questiens dealing 18 with the subject of hydrogon build-up in the containment P
19 building followinc an accident and the flexibil ty in the 20 desian to secommodate desian changes for mitigating the 21 effects of degraded core accidents.
22 With regard to degraded core accidents we have hestd discussed this cerning two e.spects or two potential 23 24 requirements, one being strengthening of the containment and 25 the second the addition of a penetration, that would provide
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vent capability were that capability to be needed later in 2
the design and review process.
3 In the cubmittal that we provided to the staff and l
4 -ACSS a little over a year ago we reviewed there the pressure 1
5 capacity of the containment.
Our particular containment has 6
a design pressure of about 15 pounds.
As a part of our 7
degraded core evaluations we looked at that the capacity of 8
that containment might be and arrived at a number of about g
u5 pounds.
10 Ve also looked at which regions of the containment 11 would limit pressure capability.
There was a picture of the 12 containment in that submittal which I don 't have a viewgraph 13 of today.
Genkrally what we concluded was that it would be
[
14 practical for us to raise the capacity of the containment to
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15 about 65 to 66 pounds, about a 50 percent increase in 16 capacity.
17 MR. SHEWMON:
That is not the so-called design 18 basis but that is what you think the yield is?
19 MR. WAiKIR4 That is the capacity, that is correct.
20 We have not looked at what we could do with 21 respect to design conditions, mainly appropriate codec and
~
22 standards at all.
We don't know what that capacity is.
23 Certainly a large increase in that number, I think it is 24 apparent, is not likely to be realized.
Those are the kinds of statements we have raade to 25 a
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1 both the staff and the ACES.
We have not indicated that we 2
acrommodate particularly largs increases in pressure 3
capability.
4 MR. BENDER:
Why is that, because the shell 5
thickness is limited already or what?
6 MR. WALKER:
'Do you want to address that, Blair?
7 MR. HAGA:
Blair Haga, Offshore Power Systems.
8 The basemas is the area of most difficulty.
You will recall 9
thtt we do not have a reinforced concrete mat but we have a to stiff ened steel structure for a basemat.
LiteralJy there is 11 just so murh steel beams and stiffenere in there that it is 12 very difficult to add any more.
13 I am not saying we can't beca use we ha ven 't looked 14 for a while, but I don't expect we can add a lot more.
It N
15 is just a physical problem of putting beam stiffeners and is getting welders in there t-o put it together, i
17 MR. EENDER:
It is not the chell then that is 18 limiting.
It is that complicated structure cown at the 19 bottom.
20 MR. HAGAs The cylindar to basemat joint is the 21 next problem we run into.
As I recollect, that is dood for 22 71 pounds per our evaluation, yield strength.
I am not sure
- 3 we can go much higher there.
That is a very difficult spot.
NR. SENDER:
I agree.
24
'!R. W ALKER :
With respect to penetrations, you 25 k
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might recall that as part cf our liquid Lathways evaluation
.h 2
and as part of the July submittal we looked at the 3
possibility of adding penetrations with some kind of 4
prassura control 19vice that would permit us to vent from 5
the containment to the basin in which the plant floats.
6
'4e looked and thought in terms of multiple 7
penetretions, but at least we have looked at that kind of a 8
concept enough to believe that it is feasible for us to 9
incorporate that in the design.
10 However, we would urge that the rule or policy 11 sta temen t provide f or either ringle Vent or multipla vent 12 capabilitr.
'de f eel that multiple vent capability might be 13 a better way for us to go.
So we would prefer to have that (A) 14 flexibility or option in the rule the way it ic eventually v'
15 phrased.
18 F.eg a rdi n g reliability analysis, we believe that 17 reliability evaluations could and should be f actored in to 18 the design process.
As part of the final design we have 19 committed to parform reliability evaluations for systems 20 important to safety already.
21 The objective of these analyser would be to 22 establish overall cystems reliability estimates and to 23 identify the principal contributors to potential systems 24 failures.
Particular attention would be paid to 25
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identification of operdtor errors, common mode, single
(
2 failura and test maintenance outages which contribute 3
sig nific antly to the system failure probability.
The 4
results of these analyses will form tha basis fer 5
appropriate systems design modifications if raquired.
That 6
is, we would intend to utilire the analysis as part of our 7
design grocess in the final design.
8 We committed to submit these reliability analyses g
to NRC.within two years after the issuance of the l
10 manufacturing license.
11 The evaluations mentioned hare this morning of 12 course would be more extensive.
There was discussion of how 13 extensive they migh t be and the indication from the staff A
)
14 was that that would be determined after the current
/
15 generation of analyses are completed.
It is difficult to 16 say what tae level of that analysis would be and wha t our 17 eventual involvement might te.
18 I would like to comment on the staff 's rather 19 cursery evtluation of risk reduction this morning that was
- o talked about in terms of a penetration.
I guess I detected 21 sort of a mismatrh, particularly on the ice condenser 22 plants.
23 There was nn early statement that the dedicated i
24 penetration thet micht be used for venting would have a vent 25 area such tha t you could handle transients fron a ceriod of yb ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 days to perhaps a few minutes.
There would not be e
Y 2
sufficient vent area to handle the very short-term
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3 transients associated with steam explosion or a very rapid 4
pressure rise.
Those would of course require very, very 5
large vent areas.
6 At least I heard an indication on ice 7
condenser-like plants that once you had cleared up the 8
problems associated with the "V" sequence failures and the g
coincident loss of spray capability, the HF type failures, 10 that these systems then might be useful to mitigate the 11 effects of steam explosions and rapid transients.
12 Ihere seems to me to be a cismatch in what we are 13 expecting out of these systems.
At least in our look at the
('~')
14 ice condenser concept we would not classify risk reduction V
15 capability as significant.
In fact, we would classify it as 16 little, if any.
17
'de feel that there really ought to be another look 18 at what those types of systems might provide with respect to 19 risk reduction at least for the ice condenser plants.
20 ME. BENDER:
Setting aside the steam exp1 sion 21 question, what kind of reliability assessment would be 22 needed to establish whether the concept would be ao.eptable 23 or not from the public safety standpoint?
Have you tried to 24 figure out what you would do if lou going to put in a vented 25 containment to show that it was a useable device when it was i r'g
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needed?
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- 33. NALXER.
Yes.
I think there are a couple of l
3 aspects.
The one you just mentioned was taking a desien and 4
looking at its reliability with respect to its capability to 5
perform whan it was needed.
The sscond aspect ~of that is 6
looking at both the risk Denefit and the risk reduction 7
a vailat ie from such devic c which requires quite a detailed 8
risk reduction study anc~
.cicularly a good understanding 9
of the containment failure mode and' the cen tainment failure 10 eventries.
11 MR. 3 ENDER:
You haven't done those exercises yet, 12 I take it, except in a cursory way?
13 MR. WALKER:
No, we have not.
As you right know, j
g 14 we have been somewhat involved in the Indian Point and Zion
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17
- 35. SHEJMON:
If we can stay with that for a 18 minute, you have rome in or you have looked at the option of 19 the vented containment.
For what particular scenarios or 20 accident scenarios was it sttractive for and weuld it be 21 useful?
22 MR. WALKER Well, for those kind of sequences 23 where you had a relative longer term build-up of pressure.
24 We agreed wi th the ne.nbers that the staff mentioned today.
25 It-would be useful for sequences where the pressuro was
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rising over a period of day s or perhaps down to a few
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2 minutes.
If you get shorter-term FJessure pulses the system 3
simply doesn't have enough capacity to vent rapidly enough 4
to handle those cypes of pulses.
5 6
4 7
8 9
i 10 11 12 13 j
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1 MR. SHEWMON:
As part of the staff presentation of (A\\
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2 criteria, there was a short-term limit that they used, is 3
that right, on the effectivenees of having large capacity 4
for short-term 5
MR. WALKEE:
We scree with the staff idea tha t if 8
you have dedicated penetration, ycu have to limit the sire 7
of the penetration to something reasonable.
Three-foot is 8
not a bad ballpark number with regced to that.
9 The part of the staff prese n ta tio n that I have 10 problems with is let's not attribute risk reduction 11 capability to the cystem for the short-term pressure pulses, 12 because it simply will not provide that.
13 2R. CKRENT:
I am still unclear about what you are
~x 14 saying about these shorter transients, and what you think
/
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N-Y 15 the staff said.
I am not sure tha t it is important to this 16 discussion.
If you think it is important to this 17 discussion, I would like to have it ela bo ra ted.
If it 18 isn't, I am wdlling to wait.
39
%R. WALKER:
I can tell you what I thoucht I heard 20 the staf f say.
d 21 I thought I heard the staff say that it would 22 provide for ice condensor containment, risk reduction 23 capability for steam explosion, and for the hydrogen burn 24 transients.
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MR. ROSS:
Let ne clarify that because I think we 25 i
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said the oppocite.
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2 The slide said th a t it would not provide 3
protection for steam explosion, but the steca explesion was 4
felt to be of low probability relative to the others.
It 5
would also not provide protection for rapid hydrogen 6
burning, and for that purpose, along with some of these 7
other measures, it may wall be that some controlled ignition 8
system would be necessary to preclude rapid burning of a e
large portion of the containment volume.
10 MR. WALKER:
I am sorry, Mr. Ross.
I thoucht I 11 had heerd something different.
12 The last item I would like to comment on is one 13 that we have felt strongly about, and which has not been 14 discussed.
I would still like to make a comment on it.
\\
15 Also discussed in the pecpoced hTC-PT1 rule is a 16 recommendstion that all applicants be required to reviaw and 17 identify deviations from the Eh? acceptance criteria.
We do i
18 not believe cuch a preposed Shi audit is necessary, or that l
19 it will contribute mearurably to plant safety.
9e believe the ESP ir a guide sta tement by the FRC 20 21 sta ff to itself and to the public of how it conducts 22 technical review of its applications.
For the most part the i
23 SRP was published in 1975, followina many.nonths of I
24 p re pa ra tion, which is the same timeframe as our review.
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the StP, there is substantial reason to believe that our 2
technical review and that of other NTCPs was performed in 3
the same manner as stated in th e SRP.
4 For any of the NTCP-ML plants to begin operation, 5
the entire technical review process will be rereated for 6
final plant designs.
At enat time any questions of 7
conformance with SRP can be decisively answered.
1 8
An SRP pilot program would require the commitment 9
of substantial staff and applicant rescurces.
The program 10 of reactor safety would be bei ter served by utilizing t h es'e 11 resources in more productiv e ef forts, we believe.
12
?. R. OKRTNT:
Perhaps I should make a comment.
13 At the beginning of the committee meeting on 14 Tuesday, the staff said that they wished to diverce 15 considerations of the SRP comparison from what we were 16 talking about Tuesday.
]
l 17 MR. EOSS:
I am sorry, I did not hear that.
Would 18 you repeat it please?
19 MR. OKRENT:
On Tuesd ay morri'q, I believe the 20 staff advised the subcommittee tha t it dished to divorce the 21 question of comparison with the SRP from what we were 22 discussing at the subcommittee meeting and the full 13 committeee meeting with regard to the NTCP plants.
Is tha t j
24 correct?
25 MR. ROSS4 That is correct.
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MR. 'KRENT:
There is an issue here, but we have 2
been asked not to include it as part rf wha t we are doing 3
here, and it was my plan that if and when we write comments, 4
ve would so state.
That is why I chose not to identify to 5
the committee, and also chose quite consciously to have it l
6 not discussed in detail by the staff.
7 The committee rTy want to rsise the question, but 8
I will not raise it.
9 MR. KESRs At wha t point is the Commission beinc 10 asked to approve this NUSEG?
11 MR. CKRENT4 Maybe you want to explcre with the 12 staff something in this regard, I don't know.
13 MR. PURPLE:
At about the same timef rame that the
"'T 14 draft NUE?G 0718, the draft requirements for CP and ML's
[V 15 vent into the Federal Register and out for public comment, 16 the NRC in a parallel path also went out for public comment 17 on the ides of requiring f or all operating reacters, for all 18 CP holders, and for cending cps to be required to review gg their plants against the standard review ;14. 3.
20 Ihat co m m en: period ended a t about the same 21 timef rame as the comment period on 0718.
Therefore, we had 22 to Federal Reqister notices on the street with respect to 23 pending CP's that asked for comments on the same issua.
The issues involved with looking at requiring this 24 25 SRP review are being handled separately ir the centext of i
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1 other Federal Register notice, and will be brought s_ /
2 separately to the Commission.
We are propcsing to the 3
Commission that they defer consideration of that issue with 4
respect to pending cps to that review, and not consider it 5
in the context of these present requirements in resuming 6
licensing.
~
7 It will be probsbly in a matter of a few months 8
that the Commission will be addressing this other issue of 9
the SRF review for all operating plants, CF plants, and 10 pending CP plantc.
11 YR. CK9ENT4 When you are ready in that aree, do 12 you expect to come back and ask for committee comments?
13 3R. PURPl?:
The answer is yes.
14 MR. OKRENT:
I don't even know which subcommittee 15 it is.
I hope that it is a different subcommittee.
16 (General laughter.)
17 MR. WAL<rR4 That completes my rema rkc.
18
.1R. OKEENT:
Hal, did you have a comment or jg question.
20
- d R. DENTGF I was looking at some calculations we 21 had done on the amount of metal water reaction versus peak 22 containment pressure for ice condensor, and our data shows 23 that for 20 percent metal water, it is 15 pounds, for 50 r
24 percent metal watar, it is 75 pounds, and 75 percent metal 25 water, it is 105, and et 100 percent it is 1'S psi
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pressure.
2 So just taking the capability that he has quoted 3
in the a rea, whatever number he used, 57 or some such-4 capability, puts you below tha 50 percent metal water 5
capability.
ihereas if you could cet the ultimate 6
capability of an ice condensor up to 100 or more, you are
-s 7
apt to be able to cope with the hydrocen from about 75 8
percent metal water reaction, a ssuning multiple burns and no 9
detonation.
10 I wonder if you concur with those kinds of 11 relationships?
12 MR. SHEWMON:
Let me get something.
Ycu are 13 burning your hydrogen that you produce.
You are doing it 14 adiabatically, so the temperature rises isothermally so it 15 cools, or someelace in between, or wha t is the basis?
16 hE. PURPLE:
These calculations were done without 17 the benefit of ice, but were done sequentially such that you 18 could preclude detonation.
19 MR. SHEWMON:
Rut there was no cooling?
20 l!R. FURPLE:
E0 7h t'.
21
- 33. SHEWMON:
There was no cooling.
There was no 22 ice.
There was no condensation in the vessel over this 23 period of time.
24 dR. PURP13 I guese in an hour you will cee, when 25 we get into Sequoyah, the engineering calet:1ations where the
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compartment sprays are workina, the ice is working, and so
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2 on, the interim distributing ignitica syctem in werking, and 3
the precsures are 10 to 15 pounds.
4 The detonation pressure i don't have, but I think 5
that it is on tha order of 200 pounds.
6 A R. SHE'JaOS :
So this is concervative-in at least 7
two ways.
You have assumed that it is adia batic.
The ice 8
was not there to begin with, and no steam condensor.
9
'R.
FURPLEa It would be comparable to releasing 10 the hydrogen into the upper cor.partment, but making cure you 11 burn it, because you are byparsing the ice.
12 3E. SENDES:
It sounds like an exceccively 13 conservative Wey of dealina with whether the containment has
't 14 adequate capability.
k' 15
- 13. PURPLES It could be.
The calculation was 16 done the same way for the iark III, and it is not out of 17 reason for the Mark III, a f ter you have exhausted all the 18 oxygen in what I wculd call the inner-compartment, or if you 19 want to call it the dry-well, for most of the hydrogen to 20 bubble into the outer-compartmant, where there would te no 21 energy absorption by the suppression pool.
MR. PENDER:
I will not quibble, but there is 22 23 still a lot of heat capacity.
"R.
PURPLE:
Yes.
24 25 MR.
ENDEP I just wanted to point that out, and i
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you can only deal with half of it.
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.t R. PUB?LF The time rate of release is the most 3
important variable, and if you are letting the hydrogen out 4
on the order of 20 pounds per minute from the core, and 5
burnina it whenever it should burn, then the structura is i
6 absorbing some heat, the spray removal if it is working is 1
7 absorbing.
8 Some Of the sequences, you heve to remember 9
though, for ice condensors, the letters are ADH, which is 10 failure of the large break lCCA, where you fail due to the 11 valve connecting the u pper and lower compartments, and you 12 d on 't have any sprays.
13 liR. BE3 DER:
There is still heat capacity, and it
[
14 seems to me --
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15
.32. ROSS:
The large break LOCA may exhaust most 16 of the ice befor9 the hyd rogen is released.
17 Without cetting into the exquisite details, there 18 may be conservatism here, but it is not all black.
19 MR. SENDER:
Lar:e break LOCAs are a different 20 animal,'and they may not even be the animal that we need to 21 worry about somenow or other.
Trying to combine all of 22 these extreme circumstances at the same time exagoerates the 23 problem beyond resson.
24 I really think that if the staff wants to take a 25 position tha t that has some sense to i t, it ought to try to l
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deal with realistic cases that have some realm of
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2 probability to them.
I guess we have dealt with a few 3
previously.
4
'iR. DENTON:
We have had trouble tryinc to specify 5
this concept.
We rhought about trying to specify a metal 6
reaction, and show that you could withstand that, but that 7
is fraught with dif ficulty in the assumptions.
We tried to 8
go to ultinate capability of the cont Ainmen t, and tried to 9
relate that to risk somehow, 10 That is why I came back to say that none of these 11 are== capable to pindown that precisely.
let's do it en 12 tha pragmstic approach of pushing these desiens within the 13 practical sort of way to in crease it, recocnizine that 14 perhaps it may be an overkill in some cases fer these
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15 handful of plants, while the Commission edjudicates this 16 whole degraded core rulemakiac.
1/
The worse that could happe n, if they are over 18 design, and the Commirnion decided tha t 12 pounds we n good 19 e no ugh, they are more stoutly built than may have been 20 required.
21
- 33. PEYDER:
I like your approach, but if I want 22 to deal with eff-shore power, I would not like to have them l
23 agonizing over something that is unrealistic.
If they can 24 get a 70 paund ultimate capability out of their containment, 25 I would lik e them to be able to take credit for their heat
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capacity and things of that sort.
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- 53. " ARK:
Another point.
In this set of hydrogen 3
numbers, one has to a little bit, as Mike says, exercise 1
4 judgment as to what you f eed into th e calculation, because 5
you can get really quite weird numbers.
6 I think if you look a t the numbers as I heard 7
them, you will have inerted the atmosphere by keeping the 8
steam in, but that should not give you any comfort because 9
you know damn well it will not be in.
10 (laughter.)
11 MR. MARK:
If you teed the steam in and add it to 12 the pressure term, then you ought to say at the same time 13 that the hydrogen cannot possibly burn.
But then you say,
/N 14 will the steam really be in.
At that point you had better (N-)
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15 do the calculation over.
i 16
- ' R. V A L X ES
Just a comment from our standpoint.
17 The numbers that Harold mentioned with respect to 18 pressurized radiobatic, those are about the same numbers va
$9 calculate.
'J i th respect to incorporating th e heat synchs 20 that Mr. Bender mentioned, we were the develcpers of the 21 CLASSIX code, which you have heard a lot about, and we are 22 currently working on incorporating hest synch capability 23 into tha t code, and we will have capability then to evalua te 24 hydrogen burns under conditicns that include spray, a nc heat 25 synch capability.
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1 MR. ?ENDERa It might even lead you to find some p
2 ways to get some more he.:,t synchs in there, if you found 3
that th e re was some way to deal with the matter.
But if you 4
are goine to compute it the wa: Danny described it, heat 5
synchs would not do you any good.
6-
- 53. WALKERS That is right.
7
- 43. OKRENTs. I don't think Danny would object to 8
physical processes, but I think he was succesting there are g
some scenarioc where you will not power to mix and push it 10 up through the ice.
There ara different kinds of 11 sce na rios.
12 MR. 3035a You can have a lot of heat capacity-in 13 that plant if you get at all physice.1 about it.
14 MR. OKRENT:
In fact, that I think should be U
15 included, you canact always cet full advantage of the ice.
16 Sr. Chairman, we don't.ra n t to chort-change Mr.
17 Lowenstein, and I think we want some time for discussion j
18 sfter we hear from him.
If Mr. Walker is finished, I 19 suggest that we go on.
20
- 13. LOWENSTEINa Dr. Okrent, if we may, I think we 21 will just talk from here.
22 vy name is Robert Lowenstein.
I am a member of the firm of Lowenstein, Ewing, and Axelrad.
I am 23 24 accompanied here Dy Da vid Towell, my colleague, sitting at 25 my right.
We are here on behalf of Houston Lighting and
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Power, and Puget Sound Power 'and Licht.
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2 I want to express on behalf of both utilities that 3
they regretted not being able to here.
4 As I Dr. Okt.ent mentioned at the outset of the 5
eneting, however, Houston Lighting and Power has c'equested 6
the opportunity to appear before you at the February 7
meeting.
I believe the suggested data wac February 6th.
I 8
belleve there will also then be a representative from Puget g
Sound Power and Light.
10 Mr. Powell will address in a few minutes the scope 11 of work which is being done by Houston Lighting and Power, 12 which will be brought to a conclusion this month, and on 13 which they can report to you in February.
It bears on the
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14 items that have been under discussion today.
15 I would like, before calling to Dave, to summarize 16 a few of the points that Pob Myers made on Tuesday of a more 17 general nature.
18 There are six liTCP applicants.
They represent jg about 11 units, about 13,000 mega wa t ts.
The investment to 20 date for all of these unit is somewhat over T1 billion.
21 There is over 3250 in Allen's Creek at the Puge t Sound Power 22 and Light.
23 Little has occurred on any of these deckets since 24 the TF.I accident.
As a result, each utility is constantly i
25 reconsidering whether to proceed with its a pplica tion, or to
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10u 1. turn to an alternste form of generation with a more stTble 2
regulatory path.
3 What the utilities feel they need is a clear-cut 4
statement of the $3C's regulatory requirements for the 5
issuance of a construction permit.
As has been reviewed, 6
the September 1930 notice of proposed rule for FTCP 7
applicants whien the NRC published in the Federal 2egister 8
set forth three options.
I will not repeat those.
9 AS You ha ve been advised, the utilities have 10 supported option one, which is tha t the Commission requires 11 that they comply wi th the lessons learned and the post-TMI 12 requirements that are set forth in NUEEG 0660 and 0718.
13 The third option which the staff described and 14 expressed as a preference would not in the judgment of the
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15 utilities hsve provided the kind of clear path for beginning 16 construction which was needed, because there were too many 17 uncertainties implicit in the new rules, and tco many 18 uncertainties as to how it might be applied.
39 These two utilities particularly fesl that they 20 need to be able to forecast not only their costs, but when 21 the plants might be able to come on line, becsure the plants 22 sre beino counted upon to cupply electricity and provide 23 electric generating capacity on particular dates.
24 Unfortunately, these dates have been slipping with the years l
25 for many years, but I will core to that in just a few ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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minutes.
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2 There are three main subjects tha t ha ve been under 3
discussion, three aain areas of uncertainty that were 4
identified by the staff in the Federal Peqister notice along 5
with the three options.
6 One is the subject of reliability engineerina.
As 7
you know what the Commission proposed in the notice was a 8
matter of :oncern to the utilities on several crounds, but g
as we understand it the staff recommendation to the 10 Commission will now be to postpone tha t subject, and make it 11 part of the operating license review.
! think that this 12 will basically meet the comments cf the utilities.
13 On citine, it has been the feeling that the sites 14 of NTCP applicants did meet the contemplated requirements.
15
'4hile I have not seen the paper, but it is my understanding 49 also that that would be rec ogni re d.
17 So what will be left primarily a s an area of 18 uncertainty is those aspects which embody the Commission's 19 requirements on these particula r utilities with regard to 20 the degraded core condition.
The position of the utilities 21 on that subject is tha t they should be expected to comply, 22 or be required to comply with the Commission's interim rule as it may finally be adopted on degraded core conditions
'3 2
24 which would be applicable to other utilitie s a s well, and 25 that they also comply with the outcome of the dearaded core s
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rul em akin g.
They, a re prepa red, obviously, to take the risk-2 that retrofit msy be required.
3 The staff on Tuesday outlined contemplated options 4
with regard to other measures related to degraded core, I 5
must say that it is a matter of great concern to those of us 6
who were present.
As we understand the staff proposal to 7
the Commission now, it has been considerably modified, but 8
it still appears at first blush subject to further 9
examination and discussion with you and the steff'a;ain 10 later.
11 However, there is a great deal of uncertainty at a 12 maeting like this where one talks.about pushing the design.
13 To a reasonable extent, Encineers, I suppose, might in some 14 reasonabla smount of time come to some agreement en what 15 that means, but I doubt that the meaning will be obvious 16 when it comes to the nitty-gritty of licensing.
17 If puch comes to shove, I don't think these 18 utilities have much resistance left to chove back.
It does sound to me ar if it has a considerable potential, to use a 19 20 much ove rwo rked word, and I apoloaine for it, endless 21 ratcheting.
j This is one of the subjects which is under study 22 on behalf of Houston light and Power, and if I may I would 23 lik e to turn to Devid Powell to describe the study, which is 24
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MR. PO'4 E LL 4 A little after publication of the f'
2 NTCP rules, Houston became concerned about the licensing 3
schedule, and what must be done to meet the preposed Tf!
4 requirements, and what micht have been done to meat a rule 5
that would come out in the form proposed.
6 Houston engaged General Electric, Saul Levy, 7
Incorporated, and hEBASCO to undertake some studies looking 8
at various possible mitigative and preventive kinds of g
measures that mient be adaptable to the specific Allen's 10 Creek design.
They were looking at them11n a pa rticula r 11 kind of way, attempting to see what relationship may exist 12 between prevention and mitigation, given that some ultimate 13 goal was risk reduction.
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14 These studies are attempting to identify what U
15 kinds of mitigative measures might be taken, how one migh t 16 provide for and not foreclose various measures, doing the 17 sam e thing with a whole host of preventive type measures, 18 and looking at possible risk reductions f rom installing 19 various preventive measures.
20 I am happy to say,
?. r. Denton, that part of those 21 studies includes containment strengthening, and providino 22 for penetration for filtered, vented containment.
So by
. luck of the draw there is a bit of a headstart there on the 23 24 part of Allen's Creek..
25
- ncluded also will be an attempt to estimate the
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1 cost it would taka to install each of thesa measures that 2
ultimately will bn required, and to 99t sone notion of what
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3 reasonable combination of thesa kinds cf measures might be i
4 put together to achieve seme overall reduction in risk from l
5 the pla n t. -
The studies are drawing to a conclusion, and while 6
7 under the proposal that we have heard this morning perhaps
)
~
8 some of it may be irrelevant, I don't know.
i Houston would hope to come back next month and 9
10 give you the benefit of all of the studies, and also, I 11 guess, we would thinA about focusing more on the Containmont 12 strengthening and the filtered and vented containment i
13 penetration for whatever it may be worth.
)
Thank you.
O 14 l
15 ME. EBERSOLE:
Dave, since I wa s once in the 16 business, I can imagine th a t Houston Fever and Licht has 17 andertaken this effort against a substantial amcunt of 18 objection from the other *:WT tuilders in this group, or 19 certainly with the lack of cooperation of them.
.R.
POWELLs Cou2d we talk about that later, 20 21 Jesse?
MR. EBERSOLE.
V=ry well.
22 MR. POWELL4 I will say, thouch, I think Houcton 23 24 just felt a compelling necessity to move forward because of
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their schedule, and because of the fact that they have to 25 k
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turn off gas and oil gener?.ted plants in 1990, so they have
~~
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2 a tremendous need for this project.
3 MR. EBEREOLE:
It is to their credit that they 4
undertake this.
5 MB. LOWENSTEIN:
Mr. Ebersole, I am also here on a
behalf of ouget Sound Power and Light.
They are on a 7
somewhat more extended licensing schedule, at least as far 8
as their own planning is concerned, and they have no 9
objection to this.
There will be a neeting between these 10 two utilities at a fairly early to coordinate the results of 11 the studies.
12 I might add that other utilities will be involved 13 in these mee tings as they a re developed. __
14 EE. OKRENTs We have about 20 min utes lef t, 15 assuming that we don't need any of it for another break, to 16 keep us on schedule,
'r.
Chairman.
17 If I can, I will give you a personal opinion.
I l
18 for one would like to hear what Houston Power and Licht have 19 lea rn ed, and I would encourage them not to restrict their 20 report to what they no w perceive to be the issues, as they 21 may not perceive them as they will turn out.
22 In any event, I think we would be interested in
^
23 lestning tais.
In fact, it was my impression that there was 24 some preliminary study on the FWE portion' of this NTCP group 25 early on, and if we could haa r something about tPose to the ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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extent that they were ?ona, I think that it would also be
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2 useful.
3 I have the feeling myself that the words that 4
Harold used could, with some better definition, provide a 5
possible basis, that is my geors.
?ut I don't have the j
6 feeling that ac of todey we know quite what those words 7
are.
8 Maybe he is prepa red to tell us now what he thinks
.g they.are, but he says that in the writtan dccument, which I j
10 have not had a chance to look a t.
We did not have those 11 sections in what we were civen on Tuesday, thay were blank.
12 Those are not necessarily the words that he thinks he will 13 proposed to the Commission next week.
I dy own feeling at the mo m e r. t is that we may do 14
(
15 Well to write something to the Commission, offering seme 16 kinds of comments on what we think tha staff is-dcing, and 37 the direction in which they are going.
We should indicate 18 tha t Houston Power and Light has told thtt they are doing 19 the study, and wich to be able to report in Februdry.
We recommend to the Commission that at least prior
~
20 21 to the February ACP.S meeting they not complete action, and 22 to say that in any event we dcn ' t know cuite what it is the staff is racommending.
I have to assume that we will want 23 i
to hear somewhat more as to just what is involved in this 24 containment strengthening for different kinds of 25 1
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containments.
2 This is my somewhat ramblinc view.
3 XR. MARK.
Are there other views from scher 4
members of the committee?
5 Mika?
6 MR. EENDEas I guess I am fairly well satisfied
)
7 with the approach that the reculatory staff is trying to a
take with one exception.
'>e are constan tly varkinc on the 9
assumption that the accident nas happened, and there is not i
10 enough empassis, in my opinion, on the side of reducing the 11 lik elihood of the event.
)
12 I have always been a proponent, especially in 13 recent months, of trying to find a way to be sure that
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14 reactors can be depressurized, and also of finding ways to 15 get perils out of there.
! just fael that that area is void je in this presentation today.
However, I think that it would t
17 be a much mor9 useful &XerCise, and we ought to emphasize 18 the point.
19 MR. YA3X4 Jesse.
~
20 dR. EBERSOLE:
I just want to endorre what you t
21 say, but the only problem is that we Osn't open these 22 primary loose to get them cooled.
'Je ha ve a n intrinsic 23 th= sis that va should keep them closed tight, and that inhibits our chance to cool.
24 25 11 E.
- ARK &
I wonder if in spite of th e f ac t that
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1 you reported that the SRP condition is to be divorced from j
2 the NTCP requirements, in one way of thinking that 3
simplifies the discussion, but it is somethina that I would 4
like to hear a word on.
5 Is there in sight a way of harmoniring the 6
settling of the SRP, the issuance of a CP, and the total l
7 lack of staff resources to conduct an SRP?
Cr, are we just 8
t alkinc sbout a thing which has inherently a logical block 9
that the CP might get issued, it might a mon th later ha ve
' conditions which mean that it cannot take ef f ect because the 10 11 SRP review cannot be done immediately?
12 MR. DENTON4 I think we would intend to carry out 13 the SEP.
I was talking about resources in terms of rick
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14 issessment.
'd e ion 't have resources to attack a full blown i
15 review of the risk of these plants today, but we are 16 committed in a phase program to upgrade the standard review l
17 plans to make sure that they cover all the Commission's
]
18 regulations that need te be mentioned in each one, and 19 compare ev?ry licencee against these new upgraded s ta nda rd l
20 review plans.
21 The industry do-s not like that idea.
They think 22 that it is a lot of paperwork exercise.
?ct the effort that 23 we will do on standard review plans will be done probably 24 across the board, and we could come and discuss those plans 25 with you, because there is really nothing that singles out
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cps in that sense.
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2 MR. MARK:
I gucas the pcint on which I was not in 3
the least' clear, the Houston people have evidently wished 4
that a CP might be issued in a predictable time.
Do the 5
features of the SEP cominc rule make that impossible snyway, 6
or can they be harmonized where the CP and the SEP will not 7
constitute something which must then cost a year before the 8
CF can be used?
9 MP. DENTON:
I don't see it being that way because l
10' those plants, of s11 the plants, come the closest to being 11 reviewed against today 's standa rd review plan.
In other 12 words, of any plants that we have ever reviewed, these have 13 vot the most recent reviews, so they are in the least 1.s t ro uble with regard to the standard review plans.
15 If you recall, we got into this by finding that we 16 had no standard review plan explicit coverage, for exanple, 17 of GEC 51.
So we have gono back te be sure that that GEC is 18 covered where it should be, and so forth.
We have requirina 19 the applicants for the 01 applications to provide a 20 comparison of their plant acainst the Commission's 21 regulations.
22 After all, it is the Commission't cequla tions tha t 23 govern the design of these plants.
Meeting the standard 24 review plan is a convenient way to demonstrate compliance 25 with them.
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'e were moving on the NTCP r.ainly in recponse to i
1 2
the. industry pressures that we are taking too long.
It is 3
interesting what Houston is doing, and we could try to 4
harmonize the whole thing together.
It will just take a 5
little bit longer to tie it all up.
6 MR. MARK Paul.
7 M R. SHE'J?ON :
I sympa thize, as you must also, with 8
the problem of'the utilities who have an undefined target to 9
design against.
And with regard,to the constrcetion for the 10 containment pressure, being a half-hour expert here, it 11 would seem to me that you could get 50 percent reasonably 12 easily, and a factor of 2 if you would settle for it, and a 13 f ac tor of 3 is going to come harder.
[
g 14
'4 hat do you feel would be the problem of settinc x
15 an arbitrary but achievable limit so that they could get 16 ahead, or how much to you want to keep flexibility in by 17 beina vaque?
18 MR. DENTON I guess ! would like not to be 19 vag ue.
It is just a fact that all six of those designs are 20 somewhat different, 9ut from looking at steel shell 21 con tain m en t s, they range in thickness from a half-inch to 22 two-and-a-half inch.
Even wi th the ice condensor, they seem 23 to range quite a bit between Maguire and Sequoyah, for 24 e xa mple.
~here is at least one steel shell containment good 25 for 50 pounds or more.
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1 So it did not seem that it would take all that 2
much effort for the engineers to come to some agreement 3
about perhaps a factor of two or three.
I moved this way on i
4 containment because that seemed to be the one thing where if 5
you let construction begin, ycu really have foreclosed much 6
cha nge of it.
It also seemed to buy you a lot when coupled i
7 with the filtered, containment venting penetration.
8 I really am not particularly concerned with where g
that pressure turns out to be in say particular design.
If 1
10 industry could get back with us, and for each one of these 11 containment designs show wha t they would result in, maybe we 12 could pick a number.
13 I don 't want to give sway that optien.
The 14.. ind ustry would pref er to ma ke no chango c.
They obviously 15 have those systems designed now.
But at the same time I 16 feel that with a little effort they could upgrade 17 substantially, and it would be verth it.
But I am not able 18 to demonstrate plant by plant by plant what that is today.
19 MR. BENDER:
It seems to me hett synchs and 20 thicker shells 21 MP. KERRs Mr. Pander, we could hea r you better if a
22 y u used the mike.
MR. BENDEE2 It seems to me that heat synche and 23 thicker shells have equivalent significance.
'4 hen you are 24 25 giving advice to the utilities, is there any reason why you
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shouldn't be advising them to seek heat synchs as well as 2
maximum strength capability in the containment as a way of 3
resolving the issue?
4 MR. DENTON:
I think heat synchs are valuable, but 5
I thoucht they could always be added later.
So I was comino 6
at it from the foreclosure concept, and not from the optimum 7
design conrept.
I am just trying to preserve the 8
Commission's prerogatives, and heat synchs could always be g
added later, it seems to me, th rough the more hea t 10 exchangers and sprays.
11 MR. BENDER:
That ir one way of looking at it, but 12 another way of looking at it is to say, it may be convenient 13 to add heat synchs now, and not put all the empharis on i
14 structures.
You are essentially ignoring that avenue.
You 15 may do it later, but it seems like you might as wall do it 16 now.
17
?! E. DENTON:
It was really becaure of this 18 foreclosure approach to it.
! th' ink sprays and hest jg exchangers and all could re added later on.
I think the 20 staff thinks that stronger containments for ice condensors 21 and Mark IIIs are desirable, and other peoplo may not think 22 so.
23 This is something that we need your advice on.
24
'4ould you be happy with continuing these CP without any 25 increase?
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1 MR. BENDER:
I did not csy that, end I did not
(
2.even try to infer it.
I said tha t the combination might be 3
better to deal with than just looking at the one approach 4
alone of stroncer containment.
You probably ought to be 5 'ssking to look at the combinations of improvements in the 6
strength of the shell, and improvements or identification of 7
heat synchs that would be helpful in keeping the pressure 8
down at the icvels which you would like to hava them, g
wha tever are.
I don 't know what those pressures are right 10 now.
11 aR. OKRENT:
There are different ccenarios in 12 which one is helpful, and another scenario where the heat 13 synch is not so useful.
They complement each, and they are
( j 14 not one instead of the other.
15 Mr. Chairman, it is u p to you now as to where you 16 think you stand on timing.
17 MR. MARKS I think, a s you suggested, we could 18 write something suggesting the need of hearing further
$g comments before we would certainly be able to make a 20 comment, and hopefully before the Commission would feel that 21 it had to.
That time is presumably not very long.
22 AS 1 r as I can see, the Comrittee, unless I hear 23 objections, would be in a rocition to write a letter of the
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24 sort you sketched, and that is about as far as we could 25 exrect to carry this at this time.
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1 Are there any proposals, or objactions, or V
2 comments from. members?
3 WR. ESERSOLEJ Are we perhaps geing to cet some 4
additional clarification of the wording that has to do with 5
the cacability before we close this meeting?
6 MR. MARK I am not sure that it changes our 7
situation very st uch.
8 3R. OK3ENT If we could get it, it would be g
useful in 2y drsfting w'nttever it is I draft for the 10 committee to look at.
11 MR. DENTON Wa will attempt to get you our best 12 definition bef ore the day is out, and before you drafting 13 really begins.
I doubt if we will be able to substan ti vely 14 come to grips with the issue that, and get any kind of 15 a g r ee m e.i t plant by plant by plan t on the containment 16 capabiliti?s.
17 ut the kind of words tha t we are thinking about 18 are:
"To achieve the maximum design pressure ca pa bility for 19 the containment concept in use, utiliring design nateriale 20 and construction techniques that are currently in practice 21 for those nuclear power plant containments."
22 F3. PARK Any such set of words, I think, we 23 would be prepared te regard even them
.s te n ta tive, but they 24 would tt useful.
25 Is there anything elce that we ought to be askinc
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1 either the staff or the applicants?
2 (No response.)
3 MR. MARKS If not, I would like to decla re a 4
five-minuts braak, and at 11:30 ve will sta rt with the 5
Sequoyah presentation.
6 (A brief recess was taken.)
7
'R.
MARKS We now have slightly less'ti.an an 8
hour-a nd-a-half to review the situation on the Sequoyah 9
nuclear plant.
The reason for having this back with the 10 committee at this cime is that there was a condition placed j
11 on the Sequoyah license which was issued last September, I 12 quess, that prior to January the 31st it should be decided, 13 or the staff should have assured itself that TVA had O) 14 available a system which would mitigate the effects of
(,
15 hydrogen release snd not be detrimental to p romo',e safety.
16 The Commission has not requested that we intervene 17 in that process, but the staff has felt, and I think many cf 18 us agrae, that it was reasonable to bring the question back, 19 and that we opine on how things look.
20 Up to this stage, the ignition system which is 21 installed has not been tu rned on a t Sequoyah.
Sequoyah has 22 been at various levels of pCwer for two or three months 23 now.
It w a s to h?.v e t hin gs look ed at and considered before the ignition system should be made operable, but TVA is 24 25 prepared to make it operable, and that is really the
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1 question we he.ve to make at least a short comment on after 2
reviewing it, if that is how it seems to the coecittee.
3 There was a subcommittee meeting on Tuesday at 4
which s fair amount of data was brough t before the 5
subecomittee which I we will not have time to review other 6
ihan to enumerate in the time we have here.
Mr. Stahl of 7
the NRC staff will shortly give us a summary of the staff's
~
8 view of the prerent situation.
9 What we heard included como discussion of the 10 operating experience up to this point at Sequoyah.
They 11 have had a number of trips and problems, and small events 12 which required going back in power.
These have been not 13 terribly iLfferent from a no rmal start-u p history,. although 14 every one of these is d1O erent from the one before.
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15 I believe that we were told that none of the
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i 16 things of that sort which haprened have left outstanding 17 questions which have to have something done about them 18 before the plant should move on to its next stages.
Mostly 19 what we had heard had to do with the work that has been done 1
20 on a thing called the IDIS, which I believe is by Sandia 21 terminology Deliberate Ignition system, and the I standing 22 for something.
By the staff, it is Interim Distributed 23 Ign i, tion Sy s tem.
They are the same thine.
24 TVA has a system with 32 glow plug ignitors, 25 mostly in the lower-compartment, lower ice condensor region, NV e
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1 some of them in the upper-compartment, and some right at a v
2 place where air roming from tha ice goes into the 3 ' upper-compartmant, or very clore to tnat.
4 The testing that has been by TVA at Fenwal 5
Laboratories has operated these glow plugs in the presence 6
of 6 percent hydrogen, 8' percent hydrogen, and 10 percent 7
hydrogen, and 12, with some variation in the amount of water 8
vapor, with observed temperature rises and pressuras rises.
9 These temperature and pressure rises quite reasonably 10 conform to the temperature and prescure expectations for 11 hydrogen of that concentration.
12 I believe there are no absolute surprises in that TheYhave moved the air with one velocity or another 13 case.
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15 thino better or worse, and the general conclusion, not 16 terribly surprisine, was that you get
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better burn if you 17 are moving the air than ' f the sir is stagn ent, because you 18 push more hydrogen at the ignitor and get a larger dmount of 19 gas haatad up.
There have been corresponding experiments 20 21 conducted for the NEC staff at Livermore, and they too have 22 observed temperature and pressures rises as a function of 23 hydrocen :oncentration, and humidity, which don't depart 24 from the numbers aiven or suggested published literature, 25 with one exception, which is not understood.
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1 They did a ra th er peculiar experiment in so m e
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2 respects, puttine 50 percent steam in with 12 percent 3-hydrogen, which would be a t the verge of something that 4
mi;ht not be expected to burn because close te 50 percent I
5 steam inerts the atmosphere anyway, then let the steam 6
condense out, keeping the ignito rs on.
As the humidity 7
dropped, one would have expected a burn, but they did not 8
see one.
On the other hand, mysteriously, in one case they 9
found after they had seen no burn that 38 percent of the 10 hydrogen had been consumed.
11 It is kind of a delicate exeeriment, what to 12 expect as a level just goes from being blacked out to being 13 on the edge.
What you would expect to happen, it is not far i
14 enough from tha edge to really burn, but apparently there 15 was some mechanism for dissipating the hydrogen in one 16 case.
17 In the other case, they turned the icnitors on in 18 pulses of 25 seconds at a time, and so no hydrogen 19 consumption, and that is puzzling.
I don't regard the 20 explanation that is presently a vailable.
Fenwal people did 21 not see anything snalogous.
Thers is even a question that 22 at 25 seconds the glow plugs don't get up to temperature at that time a nywa y.
So it is a complicated thing to analyze, 23 24 and it also is not a very clear demonstration, but it would 25 be nice to have it understood.
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1 Ihe general picture is that the glow plugs worked
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over quite a range of hydrogen concentrations, pretty 3
relisbly on quite a nu=ber of occasions, and no surprises 4
turned up.
One thine that h?.s not been done, which I think 5
would be rather interesting sometime to see would be to see 6
what a glow plug does in a mixture of hydrogen that is in 7
what is called the detonable class, or the detonable range.
8 It is by no means certain that the glow plug will 9
start a detonation anywhere near the glow plug, although it 10 might.
No experiments of that sort have been done.
It is 11 assumed that detonations might follow from such an event.
12 It is quite possible that they wouldn't, but it is not 13 known.
i 14 I think the diffidence about doing that has 15 somethina to do with the pressure vessels that they have, 16 and the general cautionary feelings about sudden pressure 17 rises.
But at least in discussing the range of possible 18 events, detonable r.1xtures cannot really be excluded as jg existing.
20 It would be good sometine to get some feeling for 21 wha t, in fset, happens in a detonable mixture and a 22 glo w-pl u g.
It is known that you can get detonations with j
23 fat sparks, but a glow pl uc is not a fat spark, and there is 24 room for some more information there.
25 I believe that the staff has come to the rs g
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conclusion that the operation of the IDIS will not introduce i
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problems which are th r ea t s, and will tend to relieve 3
problems which might be threats simply by the means of 4
inducing smaller amounts of hydrogen to burn with higher 5
probability than one could be sure of if the IDIE vere not 6
there.
7 The separate and very large question of equipment 8
and effects on equipment of both the high temperature and 9
possible pressure pulses that might go.with hydrogen burn 10 has received some attention, but I think that it is really 11 in the very early stage of being cover?d.
12 For one thing the test apparatus has a quite 13 different cooling history than the large containment volume R
Ji 14 would have f rom the same energy density being turned loose.
15 So the f act that something vis not affected when the 16 temperature fell rapidly does not quite cover the case that 17 it might have been affected had the tempera ture held up more 18 seriously.
19 It really has more to do with the equipment 20 problem than anything vise.
Ihe codes used t e; discuss the 21 temperature history are not yet, as I think we heard the 22 CLASSIX Code is what is being used, ca pable of putting in 23 static heat synchs along with sprays, and things of that
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24 sort.
Consequently, temperatures p re sen tly estimated or 25 their duration are both opan to be rather shorter than the ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 valuer given by the presently calculated history.
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2 That work is in trogress, and I think tha t it will 3
not be very long, althcugh I don't knew the time, before 4
they will be able to put in a more realistic physical model 5
as to the heat dissipa tion mechanism somewhat more i
6 reasonable.
7 Although detonations have not been seen when 8
experimented with, they have been calculated, of ccurse.
9 Both the staff and the applicant fsel that some modest size j
10 detonation would not causs any problem to the containment 11 vall.
I think there are reasons to agree with t ha t, b ': t I I
12 don't think there are reasons to suppose that their 13 calculation *
'ver a very wide range of events, or are in 14 th=mselves fu
.y r e a l.i s.ti c. _.
15 In 1 coking at the pressure curve that was used by 16 the staff which they got from TVA, they came te the 17 conclusion that they were using higher pressure, or at least 18 a higher pressure at time integral than properly went with 19 the ststement made sbcut the amount of hydrogen consumed.
20 I tnink they were everdoing the amount of pressure 21 time in tergral f or the so-called six-foot diameter sphere 22 detonation.
Eut if one want to a two-meter radius 23 detonation, you might get a little closer to what curve they i.
24 were really using.
The staff then took that curve, and since it was 25
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1 concave upward, they do a straichtline, so they added 25 N,_/
2 percent to whatever TVA gave them, and said tha t it still 3
looks all right to then.
4 The business and vquipment is goina to take a lot 5
more work to really provide a saticfactory demonstration 8
that all of the valves and switches tha t might be deemed 7
essential are, in fact, in good condition.
Those valves and 8
switches, and thin g s, were not in th e Fenwal experimental 9
chamber, but things like them were, and they were able to 10 observe wha t happened to those.
11 This gives a pretty good basis of assurance that 12 the real equipment, not being very different, will stand up 13 to those conditions which are not quite the conditions that
, /N 14 would exist in the containment under the same hydrogen
(
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15 energy density circumstances.
We are coing to hear about 16 this.
17 In addition to the January 31st date, there is a 18 ye3r from then by whicn time the Commission has required 19 that there be assurances that a hyf.rogen handling system is 20 in place which provides adequate safety margins.
It is a 21 rather different thing than deciding, "Is it all richt to 22 turn on a system which will at least do somethinc 23 POSitiV*i" If the i;nition system which is being ;ooked at 24 25 s ho uld ultimately co n s ti t ut e an anrwer to that requirement, eg 1
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1 then there is a fair acount of time to massace it over the
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2 nex t year, and have it be in shape by a year from now.
If 3
it should happen that something new and different is to be 4
required, then that would need to be known sometime like 5
half a year from now, and the new line of action would have 6
to start being exercised.
7 For that reason, the staff is suggesting, and I 8
think TVA probably can say what they feel about that, the 9
demonstration of the equipment survivability should really l
10 be accomplished by the end of May, or sor.ething like that, 11 so that one knows 'that one is on the right track, and can 12 spend the next six months combing it in detail.
If a new 13 track is going to be going on next January, then it could be
[G 14 an impossible thing, conceivably.
15 What we are then asked to do, I think, at this 16 meeting at this maeting is to provide a comment which says 17 what our conclusion has become on the question, should the i
18 IDIS be expected to provide a mitigation scheme and be 19 operable either without any otherwise threat: to the 20 situation, or preferably to make the situation saf er.
It 21 can be operated and be exrected to make it safe.
I think in my own mind there is probably a basis 22 for a statement of about that level, and it is for that 23 24 r ea son that we have asked dr. Stahl to bring the staff's 25 review to the committee.
We will also Dave Lambert to tell
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1 un if the picture that he would like to see given hss V
2 already been given, or what differances he would like to a
have us think of.
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7 8
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11 12 13 i
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14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 (f,
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t MR. ETAHL:
My name is Carl Stahl.
I am the
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2 project manager for the NRC cn the supportive project.
A l
3 few introductory comments first about the scenda.
]
4 On Tuesday at the subcommittee meeting, we 5
provided to the members here a full and' comprehensive review 6
of our findings that are contained in the EER, Supplement j
7 No. 4 In addition, we did provide our evaluations of the 8
equipmen t survivability t h a. t we indicated that we would do i
g so.
10 Ioday's agenda boils down to three subjects, the 11 first of which, of course, is the startup operating l
12 experience that has occurred at Sequoyah Unit No.
1.
At the 13 subcommittee meeting we did have the resident inspector from g
t4 I CE there as well as the branch chief f or Region II.
They
}
15 provided members with a detailed view of what has transpired 16 since the license that authorized full power operations.
17 Today I.shall attempt to cover the subject in my 18 own words as project manager based on their information.
19 Now, when the authorization was provided for full 20 power on September 17, this initiated what we call the power 21 assent escalation program or ascension.
This is fully 22 described in the FS AE, and basically it says tests must be 23 conducted at five different power levels: 30 percent, 50
(
24 percent, 75, 90 and 100 percent.
.25 There are about 35 to 40 tests that need to be
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t done, and if all went well it would take approxima tely 40
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2 days to complete before they would reach a point of full 3
pover operations.
I should note, of course, previous to the 4
authorization for full powar there was a license to conduct 5
a low-power test program and there were tan tests carried 6
out at that time to provide the operators experience on 7.
handling situations tha t would provide them experience on 8
brincing the olant back to na tural circulation.
9 The tests I have spoken about in the escalation 10 program are related to what wculd be the normal program that 11 each plant would see and necessary to assure the plant,is in 12 a safe operable condition.
13 Again, the FSAR describes, if you will, the test b) t.
14 objectives and the acceptance criteria, 30 I Vill not cover
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15 these matt 3rs at all except to note tha t some of the ra th e r 16 fundamental tests, of course -- for instance, plant 17 measurements -- that require baseline opera tional data a re 18 done throughout the entire power escalation program at all 39 power levels.
And then you will see from the listing there 20 are tests such as loss of off site power, shutd own from 21 outside of control room, calibration of steam control, 22 instruments at power, and to forth.
]
Now let me touch upon the experience that TVA has 23 24 had with Sequoyah Unit No.
1.
The authorization sas provided 25 on September 17, but there were four item.s that prevented G
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them, if you will, to really initiate the power escalation
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2 program, one of which was a requirement on the license that a
pertained te the surveillance of the prersurizer relief line.
4 As you recall, we had numerous discussions on the 5
repair well.
Under the license and under the tech specs 6
they had to do a surveillance.
There was when we initiated 7
the startup program a need for a tech spec change for leak 8
checking of the boundary valves.
Under the tech g
specifications very specifically isolation valves had to be 10 tested in 3 particular mode of operation and must not exceed 11 one gallon per minute.
12 There were problems almost 17 mediately in 13 attempting to meet that technical specifica tion, one of 14 which I think the 3taff conceded that in testing in the 15 particular mode that was identified, mode four, that was at 16 a precsure level that was not as acceptable, and at the 17 higher pressure level, you cot a more accurate measura of 18 flow rates.
Tecondly, there were at least two Valves that 19 showed higher flow rates than the tech specs called fers go namely, about three gallons per minute.
21 The rtaff evaluated this snd decided that was 22 acceptables we would accept the initial testing for a 30-day 23 period, and for TVA to provi,de an analysis after that point 24 in time as to whether or not we should change the tech 25 specs.
The valves were checked out and were wi thin three i
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gallons per minuta.
2 Since then I undarstand TVA has not requested any 3
change-with respect to the GFM rate.
At this point, 4
speaking for them, at this peint I think they ar e confident 5
that they can still now live within the one G P ?..
6 I mey add with respect to the tech spec on 7
isolation valves, each time these valves are disturbed for 8
any reason they have to be rechecked to be sure they are 9
ticht to conply with this spec.
10 And last but not least, they had to update some of-11 their surveillance program with respect to full power 12 requirements.
All of this took approximately two weeks from
?3 the time we authorized the full pow'er license in Oc tob'e r.
14 The program began about October 5 in a health physics survey 15 procr.m.
16 They discovered a very small leak in the number 3 17 coolant pump seal injection line.
They found a crack in a f
18 socket well for injection lines, one to each pump.
This 1
19 caused some concern.
All of the lines were inspected for 20 all of the other pumps, and th e weld was analyzed, and very 21 definitely it turned out to be an isolated case but it was a 22 crack due to vibration fatigue.
The circumatsnces were such that the pipe ran to 23 24 the pump itself and needed more vertical supports, and 25 therefore the feeling was that this resolved th e problem, Ns_ /
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and indeed this seems to be a satisfactory resolution.
But (k,)
2 of course in that period of time a week or so was lost in s
3 correcting that particular deficiency.
4 Then<en or about the middle of Cctcher they 5
discovered in the condenser wall a buckling, and on f urther 6
inspection they found some weld deficiencies -- well, 7
cracks, actually, in the vertical stiffeners.
This caused 8
th=m to go down for another week to obviously repair this g
particular failure.
10 Then about the second or third veek in October, 11 while running at a relatively low power level they found 12 some problems in the turbin e control valves, and lo and
]
13 behold, they found the seats to these control valves, a nd in particular one had' failed and pieces had been displaced,
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14 w/
portions of which were trapped in some of the piping.
15 The understandinc ! have of this particular 16 17 problam, it has occurred from time to time with the 18
' des tinghouse turbine s.
In any event, all cf the valves were 19 removed, seats were looked at, and all of them either were 20 replaced or repaired, and using, I understand, improved i
21 techniques. And basically the problem seemed to stem from the manner of installing these seats.
22 These are relatively large seats and held in place 23 24 by pinc, and the technique seems to be one of cooling down 25 the seats with a hydrcqen bath and pins driven in si 1
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mechanically, and then for reasons probably due to under frg 2
certain circunstances the valves are at certain positions s,
3 depending on the power level, you can have high velocity
)
4 steam flowino through the valves and have the seats -- it 5
may cause some failure coupled with ma ybe -- what shall I 6
say -- not the best technique in installing these pins.
7 Nevertheless, this hss been somewhat of a chronic 8
problem, I guess, for Westinghouse plants.
They fixed wha t 9
occurred and I understand it is now satisfactory. Ihat took 10 another two vecks.
If you look at the extent of the work 11 required, the removal of the sea ts, handling them, 12 reassembling the turbine portions, that accounts for another 13 couple of weeks.
14 In summary, the month of October showed a critical j\\
15 delay of 144 hours0.00167 days <br />0.04 hours <br />2.380952e-4 weeks <br />5.4792e-5 months <br /> out of a possible 7uu hours.
vctocer was 18 not a good month at Sequoyah in light of a number of 37 difficulties we have had.
However, on October 31 we did 18 achieve the first level on the power ascension escalation.
39 That is 30 percent power program. You might say it began in 20 earnest at that point in time.
So "ovember was the month in which the program 21 22 began. I understand from dovember 1 to about November 15 or 23 17, there were several trips. Some were related to electrical problems in tha generator, turbogenerator and so 24 25 forth.
Nothing major, but nevertheless it provided some O
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difficulty.
Then about November 17th, they did reach 50
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2 percent power.
3 Now, from mid-Novembe r tc the end of the month, 4
one of the off-site power tests, about 5 to 6 minutes into 5
this particular test, lo and behold, they had a safety 6
injection signal that apparently was caused by an inverter 7
problem or inverter problems that have apparently occurred 8
in the past.
There was some voltace spiking tha t a pparen tly 9
has been troublesome, and in this instance it did cause an 1
to i na d ve rten t safety injection signal.
11 ICE staff assures me at this point that the 12 deficiencies or weaknesses of the inverters have been g
corrected, and to my knowledge there have been no O
14 difficulties with the inverters since that time.
November 15 enom up, then, with,, if you will, a summary record of 330 16 hour1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br />. critical out of 720, a much better record than we have 17 had up to t his poin t.
18 December became, of course, the program which, 19 again coupled with some difficulties in trips-- about 20 Derember 5 they were at the 50 percent power level and they 21 had a few problems related.
They had a feedwater chemistry, 22 small leaks in the holdup tanks.
But I can today they are 23 either 90 or 95 percent power level.
They are, the ref o re,
24 completing the program as anticipated and very shortly 25 should be at the 100 percen t po ver level.
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1 That is in summary the operating experience of
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2 Sequoyah to date.
3
- 13. iPERSCLE4 I get the news through the mail 4
somehow tha t you had a finding of corrosipa on the vacuum 5
relief valves down there, which may have generic 6
implications.
What I would like to ask you is the failure 7
of these valves implies failure of a rather responsible 8
function which would be related to the implosive effects of g
failure of these valves to atmospherically relieve on 10 accident spray.
11 What I want to ask is are these valves required by 12 some code to have reliability characteristics comparable to 13 those of ASME Coce requirements on positive pressure release
[~'N 14 systems for pressure vessels, and if not, why not?
5 _s!
is MB. STAHis I am going to have to ask TVA, I 16 gu?ss, to respond to that.
There were some discussions at 17 the subcommittee 9eeting with respect to the problems we had 18 at Sequoyah, but let me ask TVA to respond to tht.
19
'R.
LAM 3EET Dr. Ebersole, this is David Lambert 20 with TVA.
Yes, th+y are subjeco to the Code, and the 21 failure that occurred on Unit 2 due to storage, these valves 22 where 7oisture had gotten to the valves or the valve mechanism, it was discovered as.part of the normal 23 24 preo;erational checkout of the Unit 2 valves.
MR. EBERSOLE:
Are these pilot-operated valves or 25 f%
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simple sprino releare.
Which is required, let's say, of the
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2 val ves on a boiler?
3
/R. LAQs There are two valves in the system.
The 4
vacuum relief valve is a spring-loaded check va l ve, and then 5
in' series with it is a pilot-operated butterfly valva.
- Now, 8
both valves are considered as containmant isolation valves 7
snd definitely satisfy the Code requirement.
8 MR. ESERSOLE:
They set it in the context of 9
closinc.
The pilot-ope ra ted valv e is in series with the 10 other one, is it not?
11 EE. LAQs That is correct.
12 3P. "PERS0lr a The pilot-operated valve, which 13 must be V ysically more unrelisble than the sprinc-loaded
[h 14 valve, if it fails to move when it is asked to move, will U
15 that cause the containment to be subject to an increased 16 negative pressure which it could not withstand?
17 MR. LAO:
The pilot-operated valve is normally in 18 the open position.
19 MR. EBERSOLE: it is open.
Therefore, if ycu 20 suffer a depressuriration event, the only thing that has to 21 function is the spring valve.
Is that correct?
MR. LAO:
That is correct.
22 MR. EBEREOLE:
That is considered to be equivalent 23 24 to a Code safcty-relief valve, is th a t right?
Don't let me 25 put words in your mouth.
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1 MR. LAO: 'I cannot address the reliability aspect,
\\-s 2
but it is spring loaded, and I ima:ine since there is no 3
external power required, it would be cuite reliable.
4 MB. EBERECLE No shaf ts or triggers or f unny work 5
about it that would keep it from operiing.
6 MR. LAQs No.
4 7
dR. EBERSOLE:
Thank you.
8 MR. 3HEWMON:
What c.roded this time? I did not g
ask where it corroded; I asked what part of it cerroded?
10 3R. LAMBERT:
I de not remember. I have read tha 11 paporwork but I do not remember, and I do nct see anyone 12 here from the IVA staff who has the answer. I can try and 13 get the answer for you.
1 y'"N 14 MR. SHEWMONs Jecse.
15 MR. EBERCOLEs I do not know.
16 MR. SHEWMON:
Not too much sait water around 17 Sequoyah, as I recall.
It would seem to me that whatever 18 corroded it when it wa s sitting around waiting, it could be jg corroded a;ain.
20 3E. EBERSOLE:
Yes, that is true; the answer is 21 true for Sequoyah.
Are there any reliability requirements 22 in this context in the generic sense?
MR. LAMBERT:
Might I add one piece of 23 24 information?
It was corroded in storace, we believe.
It was installed or s considerable period, but it was in 25
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storage for a vary lonJ period before it was installed and g-~\\
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2 tested and found to have "a reportable deficiency."
3 MR. EBERSOLE:
That is what prevented it moving in 4
either direction, I take it. If it were corroded in actual 5
service, it'would have locked up but it would have been 6
open, so you would have had a safe mode of operation in the 7
negative pressure direction.
You could not have closed.
8 Oh, you would have closed, as a matter of fact, because the g
other is a spring-loaded.
10 Does the staff raquire any particular reliability 11. requirements in this particular function of the icw p re ssu re 12 containment relief?
I mean to me it is more important, in 13 fact, in a steam pressure vessel f unction and would demand a t[~'g 34 reliability requirement com parable to that of a code safety U
15 valve.
16 ME. STAHL4 I will see if we can respond, possibly 17 today or later in s letter, if you wish.
18 MR. LAQs I might add that we have actuators on 19 them.
'de do activate the actua tor periodically to check the 20 movement of those velves. And of course in the closed 21 position we, of course, periodically do containment -- meet 22 reg tests which have the leakage rate of that particular 23 V31Ve*
24 iR. STAHL:
I will ask.he staif to provide you a 25 written response.
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XR. SIESS:
What do you r.ean by reliability
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2 requirements?
3 MR. EEERSOLI:
One ta kes particuler pains so you 4
can be sure when you need relief you will get it.
5 MB. SIESS:
What do you mean by reliability?
6 Probabilistically based?
7 MR. EBERSOLE:
Yes, correct.
8 R. SIESS: I do not k now of any standards the NRC g
has en components.
10 ME. EBERSOLI:
There are imgositions on ASME Code 11 afety valves that are not put on PORVs.
12 MR. SI"SS: On operation reliability?
13
- 73. EBERSOLE:
Eight.
j fN 14 MR. TIESS:
We just approved a regulatory g ui de i
15 which endorses a standard for f unctional specifications on 16 valves, and wa were told that the ASME only covers the 17 pressure boundary to assure it will withstand the pressure.
18 They are now working on the standards for functional 19 requirementr, but not in probilistic reliability terms.
20 MR. E9EPCOLF There are two classes of valves, 21 Dr. Siess, on steam vessels.
One is a guaranteed safety 22 relief valve, as you know, which is a simple spring-loaded 23 valve, and the other are complicated pilot valves which have 24 an intrinsic higher level of unreliability.
s MR. SIESS:
This covers both.
It covers sat'ety 25
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relief valvec.
Eut the point was made to us -- I don't know
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2
-- that ASME only covars the strength of the valve, that is, 3
its pressure-retaining capability, and that there was a naed 4
for these f unctional requiremen ts.
And this guide is a 5
series of ones they ara working on, the standards, the guide 6
on pumps.
7 MR. EBERSOLE.
I don't know of,there is any 8
n um erical --
9 MR. SIESS:
The basic answer to your question is 10 no, I do not know of anything the staff is doing that puts it reliability requirements in terms of probabilistic terms.
12 MR. EEERSCLE4 All PWRs and all toilers have two 13 different kinds of valves, the ones that will work and the f'
14 ones you think probably would not work. The ones that will i
15 work are the simpia cpring-loaded typa, the Casey Jones 16 variety.
The ones tha t will not work are the complictted 17 PORVs. Two of them are put on there.
The caliable one is 18 put on there for the express purpose of ensuring relief when 39 you need it. That kind of logic should be applied to 20 negative pressure relief on icw pressure contsinments.
MR. ETAHL4 We will respond to that in writing.
21 22 Unless there are other questions on the Sequoyah 23 opera ting experience, we will turn to the next subject on 24 the agenda, and that is NER position on IDIS.
Let me make a 25 couple of introductory comments in thic a rea.
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1-I mentioned bef ore, Tuesday at the rubcommittee N,)
2 meeting, we would provide you a detailed review cf our 3
findings as are iden tified -- and are identified in the SEE 4
Supplement No.
n.
And the thing I stress, and I will simply 5
put it on the Poard here -- the license conditions which I 6
have already mentioned, that is, License Condition 1,
which 7
we intend to achieve.
8 Also I indicated in the SEP Supplement No. 4 ve 9
did say we would provide a dlscussion of the question on 10 su r viva bili t y of equipment from successive hydrogen burns in l
11 containment. That das done at the subcommittee meeting.
1 12 Lastly, af ter the mee ting I did indica te that I 13 would provide today clarification or a position statement to j
<~s s
14 the full committee on our position with regards to the use i
s 15 of the IDIS.
I have done so, and let me read this to you, 16 which I think would be a good thing to do.
17 What we plan to do is this supplement, that is, 18 Supplement No.
4, the draft that you have in your hands will 19 be revised to reflect the followinc N.EE position on IDIS.
20 First, there is now raasonabla assurance that the operation 21 of the IDIS for an interim period of Cne year is
_j 22 appropriate, since this system would cerve to enhance uniform co.nbustion and to reduce the possibility of,
23 24 containment breaks or breach in the event a substantial 25 quantity of hydrogen is generated.
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Two, predominant uncertainty in analysis today 2
relates to the survivability of equipment on successive 3
hydrogen burns in containT.ent due to the operation of the 4
IDIS.
The uncertainties on survivability of equipment 5
should not be construed, however, to be an adverse aspect of 6
the IDIS, but simply a judgment the staff cannot make until 7
the evalustions are made as enunciated during our ACRS a
Succommittee meeting.
9 To sumsirize, the results of all our analyses as 10 described in our Supplement No.
4, further discussed st the 11 subcommittee meeting, ace sufficiently persuasive to the 12 staff to authorize the use of the IDIS in the interim on the 13 basis of an overall risk reduction potential.
And of course 14 we would appreciate the views of the committee in a report 15 on this matter.
16 In addition, I think Mr. Tedesco Jould like tc add j
l 17 a further statement on this matter.
This applies to
]
18 Sequoyah. I think he wishes te add something else.
MF. TEDESCOs Thank you.
jg 20
'4hile the emphasis during the review of Sequoyah I we have followed closely the developments 21 think rapidly 22 of the IDIS at Sequoyah, and so most of our discussions 23 relate in varying degrees to a situa tion that aise exists at 24 McGuire. In tact, wh-st we are tryino to do new is there is a 25 similar effort being done on the McGuire plant that would r(
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1 use a similar type of system, and aven though to da te the
>v 2
emphasic is directed towa rds equoyah, we certainly want the c
3 committee to be aware of similar developments that are being 4
taken on the McGuire plant.
5 MR. MAPX:
David.
6 MR. OKRENT4 I ha ve a couple of maybe peripheral 7
questions, but they arise partly out of the summary of the 8
meeting that you had.
9 It is poin ted out somewhere that the effectiveness 10 of the IDIS is related to the rate st which hydrogen is 11 released into the containment. At what ra te dc you have a 12 problem, briefly what is the problem, and what scenarios do 13 you associate the eroblem rate with?
A simple question.
14 MR. STAHis Dr. Butler Will respond to th a t.
15 MP. B U T L E F. 4 In our studies to date we have not 16 found an upper limit of the rate.
Similarly, though, we 17 have not had a concerted effort to try to define that upper J
18 bound on hydrocen rate.
'n' e hsve been workinc with the S2D 19 sequence, which has a rate of around 25 pcunds per minute of 20 hydrogen, and we find tha t that kind of a rate can be well 21 accommodated with the IDIF.
MR. OKRFNT4 You did not answer the question.
Can 22 23 the staff anss e it?
(.
MR. XERRa The question, as I understood it, was 24 25 that they had discovered by experiment that there were T
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1 problems with ignition at high release rates.
2 MR. OK3ENT:
'J el l, if +"ere is no rate-dependent 3
effect, then people can juct say there is no rate-dependent 4
effect.
5
- 13. KERE:
I am trying to understant what question 6
you asked.
Is that the question you asked?
7 ME. OKRENT:
People have chosen to analyze things 8
based on a certain rate of hydrogen release into the 9
containment. I would like to know is it important that you 10 do this analy is with some rate of release?
Could I take 11 the same amount of hydrogen and put it in five times as fast 12 or four times as fast or whatever and still predict the same 13 result, or what?
And if it is something different, at what b) t 14 point does it occur, and is it in a physically interesting s/
m 15 range?
Does it fall into some accident scenario or so forth?
16
- 53. EUTLER:
We hava not done an extensive study 17 to intentionally attempt to determine at what rate the IDIS 18 would not function.
We have tried to look at specific scenarios and determina the rate at which we expect hydrogen 19 20 to evolve.
For those rates the IDIS is found to be 21 effective.
22 In the work for the EECY paper 80-107, we did some 23 simple ccmputations with the Cathcart-Powell calc ul a tio n,
i 24 and that Ur.cs somewhat complicated because you have to consider the geometric configuration of the clad as it heats 25 O
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up.
If you portulate the clad maintains its configuration, i
2 then you can determine the prosaustion of the oxida tion rate 3
through th a t surfaca.
4 We have found that for the circumstances that we 5
postulate for these accidents, the maximum rate for hydrogen 6
ceneration us on the order of 15 to 30 minutes to oxidize 7
all of the clad.
.i o w, we believe that the S2D sequence 8
falls in that ballpark. Again, we have not takan the effort 9
to go beyond realistic sequences to identify what upper 10 bound, where the ra te will fail, effectiveness of the IDIS.
11
- i R. KERR:
Is there some reason to believe that 12 there would be a failure rate, a ra te a t which f ailure wo uld 13 occur?
(O) 14 ME. FUTLTE:
Well, if you postulate a very rapid
~
15 introduc'. ion of a lot of hydrocen by just some miraculous 16 method, you all of a sudden have a thousand pounds of 17 hydrogen --
18 ER. MERE:
Clearly, if you instantaneously fill 19 the thing with pure hydrogen, it will ignite.
Eut I assumed
~
20 that we were talking about a physical situation.
Is there 21 some reason to believe that in a physical situation that 22 would accompany metal-water reaction, that you can get a 23 rate-dependent failure?
24 MR. EUTLER We do not know of any scenario that 25 would lead to that.
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1 "R.
MARK:
Look, at some point, Bill --
2
- 32. yTHERINGTON:
With the more rapid rate there 3
is a greater chance of getting hicher concentration than you 4
expect at the time of ignition.
5 MR. BUTLER :
Yes, that is correct.
6 Now, a7ain, we have looked at the rate as limited 7
by the development of the oxide layer using the 8
Cathcart-Powell calculation and find tha t it takes 15 to 30 g
minutes to oxidize all of the clad.
With that as a 10 guideline, we find tha t tne S2D sequence is in the right 11 ballpark.
12
- 33. ETH ERIN G T0!i s At that rate you can assume 13 pretty good mixing; is that the answer?
O n
j 14 MR. EUTLER:
Yec.
V 15 "R.
RUBENSTEIN:
What we did in lookinc at the 16 classic base case calculation f or the S2D, we assumed an S 17 curve of approximately 1500 pounds of hydrogen evcived in an 18 hour2.083333e-4 days <br />0.005 hours <br />2.97619e-5 weeks <br />6.849e-6 months <br />, in comparing this to the TMI-type of relea se where 19 approximately 600 or 700 pounds car.e out in the first 30 or 20 uC minutes between the 2:20 to 3:00 time period and the 21 remainJng 100 or 200 pounds came out in subsequently 15 22 minutes.
So we feel we are in a region of physical reality.
- R.
OKRENT:
I cannot tell, but I have the 23 24 sensation that you are giving part of an an swer, and maybe I 25 am wrong. I have read somcvhere that there is an interest in
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1 the rate at which hydrogen is released that has son.e V}
2 influence on performance.
I am clearly not talking about a 3
postulated event where we take all the hydrogen, make it and 4
then put it in containment in stan ta n eo usl y.
That is not 5
what I am discussing.
6 I would sort of like to know in a straioh tf orward 7
way, yes or no, are there any scenarios -- I will say in 1
8 WF.SH-1u00 -- which have a rate high enough that the IDIS, e
you think, for whstever resson does not afford the kind of l
10 protection you are talking about, and if so, why not?
Is 11 that a fair question?
12 MR. MARKS I can comment a bit en your question, 13 if that is not out of order.
O, /
4 14 MR. OKEENT:
Sure.
\\
15 MR. MARKS For the rates su can picture in 16 connection with eva porated water out of t o.. core, the 17 cladding still in its or near its original geometry, they 18 have covered that range.
The range they have not covered, 19 which is in WASH-1400, is when circaloy melted falls into 20 water and releases hydrogen just as fact as oxygen can get 21 to the zircaloy.
That is a very fast rate, it is close to 22 Bill's assumption, and there the IDIS will probably still 23 work.
But the heat removal capacity cannot cope with the 24 thing, so that the pressure goes up.
That is the meltdown, 25 which is not part of the " degraded core scenario."
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MR. C K E F N' T s I can understand wha t yOu said.
If 2
they had said that, I think that wOuld have been quito a 3
sui ta ble an swer.
4
( Laucht ar. )
5 6
7 8
8 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
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22 23 24 2G O
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! just wanted to see in what sense there was a U
2 question concernino rate effects.
3 7R. MARK:
It certainly bears on the heat removal 4
rate capacity.
5 MR. OKRENT:
I aJre?.
6
%R. MAEK Up to that point I think they are 7
saying they are not aware of any limit.
I think they must 8 >be right about that because --
9 MR. OKRENT:,Can I ask another question?
If I 10 read wha t is in the SER and also in the minutes, apparently 11 the ste.ff studies suggest to them that an event which is, I i
12 guess I would say, like TMI in the sense that you dar. age the 13 core, but you interrupt it before it gets b9 yond the like 50 A
14 percent, this seems to be about one-twentieth as likely as a
()
15 core melt.
16 Did I derive this correctly or did you have a 17 different answer?
I must confess 18 MR. ISRAEL:
I want to differentiate how we cet to 19 a degraded core situation.
We get there by way cf a TMI' 20 event, where thers is oper ator inter action wi th the 21 machines.
None of the equipment fails.
It is the operator 22 who makes the wrong action.
23 And in the SER I think we indicated that, because 24 of the actions taken cinca TMI, we do not expect 25 operator-ma chine in teraction to be a dominant contributor to p
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1 core melt.
All right?
2 MR. CKRENT:
So you're using the rectification 3
theory?
4
.4 3. ISRAEL:
That is correct.
The one-twentieth 5
that you talked to deals only wi th where there are ha rdware 6
failures during an ongoing event.
7 MR. OXRENT4 But your best judgment now is that an 8
event which led to roughly thct kine of hydrogen releare, 9
but did not go on to large-scale core melt, is one-twentieth 10 as likely as large-scale core melt, now that you have put in 11 the T!I 12 MR. ISRAEL I have to mak e myself clear.
I have 13 two ways of ending up, with either core melt or degraded O(
)
14 core.
It rould be operator interaction or component 15 hardware failure.
16 5R. OKRFNT:
Go ahead.
17
- 33. ISRAEL:
The component hardware failure is 18 probably the one-twentieth that you are talkinc to in the 19 SER.
1 hen I say that we rectify the operator-machine 20 interaction acpect, we are just say)nc that is small.
I do 21 not think we quantified that.
22 3R. CKRE:iT:
Small.
It will not change your ne-twentieth?
j 23 dR. ISRAFL:
That is correct.
24 25 TR. OKRENT:
All richt.
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t ME. ISRAEL:
It was not quantified.
2 MR. OKRENT:
I must say, I am skeptical about-this 3
conclusion.
I have a problem in the staff's willingness to 4
use the rectification theory, by your own willingness to let 5
the EPRI people use it on scram systems, for example.
I did 6
not believe them and I do not believe you, frankly, if you 7
want a personal opinion.
8 But the reason -- I don't think the point is g
important for what you are going tc* decide on Sequoyah.
But to it is going to affect other kinds of decisions, and you can 11 a rrive at one conclusion or the opposite about risk 12 reduction potential when you are looking at inerting or this 13
-- just by deciding whether it is one to one or one to O) 14 20.
fV 15 And I would just like to caution you about th a t 16 conclusion.
Lat me leave it at that.
17
- 9. E. ISRAEL:
I would like to make one comment, Dr.
18 Okrent.
The rectifica tion -- h ere again, we need to ao to 19 some sort of formal process of quantifying.
But that rertification, if you will, is on a best estimate basis, 20 21 certainly on come unknown or upper bound basis.
22 MR. CKRENTs Let me then make ano more comment.
I 23 think the staff should be careful in the future not to use 24 the term "best estimate," like in fact it is a goed 25 housekeeping word or whatever you want to say.
In fact, it O
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2 You can ;ive te a best estimate that has no 3
resemblance to the respective valua.
The respective value 4
may be --
5 ME. ISRAEL:
You are absolutely correct, there is j
6 a semantics problem here.
I want to differentiate that from 7 'some sort of uppet bound or unknown situation.
8 MF. OKRENT:
All right.
9ut I think you should be 9
cautious, in fact, that when you are inc best estimate 1
10 values, that you had better tell everybody either, I don't 11 know what the expected value is, or in f act it is 20 percent 12 bigger or 10 times bigger or something like that.
13 MR. LAWROSKI Can you say scmething about the r's
\\
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(
14 effects of -- the capability of the fans that blow the stuff s_
15 around?
Does that ha1e an influence on the rate at which 16 you could tolerate different rates of rirconium-oxygen 17 interaction?
18 dR. BUTLER:
The mechanism for loss of fans would 19 be
-t failura of the motor, rather than icst of power.
20 ME. LAWRCSKIs Either one.
21 ME. BUTLER:
The containment pressure response 22 with loss of fan will exceed the capability of the containment.
We need the fans to keep the response within 23 24 the pressure criterion.
ME. LAWECSKIs With respect to -- you are leaving 25 Y\\~ /
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out th9 hydrocen question.
kw-2 MR. 20TLTR:
No.
This is the hydrogen burn 3
question.
4 MR. LAWRCSKI:
wkay, yes.
5 MR. MARKS You esid will exceed the pressure t
6 the containment pressure criteria; as judged by calculations 7
which pay no attention to parcive heat sinks?
8 MR. PUTLER :
Yes, that is correct.
9 MR. MARK Consequently, it will not exceed the 10 pr*ssure criterion, if you pay attention to such 11 calculations, unless the hydrogen rate is too hi,ch.
12
- 53. BUTLERS Yes.
13 MR. OKRENT:
The rate enters into that particular l'
14 part, and I have not seen a study.
\\
15 YR. MARK:
The only number that exists is one 16 gotten by ignoring the fact tha t the containment itself will 17 absorb some heat.
18 M 3. SHE'4 M ON :
These fans move gases from the upper 19 to the lower faster than it would by other means; is that 20 right?
21 MR. OKRENT:
Yes.
22 M D.. S H E'C' O N :
They accelerate the moving of air 23 from the upper to the lower areas.
24 MR. MARK:
If you do not have the fans moving, you 25 can burn out all the oxygen in the lower compartment.
Then W
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hyd rogen will go into the upper and reach concentrations
\\
2 wh9:e it can burn there.
3 ut the pressure in the upper is already high 4
because you have been having all this commotion downstairs.
5 And now you add the pressure of burning upstairs to the high 6
pressure, which has not been helped because of the 7
cir cula tion being counted on to keep the steam condensed out 8
and to keep the temperaturc down.
i g
MR. OKRENTs And the doors don't cren.
10 M h. S H F'i2i O H s Thsy don't open in a downward 11 direction.
The return path doas not oc through the basement.
12 MR. CKRENT If you burn in the lower part, you 13 have some chance, at'least, of expanding into the ice
/
(
14 condenser ch,ect.
I l
15 VR. STAHLs Moving on to the next item, status of 18 ongoing research and development work, Mr. Tinkler will 17 briefly cover this item.
18 MR. KERRs Excuse me --
19
- 93. MOELLEBs Excuse me.
Perhaps it can be 20 answered and I missed i t, but it pe rta ins.to wha t we were 21 just discussing, and tr t is, did the Subcommittee reach a 22 conclusion in terms of whether there should be igniters in 23 the upper plenum?
24 JR. A AF,K s There have to be igniters in the upper 25 plenum.
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1 5R. 20ELLERs Well, Eandia --
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2
- 33. MART:
S a ridia makes the recommendation that 3
they be taken away from the near exit of the-ice condensers, 4
arguine that the hydrogen concentration could be very high 5
and migh t be in the detonable range.
6 I mentioned in my own summary that there tre no 7
experiments to say whether that causes detonations or not.
8 If they ignite the hydrogen, it is ignitable -- certainly it 9
is the detonable range.
Th e amounts are likely te become t
10 really massive.
Certainly they cannot be at that location.
11 And the detonation which could result, if a detonation 12 resulted, is judged by both the staf f and the applicant to 13 be very readily tolerable as far as the containment structure is concerned.
14 15 Now, of course, there also may be a ccid en ta l 16 sources there.
And if you take your deliberate sources
)
i 17 away, you cannot guarantee that this will happen anyway.
If 18 you do not burn it there, you do guarantee that there will 39 be more hydrogen upstairs f or some later time.
"R.
M0ELLERs And so, the basis of the arcument in 20 21 a cense was the location of the igniters, not yes or no --
22
'R.
P. A R T. :
Entirely those particular ones a t those 23 spots, that Sandia felt uneasy about.
P. R. ?.C E LL E R :
Ri;ht.
24 MR. CHEWYON4 Th.
of detonations taken by 25
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(Vl 1 -Sandia --
2 (laughter.)
3 MR.' MARK:
Please proceed.
4
( Slid e. )
5 MP. TINKLER4 My presentation will briefly 6
summarize the testing which has been undertaken to evaluate 7
the performance of the igniters selected by TVA for a
installa tion in Sequoyah.
The first testina which was 9
performed was at th e Singleton laboratory, and these were 10 initial tests to determine the feasibility of using a globe 11 igniter to see that the igniter would function over the 12 range of conditions expected, to see that it would reach 13 minimum acce.ptable temperatures and se forth.
(
14 TVA, in cooperation with Westinghouse, " uke, and j
15 Americen Electric Power, entered into a tert program at 16 Fenwal Labs to evaluate the performance of the igniter, its 17 sbility to initiate combustion in various test vessel 18 mixtures, in the presence of sprayr, and induced turbulence 19 by a fan.
20 The staff, because of the nature of the work, 21 undertook a brief testing program, performed at laurence 22 Livermore '!ational Laboratory, to conduct confirmatory tests 23 to evaluate the performance of the igniter.
(Slide.)
24 25' The Singleton test program has been completed.
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1.The conclusions are that the glow plugs will function V
2 reliably over the rang 9 of 12 to 14 volts, and that the 3
minimun acceptancs temperature -- that is, the surface 4
temperature of the globe -- will be reached within one 5
minute, generally less than one minuta, on the order of 30 6
seconds.
7 (Slide.)
a The Fenwal test program ha s also been completed.
9 The conclusions are, as previously mentioned, that the test 10 results were consistent with the published data.
The effect j
1 11 of fan flow and spray operation were insignificant.
12 The testing which was performed with a continuous j
13 injection of both steam and hydrogen resulted in sequential 14 burnin;, similar tc the calcula tion perf ormed for the V
15 Sequoyah plant.
16 1R. dOELLEF:
Excuse me.
I do not understand your 17 second statement, that the fan flow had an insicnificant 18 effect.
Yes --
19 ME. TINKLEE:
Well, it was insignificant in that 20 it did not substantially affect the abilit:; of the glow plug 21 to initiate combustion.
There was some concern that if you 22 had a stream flowing pa st a plug you would reduce the 23 surface temperature, you may significantly affect the 24 ability to initiate combustion.
It was seen tha t fan flow did improve combustion 25
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.1 of lean mixtures, so in that sense the effect of the fan was N-sl 2
more significant, but it was an improvement in the ability 3.of the igniter to initiate.
4 MR. MOELLER:
W ell, I don't think your statement 5
says what it means.
You are saying it had insignificant 6
effect on the performance of the glow plug, and it then has 7
apparently a beneficial effect on the ignition of the 8
mixture itself, the fan flow.
9 MR..iARK:
Not the ignition, but the decree of 10 burnino.
11 dR. MOELLER:
The degree of burninc.
12 MR. TINKLER:
It really did not affect the actual 13 performance of the pluc, its ability to heat up.
What it if I
did affect was the mixture inside the tect vessel.
You 1
14
%/
15 could draw a fine line there.
16 MR. KERRs Having obcerved this, can you make a 17 plausibility argument th a t it should be the case?
18 3R. TINKLER:
Yer.
19 MR. YFER4 What i s the argumen t ?
20 3R. TINKLER The argument is that you suppose the 21 glow plua -,there are fresh sources of hydrogen in the test 22 vercel.
If you have incomplete combustion, where you have a conical rene upwstd from the plug, if you have circulation 23
~~
24 25 MR. KIRR4 Maybe you misunderstood.
What you sQ ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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1 observed was more complete combustion of the hydrogen.
You
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2 did not observe a condition of lower concentration or 3
anything like that?
4
.ia. TINKLER:
No, no.
5-MR. KERR Okay.
6
.(Slide.)
7 MR. TINKLER:
The confirmatory test procram at 8
Livermore, the first phase of that testing has been 9
completed.
Conclusions from our tests are that the results 10 were consistent with both the published data and the Fenwal 11 tests.
12 Again, we saw that circulation improved combustion 13 and improved the completeness of combustion for lean
[(
14 mixtures.
And we were able to verif y. th'e requ_ ired glow plug 15 surface temperature, not exactly less than 1500 decrees, but 16 1500 degrees was chosen by TVA.
17 We do plan to continue scme testing at livermore.
18 k'e Vere unable, in the time frame available, to investicate 19 effects of wat?r spray, and we did see f or a t least one test 20 an unusual phenomenon whereby we started out with a non-steam fraction of 50 percent, apparently condensed the Z1 22 steam out and were still unable to initiate combustion.
And 23 we intend to investigate that to precisely determine what 24 caused it and whether that effect is reproduceible.
- 13. KEREs I did not understand your statement 25 O
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about the 1500 degrees.
You se.emed to say it is less than t
2 1500, but TVA chore 1500.
f 3
MR. TINKLER:
Th+y chose 1500 for surveillance 4
testino, for preope ational testing.
5 MR. KERRs No.
What is it that is less than 8
1500?
7
.M R. TINKLER:
For dry air it is about 1400 8
degrees.
l 9
- 33. KEEEs No.
I mean, what is "it"?
.10 TR. TIIKLER.
Surface temperature of the glow 11 plug.
12 MR. KERR Required to do something or other?
13 3R. TINKLERs To initiate combustion.
IO 14 MR. KERRs Okay, thank you.
U 15 MR. 90ELLERs Is the or are the additional tests 16 that you plan to conduct at Lawrence Livermore similar to 17 those that the NRC proposer tha t TVA do?
What is the l
18 inter-relation between the tests tha t you will be doing and 1
19 these that the NRC would like for TVA to do?
20 dR. TINKLEBs TVA has not scheduled additional 21 testing at Fenwal Labs.
There will be additional hydrogen 22 combustion tests performed at EPRI, end there will be some
~~
23 24 MR. SHFWMON:
Py EPRI?
25 ME+ TINKLE 3 3Y EPFI' eXCUGe IC-ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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?ut TVA has not indicated a specific ongoing test s
2 progr3m.
3
- 13. MCELLER:
I understand tnat the NRC has 4
requested that they consider such a program and conduct it.
5 Do you know the relation between what the NRC is conducting 6
of TVA versus what y o'1 or EPRI might strange to have done?
7 MR. TINKLER:
No, I don't.
Perhaps --
8 MR. STAHL:
I do not have the answer to that.
One
~
9 point should be made about survivability of aquipment.
TVA they are 10 is now aware of our needs and they are presently 11 reviewing this, and I expect response in the very near 12 future as to how they will conform with our needs here.
13' That obviously was discussed la st Tuesday.
R
/
3 It requiros further testing, and I may be 14 V
15 premature in this statement and IVA may comment on it, but I 16 think it was f airly clear to myself th a t further testing 17 will be needed to provide the assurance, certainly for a 18 permanent fix, that this question of curvivability is not a gg problem.
20 MR. BENDER:
When we heard the presentation last 21 Tuesday, you had not reviewed 311 the TVA test data.
Can 22 you clai: aow that you have looked at it enough to have a 23 position on it?
'E. STAHL:
I think the answer is we have looked 24 25 at all of the data and the comments made on Tuesday reflect
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that review.
I think we are cort of now -- TVA had not seen 2
the evaluation up until that point.
And of course,.they l
s 3
stated at the meeting they would ba responding accordingly.
4 So we are in the situation of not having yet TVA's 5
reponse.
6 MR. EENDER:
But survivability is the cnly issue?
7 That is what I am trying to get at.
8
%R. STAHL:
At this juncture I would say that is g
the issue, yes.
10 2R. 3 ENDER:
Thank you.
11 MR. TINKLER:
I might add, with regard to hydrecen 12 generation rates and ra te s assumed, the accident we chose 13 actually has various hydrogen generation rates because it is
( A ')
14 a transient.
'4e see hydrogen generation rates up to about N/
15 2-1/2 percent per minute, corresponding to the -- that type 16 of accident.
17 There is very litti' trouble handling 2-1/2 18 percent per minute.
I anticipate we can handle higher rates 19 than tha t.
10 percent per minute corresponds to -- if one 20 looked at the heat removal capability of a containment spray 21 system, 2 percent per minute reaction corresponds to heat 22 removal of one chain of containment sprays with the spray 23 vater only rising approxima tely 60 degrees, something like 24 that.
25 So one could estimate that.if you could reliable
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count on uniform burning or burning as you are introducing N',),
2 hydrogen, that you rould tolerate a very, very la rge break, 3
actually.
It is only when you have to be concerned about 4
buildup of hydrogen snd the reservoir ef fect, where you 5
initiate combustion of a large mixture very rapidly, that 6
you need to be concerned, 7
MR. MARK:
Any further questions?
8 (No response.)
g MR. MARK:
Thank you.
10 Mr. Lambert?
11
'R.
LAMBERT:
Thank you, Dr. " ark.
I think TVA 12 just has a few general comments that I would like to make at 13 this time.
TVA does believe that we have provided a system k
14 which meets the requirements of the license conditions for D) 15 January 31, 1991.
TVA concurs in the NRC staff assessment 16 that the system should now be made operational, since the 17 IDIS is a safety benefit f o r th e Sequoyah nuclea r plant.
18 IVA will continue its programs in degraded core jg assessment and in bydrogen control.
These programs support I
20 not only the Janusry 31, 1982, license conditions, but they 21 also support TVA's decision for improvements in nuclear 22 plant safety for all nuclest plants, to prevent and /or 23 mitigate degraded core conditions.
We will be happy to present to the ACES in a 24 25 timely manner the results of our investigations and the
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1 sta tus of our investiga tions.
I would like to say that we
\\_-
2 feel we need to discuss with the staff our schedules as 3
submitted both in the near future -- that is, prior to the and certainly subsequent 4
Commission meeting on Jan ua ry '19 5
to that meeting.
TVA has some concern about the schedule 6
presented to the Subcommittee with respect to resolution of 7
the survivibility issue, and perhaps that is just a matter 8
of clarification of what we have done and what wo intend to 9
do.
10 MR. MARK:
I think
'r.
Lambert is referring to 11 something I mentioned.
The staf f has set down the need of 12 having the survivsbility finished by May or some such time 13 as that.
That is going to be a very strenuous undertaking.
14 They will know a lot by V.ay that they don 't know now, but s
15 they may have finished their program.
16 Now, I think the staff is probably willing to 17 follow tha proaram and see if this date has to be held, if 18 no changes in prospective the date is not really a very gg binding date.
20 Yes, Eaul?
21 MB. SHEWMON4 E&rlier, there was a question of 22 when this would be turned on and I have not heard any discussion of that today.
Would you briefly tell me what 23 24 your plans are?
'd e await approval from the staff to 25
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mak e the system operational.
'4e have from js s
2 1R. STA'iLa
- 4e have from TVA a proposed set of 3
procedures snd possibly tech specs thst we are reviewing, 4
and TVA proposes that the igniters be put on at-the time of 5
a ssfety injection signal.
'J e probably agree with this at 6 'this moment, but the staff is reviewing it.
7 I think in principle we accept this, but there are 8
questions as ec surveillance procedures that we are looking 9
at, the number of plugs that we would allow to be 10 inoperative in the period of time of use, and so forth.
But 11 I have to stress, the staff is reviewing this.
And I am 12 anticipating, since I placed the schedule on the staff, to 13 be responsive to this by next week as far as the yg 14 acceptability of what TVA has proposed.
j 15 1R. KERRs Mr. Chairman, mdybe you can tell me, 16 what is meast by the phrase " turning this thing on"?
Does 37 tha t mean getting it to the point at which one could use it, 18 or does it actually mean turning o n --
MR. PARK:
Using it in the event it might have 39 20 some use.
The other cense might be, in the procedures, at 21 what stage in the plant behavior do you pull the stage that 22 puts the glow plugs on, because they are not on day and 23 night.
MR. KERR:
I know that.
Have they ver been 24 25 turned on?
.V ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2346 A
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1 MF. 1 R K :
Only at test facilities, as far as I 2
know.
3 MR. KERRs But'in the actusi plant it has not 4
5R. LAMEERT:
Yes, they have been tested in the 5
actual plant for preoperational baseline tests on the 6
effectiveness of tne plugs.
They are -- snall we say, the 7
power is racked out to the system at this time.
8 HR. MA?Y Are there further questions, either of g
Mr. Lambert or the staff?
10 ER. MCFLLEE:
I don't want to belabor it, but could tha staff, whether 11 could you clarify,, then, for me 12 they understand that TVA will be conducting, then, these 13 tests, additional tests of the survivsbility of t h o' b
instruments?
And has TVA screed?
14 15
- 12. ETAHLs They have not ag reed at this moment.
16 Maybe Mr. Lambert could address this.
There is no question 17 we have further need for information, as described at the 18 Subcommittee meeting.
19 M3. LAMBERT:
TVA concurs that they do have need 20 f r f urther inf orma tion with respect to survivatility.
We 21 also do plan to conduct additional survivability tests as 22 appropriata, as we go toward the design of the permanent 23 system.
I 24 Dur concern, I th ink, revolves around the 25 presentation that we heard for the first time before the ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. 0.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
168
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Subcommittee.
That presentation had a very extensive i\\ ')
2 testing program in mind, from which we believe that, if our 3
information is understcod that has already been submitted 4
and some additional information is brought to the staff, 5
they will concur with us that such an extensive program is 6
not appropria te f or a distributed ignition system and the 7
survivability issue associated with that system for this 8
plant.
e 9
MR. MOELLER:
Thank you.
That helps.
MR. MARK Are there further questions?
Harold?
10 11 MR. ETHERINGTCN I don 't know how much margin you 12 have in the 1500 degree temperature.
But presumably, 13 following a LCCA you might have a very wet atmosphere.
What
/#~'i would be the eff ect of the atmosphere on temperature?
Would 14 k/
15 you still have the required margin?
16 MR. TINKLER:
In the tests that were run with 17 steam fractions, large steam fractions, the required surface 18 temperature did increase about 75 degrees.
But the minimum 19 acceptance temperature does not indicate the temperature 20 nec e ssa rily that the plug reaches.
21 MR. ETHERINGTON:
The temperature incresced in th e 22 steam atmosphere?
MR. TINKLER:
The temperature of the plug would 23 24 increase to almost betwee 1800 and 2000 degrees Tahrenheit.
MR. FTHERINGTON:
Why did it do that? ~
25 OO ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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- 33. TINKLER:
Ihe plug would reach somewhere close 2
to 2,000 degrees in either case.
3 XR. ETHERINGTONs No, that is with hydrogen 4
burning, is it?
5 MR. TINK1ER:
No.
6 MR. ETHERINGTON:
No?
7 3R. TINKLER:
The required temperature for 8
initiation of combustion was slightly higher in the steam 9
tests, but it just meant it took a little longer before the 10 plug reached that temperature to initiate rombustion.
11 XR. ETHERINGTON:
Ycu have about a 300 degree 12 margin, then?
13 ER. TINK1ER:
Yes, there is about a 300 degree b
14 margin.
U 15 M. R. l A U s let me clarify this.
We have a lot more 16 margin from the literature on d ry sir.
'J e require only 17 about 1100 to 1200 degrees Fahrenheit to ignite.
18 Now, we have to specify the temperature that the 19 igniter will reach, and tha t set point was put at 1500 20 degrees.
Now, with a 14 volt transformer we have in there, 21 that plug we have is exceeding 1700 degrees, you know, 22 something, 1800 degrees, somewhere around there.
That is 23 plenty of margin.
In addition, in the Fenwal tests we did, one of 24 25 the tests took the igniter, put it at 12 volts, which is a
%d ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (20'2) 554 2345
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lower temperature, and in fact we turned the igniter upside 2
down and sprayed water on it, and it still works, still 3
ignites.
4 MR. SHEWMON:
Do you have any idea what the 50 5
percent lifetime is for those igniters at la volts?
If you l
6 take 100 of them, when will half of them have failed?
7 ER. LAU We have done some tests at the Singleton 8
Labs.
These igniters are not expected, under normal 9
operation -- they are only called upon te operate in 10 accident conditions.
In the Singleton inbc tests, we have 11 tested some igniters up to iu8 hours; still working 12 continuously and they did not fail at that time.
13 We just use them for something else.
After they
-[~'%
14 operate for so long, we assume they do the job; then we use N,)
15 them for something else.
l 16 "R.
LAWROSKI:
What is the auto-ignition 17 temperature for h yd rogen?
18 MR. MARK:
500 to 6CO Centigrade.
19
- R.
LAWROSKI That low?
20 MR. SHEWMON:
1100 degrees --
21 MR. MA?K4 Any further questions?
~
22 (No response.)
NR. MAPK4 If not, I guers I would like to poll 23 24 the Committee to find out whether or not it is felt that 25 tomorrow wa would be in a position to write a comment that O}d ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345 h
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we agree with the staff that this system can be used to L-2 mitigate effectively.
How many -- this is just a poll, not 3
a vote.
How many would feel that we are in a position to do-4 that?
i 5
(A chow of hands.)
6 MR. MARK:
How many feel we are not in such a 7
positin?
8 (No responGe.)
g MR. MARK 4 I think we will try to get a letter to 10 be looked at tomorrow, in that case.
11 Thank you, Mr. lambert.
Thank you, Mr. Stahl.
12 Now, we need to be back here in 5 4 minutes.
13
(*Whereupon, at 1:06 p.n.,
the meeting was 14 recorsed, to reconvene at 2:00 p.m.
the same day.)
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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"R.
MARKE4-Mr. Dircks and Mr. Denton are here.
2 I think, Ray, do you want to identify the thame 3
that we would like them most to comment on?
4 MR. FRALEY:
The thing I thought we wanted them to 5
talk about primarily was the.need for better definition of
.6 what is or is not to be required of TMI-1 at restart.
And 7
then we have that other miscellaneous item that I identified 8
to you about the ACRS participation in the rulemaking.
I
)
9 think those are the first two items.
I thought Dr. Moeller 10 had primarily the lead on TMI-1.
11 MR. MARK Do you want to identify your question, 12 Dade?
i i
13 MR. 'CELLER:
As we identified in our letter that
/N 14 I believe the commit tee issued last month on the TMI-1 15 restart, there was confusion, at least seemincly, amonc 16 meabers of the NRC staff and certainly among members of the 17 committee on just what requirements were to be imposed or 18 how was TMI-1 to be treated prior to re sta rting.
19 If you treated it as an NTOL is one approach -- as 1
20 an approach that we understood was to be taken, the 21 quastions still arose, beca use if a certain recuirement was 22 dated shortly after TMI-1 was projected to restart, how are 23 you to require it prior to the restart or let them just 24 follow tha schedule of dates which other plants night 25 follow.
And those were our basic questions.
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.'! R. DIRCKS:
Harold, I guess, can (s
'N _,
2 the burden of this conversation.
But frem what I gather, s
3 the plant is typirally treated as s new OL and brought under 4
the requirements of that document, NUREG-0737.
5 And I assume, Harold, the information you gave me, 6
there have been quite.a few communications with the Licensee 7
in f o rmin g them of the status and to clear up any further 8
confusion on the part of the Licensee or the Applicant and g
the staff.
10 There is a meeting scheduled 'or the 16th'of this 11 month, and any further clarificatim t a lt may be needed 12 will be issued at that time and da
- Jad.
13 Would you care to elaborate on that?
s 14
- 7. R. DENTClis Cur position with the Applicant has
\\
15 been for some time that they had to meet the NTOL 16 requirements.
I think he objected to that on legal grounds 17 because it was outside the scope of the order.
When the 18 order was issued, the action plan had not been formulated.
19 So we have argued this in t!.e hearing that the NT01 is the 20 proper list.
We sent them a letter on November 25, sayino 21 0737 is the requireme.nts te be met, and we have given the 22 same argument to the Commission.
23
- s you know, r.
Diekamp has a ppealed to the 24 Commission to be relieved of awaiting the outcome of th e 25 hearing.
So ve have filed our views Poth on that petition i
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and on what sheuld be met, with the Commission.
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on the dated items, you may recall there are three N/
2 3
sets of requirement.e that we sent the Licensee:
There were 4
B CA orders; th are were orders to all cperating plants; and 5
then there is the NTOL list. 'Some of the dates for 6
operating plants have already slipped by, and there probably 7
are some things vnere we need to clarify with the Applicant 8
exactly what he has to meet.
h 9
Cur present view is that he cannot brine this to plant physically into compliance with the NTCL requirements 11 until April; it will require testing.
12 So, generally, with regard to dates, any date that 13 has to be met before the middle of '81 will be a required v}
14 date for him to mee t.
I do not really see hir. being able to 15 resume operation even with the most f avorable type lecal 16 findings before that time.
So anything that ic required of 17 a plant in normal operation before the middle of the year, I 18 would require of him that we will straighten it out with him 39 point by point.
20
- 23. MOELLE?s And I think the new procedure for 21 licensing, or whatever the statement was that the Commission 22 issued just recently, is also proving very helpful to us.
23 That was subsequent, though, to our letter and our meetings 24 with the staff and with the Licenree.
I gather that your 25 staff also at this point would be much more firm in what ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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applies to TMI-1.
I must say, in our rubcommittee meeting i
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2 we really f ound tha t the staff at that time again, we are 3
talking a month and a half or so ago -- that they were not
]
4 too fi)
From what you have said, I gather thinos are 5
quite well organized.
6 MR. KERR:
I did not get the impression that they 7
were altogether unfirm.
It seemed that there was some 8
uncertainty about what was going to be required.
1 9
ME. DENTON:
We knew what we v:9ted, but we were i
10 being challenged in several forums as to whether we could
)
11 sustain that.
I guess I ha ve taken the sim ple look.
I j
12 continue to advocate that in all the forums.
And until I am 13 overturned by someone, that remains, ar far as staff is 14 concerned, our approach.
Maybe the board vfil throw out our 15 approach on legal grounds or the Commission might decide it 16 does not wirrant it.
Rut the NTOL approach is one we 17 advocated.
18
- (R. MOFLLEP:
Fine.
Thank you.
19
'R.
DENTOWs You raised soma other issues in the 20 letter.
If you'd like, we can spend a moment on those.
It 23 is up to you.
22 5R. MARK:
I think if you have some questione 23 here, it would be helpful for us to hear about them.
MF. DENTON:
You had suggested putting this plant, 24 25 in essence, in the IREP program.
You know, this was one of
't N
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1 the plants selected for the NEEP and not for the IEEP.
And 2
I read your letter as suggecting that this be -- that this 3
plant te included in that list.
And also, you suggested it 4
be included ss one of the plants to do a systems interaction 5
study on.
6 In both areas we have pilot programs goinc with 7
other plants, you know, syctems interaction.
We have done 8
Diablo Canyon.
We are doing Indian Point 3.
%'e 4re doing g
San Onofre 2 and 3.
And we are also using some ECW plant; I 10 forget which one.
11 I read your letter as being a judgment above the 12 NTC1 requirements, you would require these plants to do both 13 of these, even though it wa s not selected initially.
And D
(
14 once again, both areas are ones where cur resources are
\\
15 small.
And we had oilot programs, and this clant just did 16 not fall into it on the first cut through of importance.
17 MR. KFER:
I do not have a copy of the letter, but 18 my impression was we were not suggesting that this be done 19 before restart but rather it be done sometime in the normal 20 course of thines.
Isn't that the case?
21
- 53. GKRENT:
It is at 10.1, if you want to find 22 th9 letter, ictually, what the letter says is, at the top 23 of page 2:
"In accordance with our previous 24 recommendations, we believe that the licensee should conduct 25 tne reliability assessment of the plant, as modified."
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ME. MOELLEE:
Yes, I wanted to stress that, t
2.
because we do realize the work load of the staff.
And all 3
of our commente were not directed to requests of extra work 4
on the part of the staff.
5 Dr. Kerr is correct, too, in that the one portion, 6
yes, even this item 1 at the top of page 2, in our last 7 -sentence we pointed out that, "Although both of these 8
studies should be conducted on a timely basis, their 9
completion should not be a. condition for restart."
10 We wanted to make sure that that was understood.
j 11 Item 1 at the top of page 2.
12 MR. DENTCNs We had not completed a meeting with 13 the Applicant on their letter, but this kind of thing could
(/
be a condition of the license.
And I guess my ma'n concern i
15 was whether you wanted a lot of work by the staff, you know, 16 in the very near future in regard to this o r not.
In both 17 of these areas, I eventually think we will get most plants 18 ope ra ting or not opera tina.
cut you have sinoled this one 19 out as warrantinc a special look in these areas, and we 20 could make it a condition of the license.
21 MR. MCELLEE:
Dr. Ckrentc do you have comments on 22 that?
MR. CXRENT:
I assume " condition of the license" 23 means that the licensee should do such an assessment within 24 25 some
(
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MR. M3ELLERs Reasonabla.
.,)
2 Y. R. OKFFSTs a ppro priate time period, and tha t 3
would be whether it is reliabilty assorsment.
Speaking for 4
myself, I think tha t is compatible with wha t the committee 5
has in itet 1.
6 WR. KERRs I see no incompatibility.
7 MR. DENTON:
I think the next several areas 8
water level valve position, thermal mechanical effects --
9 are covered in 0737, an; I think these issues will be 10 addressed before the review is completed along the lines of l
11 what we requira in 0737, such as positive. valve indication 12 and unambiguous indication of water level.
1 13 The last one, on DC batteries, is a bit more
,p
(
14 complicated.
I understand the Licensee is doing a study and 15 is nearin7 completion, and I think will complete that study 16 prior to operation.
17 We are also finizhing up NUEEG-0666, which we sent i
18 you en advance copy of.
It is a prob 1bilistic analysis of jg DC power supply requirements.
And depending upon your 20 reaction to that and our final approach to DC batteries, we 21 might need to take action on s generic basis.
22 If you vent to discuss that one a little bit more, 23 I see Tom Novak is here.
daybe he could add a bit to that.
24 MR. NOV4Ks Yes, I think I can, Harold.
25
'de had discussion. with the licensee this morning O
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re7ardino exactly what they have been doing.
Their plea is 2
that they are just up'to their neck in work and, in fact, 3
that at tha. presen t time there 1s no specific af fert under 4
way in the continuing review of the DC power-supplies.
They 5
would. net themselves a timetable on the order of a year.
6 They felt that your letter succesting it be performed on a 7
timely : basis would suggest that it not be a prerequisite of 8
restart.
^
g We felt that if efforts could continue and we 10 could get some reading of whst they have learned about-the 11 reliability of that system, it certainly would.be useful in j
l 12 reaching any final recommendations on the specific restart 13 requirement.
i f
fw 14 Now, we intend to meet with the Licensee next 15 week, and rertainly, this is going to be one of the agenda 16 items.
They are almost at the point, practically speaking, 17 of saying,
"'4 e ll, you are going to have to pick the priority 18 itams.
Tf you want it as a restart.itam, it juct 19 reblistically means we are not going to get there as soon as 20 we would like to.
It just adds more things to be done."
21 They intend to do it, but they did not feel that 22 at this time it should be conridered a prerequisite of 23 startup.
Je would like to know more about what they have
e h s v e g o t some wtrk ongoing.
Wo vill be 24 been doing.
25 talking to the committee later this month on this particular V
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'1 subject, and we would like to work the two together and get
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2 a better feeling for exactly what the status of that 3
specific system ic on Three Mile Island.
4 So ! think we will be able to talk to you more 5
informed about it in March and April and so forth.
6 MR. EBEESOLE:
I did s walk-through at the plant 7
on that very topic with their electrical engineer.
I guess 8
I would like to have you usk him g
MR. 20ELLER:
Would you use your mike?
10 MR. E B E RS O LE :
Oh, ye s.
Pardon me.
11 If they happen to loce 250 volt DC as a result of 12 a badly tined tesnsfer or something, ic it not true that 13 what they are locked out beyond hope of recovery for any
'D j
i 14 reasonable period of time.
That is, isn't there a finality V
15 about this accident which is rather terrible to 16 con tem pla t e s 'They cannot recover?
17 4R. NERE:
That is a leading question, "r.
.M o v a k.
18 MR. NOVAK
'Je will look into it.
19 YR. EFESSOLE:
I am asking you to ask them.
20
'R.
NOVAMs I understand.
21 MR. ESERSOLE:
If they oc over, can they climb 22 that?
i 5R. DENTON:
Finally, there was additional comment 23 of 24 by you and Dade recommending certain studies be made 25 res ta t
- mide contingent doing these studies.
I referred
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1 these comm+nte. to an in-house group that we have looking at
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2 what we call the entire " degraded rulemaking" to see how 3
feasible it might be.
4 M 5'. S II 5 5 4
" Degraded rulemaking"?
5 ME. DENTON:
We are trying to find another name.
6 (Laughter.)
7 No one likes that one.
8 But we have appeinted a staff of senior members of 9
all offices to try to rationalize what we are doino with the to' Zion and Indian Point study.
The rulemaking and all other i
11 areas where we are trying to get out in front of the 12 designed systems designed to prevent core meltdewn.
13 MR. MOELLER*
Actually, I would point out that th e f
14 additional comments are, in the main, simply restatements of 15 previous committee requests.
It simply references our 16 letter of December 18,
'79, and Septenber e of
'90.
17 One question I have, back in the t hi rd r,a ra g r a ph 18 in tha letter, wa point out our need for a concise cunmary 19 of the issues that remain o pen and so forth.
Is such a 20 raport boing prepared for us?
l 21
!!R. DE!!TO N :
Yes, it is.
By remaining open, there 22 ara two ways an itam could remain opena Ei th e r there is a 1
23 difference between the Licensee or ourselver as to what is i
24 required, or h e has not submitted anything to show how he is 25 going to sucrly what the NTOL requirements are.
2nd I N\\
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1 understand he is submitting something juct this week.
But
(
2 we are putting together a list of both categorier.
3 Let me ask Tem if he knows when we can provide 4'
tha t?
5 VOICES. We were just informed this morning that 6
Met Ed's submittal on 0737 is now going to be delayed until 7
after this meeting next week.
8 F.R. NOVAra On this coint, though, Dr. Moeller, we 9
thi*.k your request and we ha ve come back and looked at i
and we share your concern tha t it would be 10 the transcript 11 nice to know what are the open issues, what are the points i
12 of disagreement, and specifically is required of the i
13 Licensee to start up.
And I think the last time Dr. Fless,et O
t 14 asked how would these requirements compare to.any othar.
r-sj 15 plant.
16 MR. MOELLEP:
I have not read the transc: Apt.
17 t ?.. SOVAfa We have raad it ca ref ully.
18 What we intend to do is break it up.
Certainly, jg as you oc further and further into detail, it gets a better
^
20 understanding, it becomes more complicated.
Put clearly our 21 intent as to give you a response that you can understand and t
22 more or less it will stand on-its own.
23.
%R. "3ELLEPs Thank you.
That will be extremely 24 helpful to us.
25 1R. DENTON:
I would juct close by notino that I O
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1 shouldn't be teo optimi.stic about the restart of this plant, u
2 whichever way the legal battles come out.
We understand it 3
1 lat9 in the year before the plant would be physically e
ready, and it could be even later before the legal battles 5
might lead to a decision on restart.
6 MR. MARK Well, tha~ covers that point.
7 I wanted to mention plans -- whether it causes you 8
any problems, Mr. Dircks -- but I believe the committee has 9
the intention of trying to meld its list of aeneric items sc 10 that there might come into being what you would call t.
11
" unified generic items list," which would bc the same for 12 the committee as for the staff, at least as near as 13 possible.
pI 14 I hope you do not find that a troubline thought, y'% l 15 although it may take a little discussion and it may not come 16 out as clean and simpleminded as that sounds.
17
't R. DIRCXS4 This area about genaric issees, 18 unresolved safety issues, one has a leoal-legislative 19 connotation that the other one doesn't.
Let me ask Harold how we would like to define 20 21 those things.
1R. DENTON:
The Commission just recently acted en 22 23 the unresolved safety issue list.
And there wa s a committee 24 that had made various proposals, and so had the staff.
And 25 the Commission has come down recently with those which it b(
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1 wants added to th? unresolved safety issue list.
Are they U
2 the ones you have reference to, or do you have the more 3
general list that we have had in the past?
4 VR. EHEWMON:
The generic items list is something l
5 that the committee has had a; pended to.their letter over the 6
years.
Keeping this up and separate from that of the staff 7
does not seem to have a grea t deal of logic in getting 1
8 something resolved that we don't have the resources or the g
time for, since under the staff's list also we thought 'it 10 would be more logical and sia;1er if we tried to meld the 11 two and that there were araas where we still thought there 12 were items we thought should he in this category that 13 weren't.
We would try to argue about it.
If not, ours
[
14 would disappear, and yours would be the definitive list.
\\
15 "R.
DENTON.
I think that's an excellent idea.
It 16 used to be the A-through-T lirt.
It Oct up to 100 items; we 17 characterized them A, 3, C,
D, and ascioned priorities.
I 18 think the idea of a uaified list would be cood.
jg MP. SIESS:
We would expect to have some way of 20 gettino new items on ycur list.
21
'R.
DENTON:
I am sure we can arranga to do that.
22 MR. SIES52 And we would expect to have some input 23 or output on when items are taken of f the list as resolved 24 and how the resolution is to be inputted.
We do have that 25 now in the uncesolved safety issues.
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.f R. DENTON. I think we are just civing very N,
0 little effort to anyt;51ng below the unresolved safety issue
'/
2 3
list at the moment.
4 MR. SIE3S How many of the A items are not in the 5
unresolved safety issues?
I asked that before.
! do"'t n
6 remember.
7 3R. DENTON:
We are up to 44 that are Category A.
8 I think it is only half of those, rou;hly, that we call 9
" unresolved."
10 MR. OKRENT4 Do you happen to recall which issues 11 the Commission added to the list?
Because I have not seen 12 the piece of paper.
13 2R. DENT 05:
I understand it just came down.
I do
['}
14 not recall which ones they were, either.
V 15 M. R. MARK:
Well, the only cther thing which I have 16 on my list to tgain merely mention rather than discuss 17 specifically, there has been discussion involving the fev, 18 as well as the 7roup here, on means of having meaningful 19 interaction between the AC?.S and the rulemaking a.ctivity.
T think things ha ve been, of course, not in a 20 21 normal state for the last fair number of months.
It has 22 been f elt that sometimes we have seen a rule after it had a 23 great deal of momentum and e s ta b lished defenders.
And I 24 wondered if that was the test rule to be worrying about at 25 this moment.
We may have been wrong in having that fAb ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE, S.W., WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2346
186 i
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impression, but that has been our impression.
/
i 2
We are frequently asked what we think about rules 3 -sometimes later than when we'could make our best comments.
4 On the other Frii, there are many rules in which we 5
certainly do not wish to be involved at all.
And something e
which would constitute a mechanism -- I believe you have 7
discussed 'this, or your people have discussed it with Mr.
8 Fraley, in particular, and some words have been discussed to g
propose a possible mechanism, 10 Do you feel that there is a need for much more 11 discussion there?
12 MR. DIRCKSa Ray called :ae this week and mentioned 13 it to me.
And I understand that he and P. r. Reim, o'f my
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14 staff, have been working on some words.
I think the ge ne ral i
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m 15 principle of getting the ACES involved in an early stage in
)
16 thinking on rules is a very good principle.
And I told Tom 17 Reim to agree on some words.
18
!! R. MARK:
" ell, Dave?
19 5R. CKREXT:
When you finish this item, I have a 20 short --
21 MR. A R K :
Dade?
22 XR. MOELLER4 A quick comment on rulemaking.
It 23 is just a sidelight.
I attended a meeting in November a t 24 which thers was a Russian representative.
This was a 25 meeting of the ICEF, and there was discussion on the SRC's Od'I ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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rulemaking on emergency planning or emergency preparedness,
[]
2 whatever it is.
And the Russian's comnent was tha t it was 3
co311y not a rulemaking on emergency planning, it was ruling 4
on emergency actions.
And he asked me why we called it what
'we did.
5
)
1R. MARKS Interestinc that he was aware of it to 6
7 make any comment.
8 MR. DIRCKS:
I don't even'know whether we have any a
9 adequate expression.
MR. 'dOELLER:
Oftentimes, a foreigner will look 10 11 more carefuly at the words we use than we look ourselves.
12 And I thought perhaps he had a point. ' It perhaps is rulemakinc on emergency actions.
13 MR. KERPs I think this reflects a measure of the
/
14
)
15 expected probability.
MR. MARK I do not believe there is more we wa n t 16 to precs on that today.
- 'e would like to have somethino 17 18 that ts understood to imply and -- Dave?
i "R.
OKRENT :
I would like to maybe mention two 19 items that maybe we can discurs next time or comething like 20 21 that.
One relates to whether there is a mechanien for tha ACRS to have the benefit cf memoranda that are written 22 somatimes from one office to anothat office either in your 23 bailiwick or within your office, one division of ;23 or 24 25 another.
Not all memoranh, 1,u t those memoranda that have ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 2CO24 (202) 554 2345
188
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1-some safety significance.
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2 I suagest th a t a t-the moment I don't know of such 3
a mechanism, and I at aware of memoranda I wish I had seen 4
earlier.
And I am sure there are memoranda that I have not 5
seen.
6 The second question iss I have been wondering 7
whether there exist criteria, some kind of a mea sure, that 8
the safety research office can use in deciding when new g
inf orma tion should be made available even in a greliminary 10 form to the people who are active in licensing.
And by that 11 I include the ACRS.
Otherwise, they may find themselves as 12 having acted in a regulatory sense.
13 MR. MARKS I don't know.
Do you have questions O
(
14 you vould like to get comment on from us?
\\
l 15 MR. DIPCKSs On these two points, let me check it 16 out.
There is an avful lot of mentoranda coming out all the 17 time, and I am never quite sure how one kee ps on top of the 18 whole thing.
It zicht be worthwhile to look to -- snd I 19 gue ss we ca n talk to Ray Fraley about it a document 20 control system might be a way for the committee to keep on 21 too of what is going on out there.
22 On the second point, the availability of recearch 23 results and immediate decisions of the agency, you ought to 24 talk to Bob Minogue on this point.
I think he is trying for 25 some sort of approach into this area.
I know he has done AV ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. 0.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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this in a way of tapping into the ongoing research program ku-2 dealine with the iodine question.
I think we are sort of j
3 enthusiastic about how we are getting into this system.
It' 4
is geared toward not a very long-term program but a 5
short-term progrst.
6 YR. OKEENT.
I will give you an example -- two 7
examples -- of how a thing like this might arise.
- First, 8
there will be lots of risk assessment that these people see 9
in research, possibly, as part of research.
Some of them, 10 once you see them, may at least pose a question that, "Given 11 these numbers, it should te of interest to the requistory 12 people.
The numbers may be wrong, but at this level they 13 should be of interest."
And so you can take different
'O) points of view now.
j%/
14 15 You can say, "I better go back and do it very 16 carefully before I teli N33," or, "I will tell SRF but I will not write it, and I will not tell the ACPS, because 17 18 that maker it more public," or, "There are varying shades like this," or you can say, "Look, we do not know if this is 19 richt or not.
'a'e a r e g o ing tonava to do moro.
Eut this is 20 21 what we know."
So there are different ways of handlin; 22 this.
The came thina c=.n arise out of a research area.
23 24 You find some new phenomenon on pressure vessels or insbility to find something, and you can say, "Cee, maybe 25 G
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this is important,'you knew.
I will sat up a research A,Y 2
program in'thi: 3rea and three years later have it resolved 3
or som+ thing," and then, perhaps not necessarily even call 4
it to the attention of the licensino people.
It is l
l 5
possible.
6 MR. DIROKS:
I think tne objective is the one we would like to strive for is to make sure the research 7
8 program does click off these items when they do occur.
I 9
think lately -- Harold, you might have a f ew comments on 10 this -- some of this has happened.
I recall some, at least, 11 coming out of Bernero's group recently.
12 MR. OKRENTs My question is not whether they are 13 coming up with items but whether the matter is done
/~s) selectively, in which case they are exercisin; some kind of (d
14 they 15 judgment.
And if they are exercising some kind of 16 have to exercise some kind of judgment -- than they could in 17 fact be acting in a regulatory sense by sayino by rio t 18 callino comething to your attention.
19 MR. DIRCKSs Yes.
MR. "AEK&
Does a nyone else ha ve anything else he
^
20 21 would like to take advantage of before these guys have to 22 UO?
(3o response.)
23 e
- R.
VAPKs If not, thank you very much.
24 25 (Whereupon, at 3: 45 p.m.,
the meeting was ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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adjourned.)
2 l
3 4
5 l
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 e
22 23 24 25 ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION k,j
~
This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the in the matter of:
ACRS/249th General Meeting of the ACRS Date of Proceeding:
Janaury 9, 1981 Docket !!umb er:
Place of Proceeding:
Washington, D. C.
were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of :he Commission.,
Mary C.
Simons Official Reporter (Typed)
C n
di mn y
Cfficial Reporter (signature) i a
)
4 l
a
1
~..
NUCI.ZAR REGULATORY C0!?!ISSICN This is :: certify tha; :he a : ached pre:decings 'cefere :he s.<
in. he 22 ter Of:
ACRS/249 th General Meeting of the ACRS
' Ca:e of Preceeding:
January 9, 1981 Decket tiu:::bar:
Place Cf ?r:Ceedir.g:
Washington, D. C.
were held as heret appears, and tha: this is the eriginal :r anser thersef f r the file O f the Cec::::is sie r..,
Patricia A. Minson Of ficial ?.epercar ( 77;ec) u A
h.
Official ?,eperter (signature) e 9
O
=
a, P
i NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the
- f.,
in the matter of:
ACRS/249th General Meeing of the ACRS Date of Proceeding:
Januarv 9, 1981 o
Decket liumber Piace of Proceeding:
Washington, D. C.
were held as herein appears, and that this d the criginal transcript thereof for the file of the Commission.,
David S.
Parker OffidaL Reporter (Typed) s A
1
(
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d O
.