ML20205M857

Testimony of Re Reinheimer Re Intervenor Rorem QA Subcontention 10.B Concerning Matl Traceability.Related Correspondence

ML20205M857
Person / Time
Site:	Braidwood
Issue date:	04/11/1986
From:	Reinheimer R CHICAGO SPECTRO SERVICE LABORATORY, INC., COMMONWEALTH EDISON CO.
To:
Shared Package
ML20205M802	List: ML20205M799 ML20205M812 ML20205M816 ML20205M824 ML20205M828 ML20205M836 ML20205M844 ML20205M848 ML20205M853 ML20205M857 ML20205M860 ML20205M873
References
OL, NUDOCS 8604150407
Download: ML20205M857 (9)

Text

-_ _ _ _ _ _ _

% 'w

, ggggMWMi d RELATED April 11,:1986 ED UNITED STATES OF A M Ig NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMIssI Q p BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY A k$ICENSING B RD In the Matter of )

'WL

)

COMMONWEALTH EDISON COMPANY ) Docket Nos. 50-456

) 50-457 (Braidwood Station Units 1 and 2) )

TESTIMONY OF RAY REINHEIMER (ON ROREM Q.A. SUBCONTENTION 10.B)

(MATERIAL TRACEABILITY) 0.1. Please state your full name for the record.

A.l. Raymond E. Reinheimer, Jr.

I Q.2. By whom are you employed?

A.2. Chicago Spectro Service Laboratory, Inc. (Chicago l Spectro), 4848 S. Kedzie Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60632.

t 0.3. What is your position with Chicago Spectro? l A.3. I am Executive Vice President and Technical Director of the Company.

Q.4. What are your duties and responsibilities as Executive Vice President and Technical Director of Chicago Spectro?

A.4. My duties include recruitment, placement and supervision of all personnel in the laboratory. I am 8604150407 860411 PDR T ADOCK 05000456 PDR

t responsible for setting up and maintaining Quality Assurance for all spectrographic departments; for the acceptance, research, and control of all non-routine testing; and for supervision of all chemical testing.

I was directly responsible for accepting, recording the entries, sampling, and supervising the analysis of the Braidwood Material Traceability Verification (MTV) samples.

Q.5. Please describe your technical education and experience.

A.S. I attended Cornell University for three years as an undergraduate, concentrating in chemistry, physics, and biology. After I left Cornell in 1956, I came to work for Chicago Spectro. For the past 30 years, I have engaged extensively in chemical and spectrographic work for the Company, starting with hands-on analytical work and gradually acquiring more supervisory and managerial duties. I have had several years of experience in each of the departments of the laboratory, including specific experience with all of the spectrographic equipment, work in the wet chemistry lab and in the x-ray lab. For the last 20 years, I have been directly responsible for all non-routine testing. I am a member i

of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, the American l

1 l

- . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ - _ _ _ _ _ . _____--____-__________-___-____-_-_-___-.-.._-____-__-__-_______________\

i Chemical Society, and the American Society for the Testing of Materials.

Q.6. To which subcontention is this testimony addressed?

A.6. My testimony relates to subcontention 10.B of Intervenor Rorem's Q.A. Contention.

Q.7. With what aspect of that subcontention is your testimony concerned?

A.7. My testimony covers the chemical analysis by Chicago Spectro of samples of carbon steel and stainless steel l

provided to Chicago Spectro by Commonwealth Edison I Company (CECO) for analysis under a purchase order from Taussig Associates Inc. We were a subcontractor of Taussig for this chemical analysis work. It is my understanding that the chemical analyses were for samples related to CECO's MTV Program. I have no knowledge of the origin of the cutouts or the interpretation of the results. We received an initial shipment of 120 samples to which 5 samples were added later, for a total of 126 samples.

i 0.8. What type of metal samples were you asked to analyze for Braidwood?

A.8. Approximately 61 of the MTV samples were carbon steel.

The remaining 65 samples were stainless steel.

t-4 Q. 9. . What type of analysis did you perform on the MTV samples?

A.9. We analyzed all of the samples for the percentage compositions of the various alloying elements which we know from experience make up the chemical composition of the particular type of material, in particular, carbon steel or stainless steel.- We perform this chemical analysis using precision instruments which apply well established principles of physics to determine relative amounts of elemental components of i

materials. These instruments are carefully calibrated to produce accurate absolute measurements of chemical composition by percentage.

Q.10. How did you analyze the Braidwood carbon steel samples?

A.10. For all but one of the chemical components of these samples, namely carbon, we used an Angstrom V-71 Vacuum Emission Spectrometer, which is a direct reading instrument with 3/4 meter' folded optics. The spectrometer is set up for analyzing-ferrous materials for 22 alloying and trace elements simultaneously.

This instrument is computerized for automatic calibration and readout of results.

i To analyze a sample, we first prepare a fresh' surface on the sample and place it in the spectrometer. The o

e instrument bombards the metal surface with a beam of high energy electrons, vaporizing minute quantities of the sample and energizing the metal particles enough to make them emit radiation of various wavelengths, especially ultraviolet and blue light, to which our instrument is sensitive. The emitted light falls on a diffraction grating, which separates the light into its wavelength components according to well known physical principles. The separated light falls on a photomultiplier cell which, by converting the light ,

which falls on it to electric current, gives a signal proportional to the intensity of that particular wavelength. The electrical current is then processed by the instrument's computer.

Each element of the periodic table, when excited to a higher energy by events such as electron bombardment, emits a spectrum of light which is uniquely characteristic of that element. The spectrum for each element consists of a series of characteristic " lines,"

each of which consists of light of nearly a single wavelength. The intensity of light emitted in a given "line" is proportional to the number of etoms of the element excited and thus to the concentration of the element in the sample.

s The spectrometer functions by preselecting a "line" from the characteristic spectrum of each element of interest in the analysis. The instrument then measures the relative intensity of the light emission from each of those lines for various samples.

In order to obtain the absolute concentrations of the elements of interest, the instrument must be calibrated. We use certificated standard reference materials produced by the National Bureau of Standards and by other comparable testing laboratories to calibrate the spectrometer. Each day, we set up the machine by running a series of standards for the elements of interest in the analysis, first at low and then at high-concentrations. We also have a series of NBS standards with concentrations in the ranges of interest for the kinds of materials we actually test.

We run one of these standards as a calibration test to assure that the calibration is correct in the range of concentration of interest. We rerun that standard at intervals during the run and at the end of the day's analysis to reduce systematic error in the measured concentrations from drift in the instrument.

i 0.11. How did you analyze the Braidwood carbon steel samples l for carbon?

1 A.ll. Although we do get a carbon value from the spectrographic analysis, we do not consider it trustworthy. Carbon concentration of various steels tends to vary near the surface and spectrometers are known to give unreliable results for carbon.

Accordingly, we use an instrument known as a Combustion Thermal Conductimetric analyzer to analyze a substantial sample of the material. This instrument measures carbon content by combusting a sample of known weight in a pure oxygen atmosphere and measuring the.

concentration of the resulting carbon dioxide using a thermal conductivity measurement. This method has been a standard method for carbon measurement in the testing industry for a number of years. Its accuracy is also 4

guaranteed by careful calibration.

s Q.12. How does the analysis of stainless steel differ from

, that of carbon steel?

A.12. Stainless steel contains higher concentrations of important alloy components different from those in carbon steel. The differences necessitate use of a different instrument, namely an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer. This instrument works on a slightly different physical principle than the emission spectrometer, namely that each element, when bombarded by broad spectrum high intensity x-rays, gives off a

a 4

series of characteristic x-ray emission lines, known as the x-ray fluorescence spectrum. Although the radiation emitted is in the x-ray portion of the a

radiation spectrum rather than in the ultraviolet and blue portion, the emitted characteristic lines for each element are analogous to emission lines in the ultraviolet and blue ranges and are analyzed in a virtually identical way. Moreover, the standards and procedures for calibration of the x-ray instrument are also virtually identical to those used for the emission i

spectrometer.

Q.13. What is the accuracy of these instruments?

A.13. The emission spectrometer typically measures absolute concentration values of from between 1 and 2% down to 0.001 percent or lower. The relative precision of these measurements is about 2% of the measured values except at the very lowest concentrations. Thus a typical measurement might be, for example, 0.5% +

0.01%. The x-ray fluorescence spectrometer accommodates higher absolute percentage concentrations, for example, 20 to 30%. Its accuracy as a percentage of the measured figure is better than that of the emission spectrometer, especially for high concentrations.

- , - e , . - , - -,--.. - . . .,

,-- ,., -r - - , ,

7n

, s*

.s a i Q.14. Whatweretheresultsofyobranalyses?

A.14. .The results of our measurem'ents are set (forth in Tables I and II of At' tac $ ment 10.B '[Hineman-1) to the testimony of Ma'rk A. Hineman. For elements not listed, no measurableeco,ncentration was observed.

Q.15. Did you perform Any other analyses or tests relating to the MTV samples? ,

. g- ,

A.15. No. +

,0 s'

s s

n e

1 i

\ .

..s t

/

I' 9 _

.