ML20210F668
| ML20210F668 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 02/06/1987 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T-1573, NUDOCS 8702110134 | |
| Download: ML20210F668 (173) | |
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ORIGINAL UN11ED STATES
.O NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO:
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 322ND GENERAL MEETING
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LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D. C. PAGES: 1 - 124 DATE: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1987 cf e ,? !
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1 DAV/dnw 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
~% f]J 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 4 **
- 5 322ND GENERAL MEETING 6
Nuclear Regulatory Commission 8 Room 1046 1717 H Street, N.W.
9 Washington, D. C.
10 Friday, February 6,19 87 11 The 322nd. General Meeting reconvened at 8:30 a.m.
12 (m
y) 13 ACRS MEMBERS PRESENT:
14 MR. DAVID A. WARD MR. JESSE C. EBERSOLE 15 MR. HAROLD ETHERINGTON DR. MAX W. CARBON 16 DR. WILLIAM KERR DR. HAROLD W. LEWIS 17 DR. J. CARSON MARK DR. DADE W. MOELLER 8
DR. DAVID OKRENT MR. G NN A. EED 19 DR. FORREST J. REMICK 20 DR. PAUL G. SHEWMON DR. CHESTER P. SIESS 21 MR. CHARLES J. WYLIE 22 23 24 25 ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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() PUBLIC NOTICE BY THE UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONERS' ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1987 The contents of this stenographic transcript of the proceedings of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), as reported herein, is an uncorrected record of
- the discussions recorded at the meeting held on the above date.
No member of the ACRS Staff and no participant at
() this meeting accepts any responsibility,for error's or inaccuracies of statement or data contained in this transcript.
O
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17210 01 01 2 1 DAVbw 1 PROCEEDINGS rh 2 DR. KERR: The meeting will come to order. This
'3 is the second day of the 322nd meeting of the Advisory 4 Committee on Reactor Safeguards.
5 We expect today to discuss reactor operating 6 experience, rad waste management and disposal, future 7 activities, reactor safety research, quantitative safety 8 goals and standardized nuclear power plants and containment 9 performance in sufficient detail, I assume, so we won't have 10 to discuss it any more!
11 (Laughter.)
12 Topics for discussion are listed on the schedule 13 posted on the bulletin board outside the meeting room.
O 14 The meeting is conducted in accordance with the 15 provisions of the Federal Advisory Act and the Government 16 Sunshine Act.
17 Portions of today's meeting will be closed.
18 A transcript of the meeting is being kept. I ask 19 that each speaker use the microphone and identify himself or 20 herself.
21 The first item on the agenda has to do with a 22 review of some reactor operating experience.
23 I will ask Mr. Ebersole, Subcommittee Chairman, 24 to handle this.
25 MR. EBERSOLE: Thank you. As is our current ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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,1 DAVbw 1 practice, on Tuesday of.this week, I met with Jack-Rosenthal 2 and his staff in~Bethesda. We went over some 15-odd events 3 which had been screened from a much larger list in the last 4 two months and from them, we managed to. focus down to six-5 which we think will be interesting to you, in the context 6 that they have general meetings that we need to look at.
7 Some of them are really in the nature of operations not 8 being conducted in a proper manner. They have different 9 meetings from the explicit accidents and events that we will 10 show you.
11 I remind you that we have a mandate from Chairman 12 2ech to pay considerable attention to reactor operating 13 experence, and we spend fairly little time at it. And I O 14 think we are maybe going to have to review whether we are 15 going at this in a proper manner.
16 The statement has been made that we need to 17 produce more letter, and we should, as the result of looking 18 at these. Maybe that is true, but I believe, and I have an 19 agreement, that there's product that flows from these 20 conferences from you, from verbal comments to the Staff.
21 We are in an activity that has a product, even 22 though we may not grind out the letters that go to the 23 commissions.
24 So I ask you to listen carefully and to quench 25 any tendency that you may have not to get into the grimy O
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7210 01 03 4 1 DAVbw 1 details and see what you can see and tell me what you can 2 see that these operating events mean, and then I will take 3 whatever written or further actions we should take.
4 I am just going to hand this over to 5 Mr. Rosenthal, unless someone wants to ask a question or 6 comment or whatever on the subject of the operating 7 experience.
8 Does anybody have anything to say?
9 (No response.)
10 Jack, with that, I am going to let you identify 11 those things.
12 MP. POSENTHAL: Jack Fosenthal, Office of 13 Inspection and Enforcement.
O 14 There are six events that we hope to discuss 15 today. We have allocated, roughly, 45 minutes for the Hatch 16 AIT report and about 20 minutes each for the succeeding 17 events.
18 The committee, at the prior meeting, asked for a 19 briefing on the Hatch AIT. They also asked for updates of 20 the work related to drywell shell corrosion at Oyster Creek 21 and a follow up on the Byron event.
22 The Sequoyah/ Watts Bar ice condensor problem we 23 are discussing today, because of the significance of the 24 event itself of the ramifications in terms of might 25 constitute severe accident closure, in terms of plant ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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I 2 I think it is illustrative of those problems.
3 Brunswick 2, the first EGG room cooling design 4 deficiency is a good example of a systems interaction at a 5 real plant, and I think it is bearing on the safety goal 6 implementation discussion that you had late yesterday 7 afternoon.
8 The last event is typical of Brunswick. It is 9 typical of the ongoing problems that we have with the 10 reliability of motor-operated valves.
11 With that, Floyd Cantrell from Region 2 --
12 MR. EBERSOLE: While you are getting ready, let 13 me make one comment.
O 14 The incident at Hatch is not particularly safety 15 significant in its actual aspects. It is the loss of a lot 16 of water which is moderately contaminated, but how the plant 17 was created and how the operators fail to recognize what was 18 happening is indicative of what might happen in much more 19 sensitive areas.
20 With that, I will just turn it over.
21 MR. CANTRELL: I am Floyd Cantrell, the leader of 22 the AIT team down at Hatch.
23 (Slide.)
24 I would like to just review a little bit of the 25 safety significance of this event.
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/D 2 I feel that Georgia Power demonstrated an ability 3 to staff their emergency center, both in Atlanta and at the 4 site, and they did a very commendable job in responding to 5 this event. It was not required by their emergency plan, l 6 but it worked out very well to their benefit.
7 This was an analyzed accident, in that you stil 8 had a foot-and-a-half of water shielding above the 9 irradiated fuel, if it had drained all the way down. Of 10 course, it didn't drain all the way down, and there were no 11 radiation alarms in the refueling or associated with this
> 12 event. There were numerous precursors to this event that 13 could have prevented it from happening, like the number of
(
14 times that they had to refill the spent fuel pool, and when 15 it went from once per shift to three per shift, it was not 16 recognized as a problem and associated with other things 17 that were occurrin the building.
- 18 DR. MOELLER
- Excuse me. You mentioned radiation 19 alarms. Is there an alarm for spent fuel pool water levels?
20 MR. CANTRELL: Yes. And they get the low level 21 alarm, and the operator would go up and refill the pool.
1 22 ' DR. MOELLER: Okay. That's right.
23 DP. SIESS: Over how long a period was that going I 24 on?
25 MR. CANTRELL: They were routinely filling it ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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,_1 DAVbw I approximately once a shift, due to evaporation and due to 2 leakage in the clean-up system, the cooling system.
3 DR. MOELLER: But for months or for weeks?
4 MR. CANTRELL: For several weeks, which was 5 normal. Then when they closed off the air supply to the 6 inflatable seals, the next shift they had to refill it 7 twice. The second shift, they had to do it three times and 8 the following shift three times.
9 DR. SIESS: How many. shifts did it take before 10 they knew that they had a problem?
11 MR. CANTRELL: Approximately 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />, three 12 shifts.
13 DR. SIESS: That is a long time.
O 14 DR. KERR Did I understand you correctly that, 15 had it drained as far as it possibly could have, one would 16 still have had 1-1/2 feet of water above the top of the 17 pool?
18 MR. CANTRELL: Right. And I will show you that 19 on the graph.
20 This is another event that has moderate safety 21 significance that is caused by nonsafety-related equipment 22 like air supplies. The transfer canal seals in Plant Hatch 23 are not considered safety-related, although Georgia Power 24 does buy them to the quality specifications that they would, 25 if they were safety-related. The leak protection system is O
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.7210 01 07 8 1 DAVbw 1 not safety-related or tech spec, and the alarm is poor O 2 design.
3 DR. KERR: Excuse me. You say the alarm is a 4 poor design?
5 MR. CANTRELL: Right.
6 DR. KERR The alarm for what?
7 MR. CANTRELL: For leak through this seal.
8 DR. KERR: The alarm didn't work?
4 9 MR. CANTRELL: The alarm did not work, primarily 1.
10 because they left the drain valve open the last time it was i
{ 11 calibrated. But if you look at the design of it, which I i
- 12 will point out a little bit later, I don't believe~it would
- ( 13 14 work, even if you put it back to normal.
DR. KERR: I misunderstood earlier then. I l
j 15 thought you said the thing that stimulated the refill of the 16 pool was that the pool level alarm went off and refilled the
- 17 pool.
- 18 MR. CANTRELL
- There are two alarms. One on the 19 level, and there is a leak detection alarm for this l
20 particular seal at the bottom of the transfer valve. The 21 pool level alarm went off, but the seal alarm did not.
22 MR. EBERSOLE: Could you clarify one little point 23 about the short hangers for the control rods.
24 MR. CANTRELL: Yes. Could I get that a little 25 bit later? I will show you that specifically.
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1 .DAVbw- 1 MR. EBERSOLE: 'Okay.
( 2 MR. CANTRELL:
.'. f-You asked me to look back at an 3 event that occurre'd where the drain valve.-stuck open on the 4 scram discharge estimate volume. I reviewed that event, and 5 Ithinkthathasmdreofanindictmentofthemaintenance 6 practices at Hatch. I think this event is'more an l /
7 indictment of'the' lack of management of th'o event. It's 8 almost like it was --: it seems like no one was in charge of 9 minding the shop, but there were no signficant releases from 10 the site.
11 (Slide.)
12 This is'the picture of the Plant Hatch. I was 13 hoping it would show up a little bit better, but the area of O
V 14 interest here is the nitrogen storage area. The building 15 joint comes in right down here and the nitrogen storage area 16 is an area that is enclosed by concrete walls. It has a 17 direct floor and does not have a roof over it. Now when the 18 leak occurred, it came into the joint between the building,
, 19 mostly flowed down into this nitrogen storage area and there 20 is a drain in that storage a,rea that goes to the yard 21 drains, but it was partially plugged up, and they estimated 22 about two feet of water in that room. And there was a hot i
23 machine shop right adjacent to it. The entrance to the 24 nitrogen storage area is through that hot machine shop.
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- 25 They were able to force open that bill enovgh to
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7210 01 09 10 DAVbw 1 get in to see what it was. And the water flooded into the
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i1 2 hot machine shop and overpowered the drains to rad waste and 3 flowed under the door out onto the pad into the yard ,
I 4 drains. They have yard drains that come around the cooling 5 towers this way, along through here and around on this 6 side. These from this side over come into an out hole'about 7 in this area here, which is a 42-inch pipe, and it, over 8 rocks, and so forth, drops about 20 feet into the swamp 9 area. -
10 When they realized what the problem was, in order 11 to minimize the amount of water going out in the swamp area, 12 they build dikes across this outfall area, so they could 13 pick up and put a pump in there and pump the contaminated 14 water into a tanker truck or several tanker trucks that they 15 brought in. In order to minimize that, they went back and 16 cut holes in each of these lines coming into the outfall and 17 checked the water. If it was contaminated water, they 18 pumped it in to put in the dikes and pumped it into the 19 tankers.
20 If it was clean water, they put a pump in there
. 21 and pumped it out into the cooling tower. So they minimized 22 the amount they had to deal with at this point.
23 of course, this is the river over here. This is 24 the intake pumping station.
i 25 The water, as we said, came down through here,
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11 1 DAVbw 1 ente, red the swamp about along this area right here, and
\ 2 there is an outfall from that swamp going toward the river 3 up in this vicinity right here. Now you can't see it, 4 really, from this picture, but there is sort of a depressed 5 area along,in here. This outfall falls into this depressed 6 area and comes down into the corner here before it goes into 7 the river.
8 Now after they got through, in order to monitor 9 what was being released, they put an automatic sampler at 10 this point, and where the water goes into~this point, so 11 they could colledt samples once or twice a week, or as 12 appr'opriate, and monitor if anything was being released.
.-q 13 Essentially, nothing had been released to the river.
d 14 These are a couple pictures that might be a 15 little easier to see.
16 DR. MOELLER: The radionuclides involved, I 17 presume, are mostly short-lived, or is it cobalt 607 18 MR.-CANTRELL: .Mostly cesium, and it was very low 19 level, 1-1/2 mpc.
20 (Slide.)
21 I would like to sort of start at the back end, 22 maybe, and discuss the releases, which I think we will find 23 are not too significant.
24 During this event af ter the seals started
, 25 deflating, leakages started appearing in the reactor
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7210 01 11 12 DAVbw 1 building and the turbine building. Nobody really tied the
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-' 2 leakage together associated with the spent fuel pool, 3 because the.first samples of water they collected didn't 4 show any contamination.
5 This may have thrown them off in their evaluation 6 of the event, but you see, there is about 4/10 of a curie 7 released from the spent fuel pool or calculated to be 8 released from that, and we think the bulk of the water went 9 to the nitrogen storage shed and from there to the yard 10 drains, as we pointed out before. And at each point at the 11 outfall, they were able to damn up and collect water and the 12 amount that went to the swamp was negligible.
,__. 13 DR. REMICK: Question. When you indicated 1-1/2
'd 14 mpc, was that in the pool effluent into the river? At what 15 point was it 1-1/2 mpc?
16 MR. CANTRELL: This was the water they were 17 collecting at, say, the nitrogen storage area, just the yard 18 drains. As it went on down, it became diluted even more.
19 DR. KERR: Did you say 1-1/27 I thought you said 20 4-1/2.
21 MR. CANTRELL: 1-1/2.
22 DR. KERR: It was almost drinkable water?
23 MR. CANTRELL: Yes.
24 DR. MOELLER: Of course, I could ask if that was 25 occupational or general public mpc. I presume,
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,_1 DAVbw 1 occupational?
2 MR. CANTRELL: I can't tell you. I asked Mike 3 Speed that.
4 DR. KERR: How much is the difference?
5 DR. MOELLER: It would be a factor of 10.
6 MR. CANTRELL: All the contaminated water was 7 retained on the Georgia Power property, and the swamp area, 8 the area along in here or it was draining from the outfall.
9 A lot of vegetable with hair roots, and so forth. And the 10 area that has the highest activity, there is about half an 11 mr per hour. When they pulled up those hair roots, they 12 seemed to work like a filter. They cut that down to less 13 than a tenth. And after they had completed as much clean up O 14 as they could, depending on the weather -- it was going to 15 start raining. Just before it started raining, they brought 16 in gravel, and we covered this with about six inches of 17 gravel to minimize the problem.
f 18 At first, Georgia Power was going to damn up the 19 swamp to prevent anything from getting out, and the state 20 was involved, and they objected tc this, I guess, under the 21 Wetlands Act, and they asked us about it, and we didn't have 22 any problem. So they were willing to let it go. Nobody 23 would ever see it down the river.
24 So essential -- there was no damming back of the 25 swamp and no releases.
3 L.)
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,1 DAVbw 1 DR. REMICK: Just out of curiosity, what did you
( i
\/ 2 find in the river?
3 MR. CANTRELL: No, there are no nuclear plants 4 upstream.
5 MR. EBERSOLE: Let me. comment. There seems to be 6 a modest event, in terms of release of radiation. There 7 seems to be a great of public excitement about the event, 8 but the main thrust of this event is to see how it happened 9 and what was neglected. As it evolved, it is not the event 10 itself. I don't think it would have mattered very much, if-11 there wasn't all that furious activity to stop this stuff.
, 12 I don't know why, in fact, they just went into these 13 terrible convulsions to do it, but they did, other than (3~
14 public impact and public opinion.
15 MR. CANTRELL: The Visitors Center needed an air 16 traffic controller with all the news media and people flying 17 in to get firsthand knowledge of what was going on.
18 MR. EBERSOLE: A public image problem. And of 19 course, it did portray some pretty sloppy management that 20 let this situation develop. And that is the trust of 21 reporting this back to you, not the physical fact that it 22 happened.
23 24 (1) 1 ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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\- 2 As you_can see here, these are the spent fuel 3 pools. In between the spent fuel pool and the transfer 4 canal there are places for gates as well as the cask storage 5 and the spent fuel pool and also the reactor cavity.
6 These gates are left normally installed and 7 inflated, and the plant operator has to test here the 8 pressure on each of these seals as he makes his rounds.
9 These particular seals in the transfer canal 10 area, which we will get into, were not on that rounds 11 procedure. So nobody ever monitored them routinely.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: There was no pressure gauge on
_s 13 them?
N 14 MR. CANTEELL: There was a pressure gauge but no 15 annunciation.
16 As you see there, this is the building gap, which 17 is essentially three inches all the way to ground level.
18 This is a copy of a picture of that transfer canal. I 19 couldn't get the original of that. Georgia Power had it 20 down at Plant Hatch and couldn't get it up in time, and I 21 apologize.
22 (Slide.)
23 Here we have got a view of the transfer canal and 24 spent fuel pool, here the irradiated fuel, and if you drain
,f 25 down through the bottom of the transfer canal here, you c L3) l l
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,;l DAVbur 1 would still have one foot, five inches of water above the 2 irradiated fuel.
3 Now, the bale would be out of the water.
4 We were talking about the irradiated control 5 blades on short hangers. They are pictured over here. As 6 you see, there are still two feet of water. This was the 7 minimum level the water came down to, but still two feet of 8 water shielding above those. However, the water was 9 dropping, and if they had not taken prompt action we would 10 have had these exposed.
11 Georgia Power calculated that these on contact 12 are about 10,000 R per hour. But up at the floor, at the 13 edge of the pool directly above it, it would be about 100 R 73 V 14 per hour, and you get back away from it six feet you only 15' have about 1 R per hour.
16 They figured that if it had drained down and they 17 had to do something about this radiation level, they could 18 have horizontally gone up here and pried these hooks off and 19 let these blades drop into the pool, which would greatly 20 reduce the radiation level.
21 Now, as you see, here is just another example of 22 this three-inch gap in the building joint here.
23 DR. SIESS: How common is this configuration of 24 the transfer between two buildings?
25 MR. CANTRELL: It is not very common.
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.1. DAVbur 1 DR. SIESS: Are there any other two-unit plants
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2 that have this?
3 MR. CANTRELL: We do not know of any other.
4 There are none in Region 2.
5 DR. SIESS: This is just the pool fuel from one 6 plant to the other?
7 MR. CANTRELL: Right. As you see over here, when 8 they built Unit 2 they put in this cask storage area here, 9 and you could use that area for either of the pools, whereas 10 this area gave them a problem with heavy loads in the-spent 11 fuel pools.
12 So this was more convenient to both places, and 13 the way the FSAR is written it implies that you are going to 14 leave the gates in here. It was not being silent on the 15 subject because it tells you that the spent fuel pool has a 16 stainless steel liner, and in back of that liner.you have 17 these leak detection chases, and in questioning Georgia 18 Power they said that those leak detection chases are only at 19 the lower levels of the pool. They don't go all the way up 20 to the top.
21 DR. KERR: Mr. Cantrell, Mr. Ebersole said and I 22 thought you said this particular incident itself was not 23 particularly serious but we have some lessons to learn from 24 it.
25 Up to now I have heard about the details of the 7-l \_/
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,1 DAVbur 1 incident. -Could we maybe concentrate on what we should 2 learn from it?
3 MR. CANTRELL: Yes.
4 (Slide.)
5 This is just a picture of a seal assembly that 6 goes in the canal, and I have a couple pictures here that it 7 might be a little easier to understand with that picture 8 there.
9 The seals are normally replaced at five-year 10 intervals, and they are not considered safety related by 11 Georgia Power.
12 (Slide.)
_ 13 This is an example showing the single air supply 14 to all seals. As a result of the Connecticut Yankee event, 15 where the seal was ruptured, and our bulletin, some 16 facilities went back and looked at their seal supplies and 17 found that they were hooked up like this and provided a 18 redundant supply.
19 The bulletin was not specific enough to tell.
20 everybody to do that, and Georgia Power did not do it. The 21 event that started it, the pressure. regulator was found to 22 be defective. This valve was throttled in place of it. A 23 deviation maintenance request was not written for that 24 particular event.
25 So at the end of the refueling outage the plant ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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,_} DAVbur 'l operator was removing clearances up on the refueling floor.
2 He found this valve looked like it was supposed to be closed
'3 and was not tagged in accordance with instructions from the 4 operating supervisor. So he went ahead and closed it. He 5 did not'tell anybody he closed it. He did not document it.
6 Then about 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> later the leaks started, and 7 as you can see, we have redundant seals here. This male 8 fitting goes down here, and you have redundant seals here.
9 But if they all leak at the same time, if the leakage is 10 from this way, the water would come here and go on down the 11 three-inch gap rather than coming in here in the leak 12 detection system.
_, 13 This is a horizontal one-inch pipe and if this
~
14 seal leaks down first, even on this side where you would 15 measure the leakage, it would go down this three-inch pipe 16 rather than be forced back into the one-inch line.
17 DR. KERR: I still would. urge that you tell us 18 what we should learn from this. I think we are getting 19 details of the incident, which are certainly important, but 20 this is not typical of other plants. I doubt that it will 21 happen here again.
22 MR. ROSENTHAL: If I may interrupt, even though 23 the two-pool configuration is specific to Hatch, the use of 24 the inflatable seals is widespread. There had been a g- 25 bulletin on the use of inflatable seals in the refueling
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,1 -DAVbur 1 cavity. There had been noticed other problems.
k- 2 It would have been not unreasonable to have 3 expected Hatch to have looked at all the uses of inflatable 4 seals in such applications following both the notice and 5 bulletin.
6 MR. EBERSOLE: As a matter of fact, I think it is 7 true, Bill. Again, it is just the procedural or the 8 administrative aspects of this accident that are 9 significant. This is sloppy design, sloppy review, sloppy 10 attention to maintenance.
11 DR. KERR: I am not trying to disagree with 12 anything, but am I hearing that inflatable seals are sloppy?
13 MR. EBERSOLE: There may well be inflatable seals
.O 14 on the primary containment doors which might be fed by the 15 same air supply.
4 16 DR. KERR: No. I am saying is the lesson that 17 one should get -- is it the use of inflatable seals?
18 MR. EBERSOLE: If you do use them, you do it with 19 a higher degree of discipline.
20 DR. KERR: I am not trying to disagree. I am 21 asking the question. What is the lesson we should learn 22 from this?
23 MR. EB ERSOLF.: Are you asking me?
24 MR. CANTRELL: I think the lesson is that all
,- 25 utilities using inflatable seals should go back and look and v
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,1 DAVbur 1 see if they have redundant air supplies as well as redundant
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2 seals.
3 MR. WARD: Well, that lesson already should have 4 been learned, I guess.
5 I think you had an important point. What did the 6 people at Hatch say about what they did at Haddam Neck? Are 7 we going to hear that?
8 MR. CANTRELL: Hatch reviewed what happened at 9 Haddam Neck and decided they didn't have the same problem 10 because they had metal bellows on the inflatable seal 11 between the cavity and the reactor vessel.
.12 DR. CARBON: Question. I can imagine that they
, 13 viewed this as not safety significant, you said, in some of
(,)
14 their terminology.
15 What kind of reputation do they have at Hatch for 16 operation of the reactor, for being on top of things?
17 MR. CANTRELL: I would say up till now they did 18 not have a good reputation for being on top of things. I 19 think the situation is improving.
20 They are going to log abnormal events like adding i
21 water to the spent fuel pool so the next shift will know 22 what is happening. The people are getting out to see what 23 'is going on more.
24 However, since this event at Hatch we have had a
, 25 leak on the condensate tank transfer pump which dumped
- O~
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__1 DAVbur 1 40,000 gallons out, but they did have a mode in that.
' -- 2 In reviewing that particular item, we found that 3 that particular pump has been overhauled twice in the past 4 six months. So it looks like the maintenance was sloppy in 5 that area.
6 It had an outstanding work order on it at the 7 time the seal blew out on the pump, and the only reason they 8 have not worked it, they said, was because the other pump 9 had a defective check valve.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: I think this event is indicative 11 of the need to go back and examine the last several years of 12 what has been going on at Hatch.
7_, 13 You may recall that spectacular event when they
( '~')
14 pressurized the space which contains the dump volumes, and 15 they were unable to reset the rods and stop the leaks that 16 were occurring from the dump volume valves.
17 It is a complex and hazardous event. This is 18 just another sort of related event indicative of the same 19 sort of operational response and discipline.
20 DR. KERR: The lesson to be learned here has to 21 deal primarily with the operation of the plant. It is not a 22 general thing.
23 MR. EBERSOLE: And it is stacked on top of a 24 number of things in the last three or four years. So I s 25 think there is a need here to go back and examine the
)
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7210 02 09 23 1 DAVbur 1 history of the events like this at Hatch to deduce from that 2 whether or not there is really a common operation taking 3 place.
4 DR. KERR: Is this a staff consensus as well?
5 DR. MOELLER: Is there another lesson?
6 Let me just ask it a little facetiously, but that 7 certain air supply systems should be declared safety 8 systems if you are demanding redundancy or encouraging it?
9 MR. CANTRELL: Harold Ostall has just completed a-10 five-year air study. He has a report circulating within the 11 committee for review. He identified some 60 events that had 12 safety related or near safety related significance.
_ 13 You would have a nonsafety related piece of O 14 equipment like air supplies but can affect-the operation of 15 the reactor, and I think you will be very interested in 16 reading that.
17 This is something that has been under review, I 18 know, for the last 10 years. In fact, I wrote a memo on it 19 in 1976, 10 years to the day, prior to this Hatch seal 20 failure.
21 DR. KERR: Let me caution us that we not confuse 22 safety grade with reliable, and we may be doing that. From 23 what we have said up to now, I think that this was not a 24 safety system in the sense in which NRC uses the term. That 25 does not mean that they considered it appropriate to use ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 02.10 24 Jg DAVbur 1 unreliable systems. Maybe they did.
\ 2 I also think we should not necessarily jump to 3 conclusions that declaring something as safety system is 4 going to make it reliable. I have seen evidence of a great 5 many failures in safety systems. It may be there is a high 6 correlation between safety grade and reliable. I don' t 7 know.
8 The evidence to me is not altogether 9 conclusive. Saying these things are reliable, I am not sure 10 you are declaring that they are safety systems.
11 MR. ROSENTHAL: But independent of the pedigree 12 which one chooses to put on equipment, I believe that one s 13 should not have a single failure which causes a draining of
] 14 the pool, and that is what happened.
15 MR. EBERSOLE: If you will put the slide up that 16 shows the boots again, I just want to point out to the 17 committee an interesting and incongruous and strange thing.
18 They put physical redundancy in this system by anticipating 19 maybe one seal would leak and they had another behind it, 20 yet they tied it to a common air system and didn't even go 21 to the point of putting a pressure gauge on it, and this
- 22 says I have got no air pressure.
I 23 So they put redundancy in the physical area where 24 it was not particularly needed anyway. All you have got to 1
25 do is lose a little air pressure and you have gone all over l
i ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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i 7210 02 11 25 1 .DAVbur 1 the seals. They didn't even have a pressure switch on it.
(.-
\J 2 DR. KERR: Is there general agreement then that 3 this lesson here is one that primarily applies to Hatch?
4 MR. CANTRELL: Let me add one additional thing.
5 You were talking yesterday about the secondary side and 6 whether we needed to look more at the piping. I think at 7 Hatch and at most other plants they have different 8 maintenance practices for safety grade equipment and i
9 nonsafety grade equipment, and I think guys get poor habits 10 when they work on the balance of plant and then have to come 11 back on the other side.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: That is one reason the equipment es 13 should be better. They are forced to pay more attention to 14 it.
15 DR. KERR: I thought I heard Mr. Cantrell say 16 that Georgia Power did not have a good record of operation, 17 period.
18 MR. EBERSOLE: That is true.
19 DR. KERR: That would say to me that they don't 20 worry about the safety systems either. I may txt 21 misinterpreting what I was hearing.
22 MR. CANTRELL: I think the situations are 23 changing there. We had Georgia Power in this week to talk 24 about the improvements they are implementing to try to get 25 better control of their maintenance program and all of their ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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'7210 02'12 26 11~ DAVbur 1 programs.
' 2 They are attempting to bring in additional 3 . personnel and have during the past year, people with more 4 experience, and I am hopeful that we will see improvement 5 here in the next year.
6 DR. KERR: In the view of the staff, should the 7 ACRS make any comments on this or is th.s something that it 8 should add to our information?
9 - MR. JORDAN: I believe at this time the staff 10 believes that it adds to your information in terms of the 11 types of things that happen in plants. The region has taken 12 actions with respect to Hatch'. And, for instance, we are
, 13 issuing an information notice on this item and bringing it-O' 14 further to the industry's attention.
15 So we believe this is the appropriate response.
16 DR. REMICK: I have a question. I assume the 17 information notice was sent out after Haddam Neck. Didn't 18 the staff get that and recommend that people look at all 19 these seals wherever they were used?
l 20 It seems to me the staff in other cases, when the 21 people determining the root cause have a very narrow focus, 22 they get caught up in the particular incident, what failed, 23 and the notice points to that, and I realize people out in 24 the industry are smart enough to take that and apply it 25 broader but sometimes just a little hint to look at this ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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, ,1 DAVbur 1 broadly.
i1
~/ I have seen it happen in other cases.
2 3 MR. ROSENTHAL: There was an IN on Haddam Neck.
4 There was another IN specifically on the short hanger 5 ' problem which was concurrent.
6 On the area IN's and the bulletin the door is 7 open in the IN, and the licensees are asked to assess the 8 significance for their plants. In fict, in that one the 9 angle of view is open, but we can't make the IN's just 10 absolutely broad.
11 DR. PEMICK: In other words, you think that was 12 one of the important things that people should have gotten 13 from the information notice that was sent out on Haddam
/,_%
'\'_) 14 Neck, is to check the available seals? That statement might 15 have led people to think beyond the narrow problem?
16 I realize that you say you can't open it up 17 completely.
18 MR. ROSENTHAL: But there was in the test 19 typically the encouragement to open this up.
20 MR. WYLIE: You know, the more significant thing 21 here to me is the single failure of a nonsafety system, 22 causing interactions throughout the plant. This is not the 23 only time this has happened. It happened at McGuire not 24 long ago. We lost a nonsafety air supply that shut down two
,_ 25 units simultaneously by a small nonsafety grade component,
()
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28 1 .DAVbur~ 1 and I agree with you making it safety grade don't make it h 2 any better. It may make it worse.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: It is supposed to give you 4 maintenance attention that does put it in that category. ,
5 6
7 8
I 9 10 11 12 13
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,1 'DAVbw 1 MR. WYLIE: The point is, you make the system kJ 2 more reliable with more redundancy.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: It does sort of exhibit what can 4 happen to inflatable seals at large, and we should pay more 5 attention to that. One more thing, Ed, I would like to ask 6 you whether we should compile a list of significant events 7 over the last five-odd years, and should we endorse what you 8 might want to say to Hatch to get with it or face some 9 consequence.
10 Do you think we are at a stage where that is 11 appropriate? Do you think we are at a level of degradation 12 of the discipline'at Hatch where we should cull it out?
_; 13 DR. KERR: In response to my question, he just
/ i 14 said that he didn't think we needed to do it.
15 MR. EBERSOLE: What I am going to kind of do is 16 reaffirm that.
17 MR. JORDAN: With respect to Hatch, I believe at 18 this time the region has taken the appropriate actions.
19 Maybe I should add something and offer tp give a further 20 briefing to the ACRS. The Staff does have a system of 21 performance indicators that are being applied across all the 22 plants right now. There are six particular items selected.
23 They are looked at as part of the basis in a formalized 24 fashion and communicated to the office directors, and 25 semiannually, the office directors meet to decide if there 73 o
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,1 DAVbw 1. are indicators that show that some particular plant ought to
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\l 2 have further action, based on their history of operation, 3 the combination of events over a period of time an the trend 4 with respect to the industry average. That is a formalized 5 program, and it has just been initiated.
6 So Hatch would get scrutiny based on that.
7 DR. KERR: Mr. Carbon.
8 DR. CARBON: I just want to make a comment, that 9 I think something that sould have been more helpful to me in 10 this respect would be perhaps a statement of a stronger 11 correlation between what they had been doing before, sloppy 12 maintenance or something that is relevant to safety. A
,,' 13 stronger correlation. Do they do the same kind of poor e ;
14 maintenance?
15 MR. JORDAN: I understand. Absent our 16 presentations if you feel that it is a particular plant 17 problem, we could bring in the performance indicator 18 information and the SALP data for that particular plant over 19 a period of time. We will do that.
20 DR. SIESS: Something that I think might be 21 thought about here, misconfiguration, and this transfer will 22 be put in there to avoid difficulties relating to problem of 23 a gas drop.
24 Could someone look and see what the relative risk
,_ 25 is to the public of a gas drop through the failure of this V
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_1 DAVbw 1 seal, or is the remedy worse than the disease?
(' ') ' 2 MR. EBERSOLE: I think the more specific thing, 3 if you drop a cask in this area where they have a concern, 4 would it puncture a hole and drain the whole pool out?
5 DR. KERR: Let's not do the analysis now.
6 MR. JORDAN: I am sorry. The purpose of that 7 seal arrangement is merely to fill the space between two 8 buildings. These are seismic buildings. They are not 9 coupled. So there is an air space between them.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: The motivation for this transfer 11 canal was to provide a new place to catch this, or it did 12 have a cask loading area.
, 13 DR. KERR: May I urge, in the light of the t
.14 schedule, that we go ahead to the'next presentation?
15 MR. HERMANN: Good morning. My name is Bob 16 Hermann. I am with the Engineering Branch, Division of 17 Boiling Water Reactors.
18 (Slide.)
19 We've come down here to talk to you today about 20 the events and update you on the event that occurred at 21 Oyster Creek and to talk about what is going on generically 22 with the other boilers. There may be generic concerns in 23 the whole problem.
24 I am going to leave this set of slides up, this 25 slide up as just an overview of the presentation and try to 7-)3
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7210 03 04 32 1 DAVbw I walk you through it instead of drawings and things to
^' 2 explain the event and explain where we are today on oyster 3 Creek and what we are going to be doing on the other 4 facilities.
5 I think, as you remember last time, the problem 6 at Oyster Creek with corrosion of the outside of this 7 drywell shell in an area where there is no sand cushion down 8 here -- I've got some better pictures I will put up later.
9 What had happened is, there is a gap down in here. There is 10 Firebar D insulation, which is a unique insulation to the 11 facility compared to all the rest of the BWRs. The sand 12 cushion down here has got water in it. It has some drains 13 on the bottom. They are fairly well spaced apart and the b,)
14 cushion runs circumferential1y all the way around. It 15 appears that the sand cushion got wet perhaps early in life, 16 for sure, later in life, in 1980.
17 We are going to put some pictures up to show you 18 this area up here where there is a gasket in here. The 19 water probably early on in life got down into the sand 20 cushion, when they applied the insulation and my have gotten 21 weight during construction when it was raining. That could 22 have been another area at the time for getting water in the 23 sand cushion.
24 The idea of the insulation on there was to 25 provide an inside form for placing this concrete that was ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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l 7210 03 05 33 1 DAVbw I around here and to drive a pressurable member and to end up 2 with an air gap in between the concrete and the steel 3 shell, so you can accommodate thermal expansion of the 4 shell. And the sand cushion is here for, basically, a 5 spring and kind of a cushion to give you a transition area 6 between where you have embedded concrete on the inside sand, 7 embedded concrete here and an air gap up here.
8 So it is basically something to soften the 9 structural discontinuity.
10 (Slide.)
11 As we said earlier, the problem area here -- here 12 is the inside floor elevation of the concrete on the 13 inside. There's been corrosion of the shell out here in 14 basically a couple of areas, as you go around 15 circumferentially. I believe it was Bays 17 through 19 and 16 Bay 11. The local average thinning of the shell was about 17 .841, and with a minimum measured number of around .71 in 18 any of those areas, the mode of corrosion that has occurred 19 has been a general corrosion, a wastage type of corrosion.
20 The thing is not pitted. It is uniformly corroded. We 21 believe and the utility believes, and we do, that the 22 corrosion came from contamination from sulfates, chlorides and 23 andotgerthingsthathavegonedowntothesand, 24 basically, this thing stayed wet with minimum air in here, c 25 and you generally had a wastage type of corrosion going on.
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7210 03 06 34 1 DAVbw 1 DR. MOELLER: The sand, originally, then had to
\/ 2 have a certain purity, so to speak?
3 MR. HERMANN: It was normal building grade sand.
4 I don't think it was anything particularly fancy.
5 Anyway, as I said, they divided, they 6 circumferentially divided the shell up into 20 bays, and 7 they were affected like three bays here and maybe one bay 8 over here. So it is localized in two areas.
9 DR. MARK: Excuse me. You said that the 10 corrosion was .78?
11 MR. HERMANN: No, no. I said originally the 12 plate shell thicknesses in this area were, I think, 1.15.
13 The corrosion has been about on the average, I guess, of 7_
~
14 about'3/10, 350,000ths.
15 DR. MARK: So that reduced it to 7 or 8 tenths of 16 an inch of thickness?
17 MR. HERMANN: Right. There was an analysis done 18 to see if the shell was okay and met the code requirements.
19 This particular containment was designed very conservatively 20 in the early days with an assumed minimum wall thickness in 21 this area of 7/10 of an inch. The discontinuity was 22 analyzed, and it still meets code allowables. The only 23 thing that is in question on Oyster Creek right now is what 24 is the corrosion rate? Is it 20 mills a year from the time
,_ 25 it first ctarted, or is it 50 mills a year from when they U
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7210 03 07 35 DAVbw 1 saw it in 1980? And that is fairly well. We took the
\I 2 assumption it was 50 mills since 1980, and the licensee is 3 planning on doing a midcycle inspection no later than 4 September'30 to verify what the rates are. If there are any 5 changes, they are coming in June 30 with their plans for 6 either drying the sand out, getting that sand out of there,
. 7 doing something to either mitigate what is causing the 8 corrosion with the contaminants that are in there, removing 9 the sand, doing something. And you are supposed to get the 10 story on June 30 on Oyster.
11 So we feel that Oyster Creek is fairly well in 12 hand. There is one feature that is totally unique to Oyster 13 Creek and another feature that is common to other reactors, 14 they're Mark 1 type reactors. As you look in this slide, 15 you can't really tell here. There is no cover on top of the 16 sand cushion. The only drainage in here is 5 four-inch 17 drains which are coming off the bottom of the sand pocket, 18 but the drain is basically open to the gap at Oyster Creek.
19 So if there is any water that gets down in to the gap in 20 here, it is going to end up in the sand pocket. These 21 drains are fairly sparsely spaced, as you go 22 circumferential1y around, so there may be some areas that, 23 if you get water in here, they don't dry the sand out.
24 DF. MOELLER: You are saying, to dry the sand 25 out, but of course, fundamentally, it ils to stop the g3 Q
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p.
2 MR. HERMANN: I will get to that in a second.
3 DR. MOELLER: I notice it, it is a side comment, 4 but with this asbestos fiber insulation around the pipe, if 5 they ever got in there, they should be well aware that when 6 you wet asbestos insulation, it deteriorates and becomes 7 readily airborne. There may be an occupational health 8 effect.
9 MR. HERMANN: We understand. The insulation that 10 was put on the outside of the shell itself, it was Firebar 11 D. I am not sure if it was asbestos-based or not, but it 12 was essentially the older type fireproofing insulation.
13 This is the only plant with anything like that in O 14 that shell area, and.it is leachable and has all kinds of 15 things you don't like to see.
16 (Slide.)
17 This is a detail off of a design at Monticello.
18 That is a little different, but it is typical of maybe a lot 19 of the other Mark is. Rather than being open at the top 20 here, this design has a galvanized plate across the top that 21 is sealed in here and sealed in here, and there's drains on 22 the top of this, so if you do have anything coming down this 23 gap, you have drains here to take the water away, and you 24 have plate here to keep it out of the sand pocket. And
_ 25 fortunately, that is in the largest percentage of the other i
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I is' 2 Let me throw a slide up to give you an idea of 3 where the water was coming from from the refuelings. I 4 guess we are back to our favorite set of problems with 5 refueling again.
6 (Slide.) ,
7 Here is a bellows that is on the outside. This 8 is concrete out here. There is a top plate and bellows 9 here, a couple of plates coming off here and some gussets 10 coming off of the drywell. There is a gasket in here. This 11 gasket, this plate, there's plates that run all the way 12 around the circumference, and they are welded, except for
. 13 one area in here, in the area where this two-inch drain
'~
14 comes off the bottom of the area that would be flooded up 15 during refueling. -
16 You have a plate put here that is 7 inches by 27 17 inches, and it's got a gasket around the outside of it.
18 In the '86 refueling, Oyster Creek found out that 19 this gasket have never been serviced during the life of the 20 plant, and it deteriorated, and it was leaking fairly 21 badly. This concave area here probably isn't quite as 22 concave in reality as it looks in the picture. There was 23 leakage coming out of here. There is some question as to 24 whether this two-inch drain here was open or not. For sure, 1
~
-s 25 water was getting down into this gap, running down the (u)'
l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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. . . s 7210 03 10 38 jl .DAVbw 1- insulation and getting down in the sand pocket, as a result
('/) of the refueling.
2 3 They fixed this problem. I think they have 4 eliminated the cause of the leakages in here. So it appears 5 that they shouldn't routinely be getting any more water in-6 Oyster Creek. It ought to be stopped from this viewpoint.
7 They have been trying to find this problem since about 1980, 8 and they finally hit, the last refueling vent out of this 9 gasket was a probler.
10 Let me get on to what was going round to the 11 other plant and what the Staff is going to do at Oyster 12 Creek. We are going to review what they plan for
, 13 mitigatinmg actions. The problem is, what do we have to do d 14 with the other Mark 1s. We are preparing a generic letter, 15 and one of the things that we are interested in learning 16 from other people are what plans they have for assuring 17 drains are open. Are they looking at gaskets up here.
18 There are some drains on the bottom, and we w;nt to know all 19 the areas where there are seals and gaskets. There is a 20 maintenance program. They have something in place for 21 finding out, if they were placed on, you know, some kind of 22 , a basis or inspected and see how long they are going to 23 last.
24 The other thing we are concerned about --
l 25 DR. KERR: Excuse me, Mr. Hermann. I thought i (1) l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 03 11 39 1; DAvbw 1 you said earlier something about Oyster Creek was unique.
r^s
-- 2 MR. HERMANN: It was. The insulation was 3 unique s t
4 DR. KERR: The sand and the possibility of the 5 . water collecting is not unique?
6 MR. HERMANN: Yes. The feature that is 7 different. .The insulation at Oyster Creek is the unique 8 feature at Oyster Creek. The design of the sand pocket.
9 One particular architect-engineer had put drains above the 10 sand pocket and sealed the sand cushion from the gap. There 11 is about four, five or six other Mark is that don't have the 12 sand cushion, that don't have the pocket seal from the gap,
- 13 and essentially, the gap is open from the top. That is the-
~
14 bad news. The good news is that we don't have lea,chable 15 insulations, such as Firebar D. That would have been a way 16 to get contaminants into it. Most of them are urethanes or 17 something like that. l '
~
18 One other utility had a problem with fire with l
l 19 some urethanes and perhaps contamination into the gap 20 because there was a seal, but that is what we are going to 21 talk about in the generic letter.
l 22 One thing we are going to ask for is to look at l
l 23 1he gaskets, look at the drains, see thatlthey are open.
l I 24 Then, for the people that have sand gaps that aren't t-
.25 i isolated from the gap area, don't have plates and drains l
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- DAVbw 1 above it, I think we are going to be interested in finding x- 2 out how they're assured that they know that they haven'thad
, 3- any corrosion occurring in the shell.
4 The thing that makes it difficult is that the 5 concrete floor in a lot of these design is level with the 6 top of that sand cushion, and in order to be able to get any 7 thickness measurements of the UT, you are probably going to 8 have to go down on the floor a little bit.
9 So we are talking maybe four or five plants that 10 might have to chip a little concrete, if they want to get 11 any UT measurements.
12 T.'. a t is about all I have to say, unless there are j,
13 any questions. Dave?
14 DR. OKRENT: I am wondering whether what you call 15 your generic program is sufficiently generic. What I have 16 in mind is the following. There have to be lots of 17 water-carrying or water-containing pipes, et cetera, at
, '18 nuclear power plants, and I think, for the most part, out of 19 sight is out of mind, as far as the utility and the Staff is 20 concerned. Maybe I am wrong, but I am not sure what you're 21 doing.
22 Certainly, if you look elsewhere in the world, 23 there's been a very serious problem with underground storage 24 tanks in other industries. In fact, it is going to cost a 25 huge amount of money to take care of that problem. It is l.
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17210'03 13 41 1 DAvbw 1' not at all obvious to me that anyone has tried to think -
O V 2 scientifically and systematically about what problems might 3 arise for underground systems of importance in trying to 4 identify combinations of circumstances which have the 5 potential'for causing a problem prior to inadvertently 6 finding the problem, maybe, in luck, with no serious 7 consequences, maybe, not in luck sometimes.
8 9
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7210 04 01 42
,_1 DAVbur 1 MR. HERMANN: Let me comment on a couple of i >
K- 2 things. Most buried piping is covered with some kind of 3 protective coating, and people sometimes go through measures 4 of cathodic protection of the piping.
5 I grant you there's. areas perhaps as you are 6 addressing.
7 One of the last items that we had on our slide 8 was to evaluate the potential from a similar problem in 9 other type reactors, and I guess what I was doing was 10 emphasizing what was going on at Oyster Creek and what we 11 thought the problems were at the other BWRs.
12 This was the third item we thought we worried
,, 13 about a little bit, but we are just going to move in that
/ 3 s
'~' '
14 order because of resources and things.
15 DR. OKRENT: But I haven't heard anyone mention 16 that maybe we need some research on matters like this to try 17 to anticipate where in fact problems may right now be 18 developing, and I don't rememh'r -- maybe it is in there --
19 any emphasis on something like this in whatever is called 20 the aging program.
21 In the same way, I don't recall, although I must 22 confess I didn't hear all of it, a lot of emphasis on this 23 wearing problem we heard about yesterday about someone 24 looking at the basic thermodynamics, the chemistry of piping 25 where you wear internally, and so on. I remain either
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7210 04 02 43 1 DAVbur 1 ill-informed or uninformed or not knowledgeable of programs
. /3 s-) 2 within the staff that try to look more broadly at the 3 implications.
4 Given a big hint you didn't need in fact'for 5 something like this to occur at Oyster Creek, to assume that 6 buried things are a potential source of trouble and even if 7 they supposedly have some kind of protected material, it is 8 not my impression that these are immortal.
9 MR. HERMANN: I think just let me talk about 10 mortality a little bit. I think at least with buried piping 11 versus a tank situation, in a buried pipe situation you 12 probably at least pay some attention to corrosion allowance 13 in the pipes and try to do something to stop it from
\) 14 corroding, either cathodic protection or you would probably 15 try to design it that way. I don't know if that is going to 16 give you a warm enough feeling or not.
17 I think the tank situation that you alluded to 18 earlier may not necessarily be -- a buried tank problem 19 might not be the only thing you are worried about. I think 20 there may have been some instances in tanks where you might 21 have had some corrosion problems.
22 DR. KERR: Professor Okrent isn't trying to be 23 critical. It just seems to me he is saying this is an area 24 where you ought to take a look.
- 25 MR. EBERSOLE: Let me extrapolate this to a real s-r ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 04 03 44 1- DAvbur 1 case in point. There was a case of exactly this sort of
(/^T N- 2 thing.
3 It was a case of the Watts Bar design where the 4 suction pipe, the supply pipes, the service water, the heat 5 sink pipes, they were installed in a fill area. The filled 6 area was sustained by driven steel piling of rather thin 7 metal. That was held up, believe it or not, by a dead man 8 buried far back in the fill. The tie between the dead man 9 and the steel piling was ordinary bearing reinforcing rods.
10 I had no hesitancy in believing that over the 11 years those would turn to rust and on a heavy wet rainy day 12 the whole damn thing would fall down, and you would lose all 13 the pipes.
k,s) 14 This is an extrapolation of the same sort of 15 problem that Dave is talking about.
16 So that was fixed, but is it always fixed in a 17 generic sense if you had bare steel out there?
18 DR. KERR: Are there further comments?
4 19 MR. JORDAN: I would like to make one comment at 20 least on Dr. Okrent's statement.
t 21 This particular issue didn't go to the issue of 22 effort. There were a number of concerns based on it, one 23 being that, for instance, in reactor vessels we have some 24 materials on one particular vessel in particular. It 25 indicated that was the corrosion allowance and so on.
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7210 04 04 45
.1 DAVbur- 1 The containment vessel -- I call it the reactor
,o k/' 2 vessel -- but the containment vessel was not really a place 3 one had to worry, and then suddenly we had this particular 4 case where we had a mechanism that showed up, wet sand with 5 ' corrosion in it, that caused us to worry.
6 So when one postulates where one worries based on 7 the aging, one also has to look for the other phenomenon 8 and where is the erosion / corrosion.
9 We agree, research is in progress, and we don't 10 have our heads in the sand -- in this sand, at any rate.
11 But it is very hard to predict where one looks for the 12 weakest link in a particular system.
13 So I think it is through these events that feed-A
' 's t
14 back into the active knowledge that you then find, 15 unfortunately perhaps late in the game, where the weaknesses 16 are.
17 DR. OKRENT: If you keep learning this way, at 18 some point I predict you will learn, for example, that an 19 earthquake has found a weakened set of pipes, redundant 20 pipes, pipes you needed for a vital system or whatever.
21 It is good not to fail to take advantage of 22 experience, but for nuclear reactor safety learning from 23 experience we have ample reason to believe it is not of 24 itself enough.
25 MR. JORDAN: It is not enough, I would agree.
(m ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Coverage MK336-6M6
-7210 04 05. 46 l} DAVbur 1- . DR . CARBON: One question on what we learned.
If 3 2 I understand correctly,'the generic letter is going.out and 3 will have a significant part of its thrust to check to see p 4 if the valves are open?
5 MR. HERMANN: I think what.we are working on is 6 going to look -- we showed a picture of that drain gasket up 7 at the top. We are going to ask. people to assure that if 8 they have gaskets or other materials that are up around the 9 pool and there is a program to make sure that they haven't 10 degraded on those gaskets. I don't believe we have had a 11 problem with valves in that case..
12 DR. KERR: Further questions on this?
l ,
_ 13 MR. HERNAN: Dr. Kerr, I have a feedback from the
- ~
14 last meeting. We talked to the committee on Oyster Creek 15 two months ago. Dr. Okrent asked the staff if we had
18 I wanted to let him and the committee know that 19 the staff has located this paper, read it. The Reactor
. 20 Systems Branch within the BWR division, the Licensing l
l 21 Division has looked at it and determined there is nothing-22 new that would change any directions in the program.
l 23 DR. OKRENT: Have they written something that 24 explains their conclusions?
25 MR. HERNAN: No, they have not. The question is ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Coserage 800-33M616
.7210 04 06 47 1 DAVbur 1 what does the staff think?
'\^ 2 The staff has read the paper. The staff doesn't 3 consider there is anything of substance which would affect 4 current NRR programs.
5 DR. KERR:- It occurs to me that if this issue had 6 been left alone we might have had the first natural filter 7 vented containment.
8 (Laughter.)
9 DR. OKRENT: I am not sure because you might have 10 lost the water. Well, maybe it filters through sand.
11 I will have to think on that. ,
12 MR. ROSENTHAL: We are just about on time.
,_. 13 The next speaker is Bill LeFave, NRR. Lennie
'- 14 Olshan, the PM for Byron is also in the room should you have 15 questions.
16 In late November we read a 50.72 report on the 17 loss of CCW at Byron. We knew that CCW systems were 18 important, and we knew specifically that SSW service water 19 was very important, and those facts prompted further 20 investigation.
21 The committee reported what we knew in time about 22 Byron at the last meeting. The committee specifically asked
. 23 for a follow-up.
24 MR. HERNAN: Jack, could you characterize the 25 nature of the follow-up? Mr. LeFave was not at the previous
()
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_fi-
~~/ 2 MR. LE FAVE: I can refresh as to just exactly 3 what that was.
4 (Slide.)
, 5 This over here is the overall Byron 1 and 2 6 component cooling water system. These loads here are the 7 loads for the excess letdown heat exchangers, reactor 8 coolant pumps, letdown heat exchangers, the spent fuel pool, 9 all coming off this for Unit 1, this for Unit 2.
10 As you can see, they are tied together here 11 between units, but at the time of the event they were not.
12 In here is where they would tap off for the
_ 13 excess letdown heat exchanger, this supply here. The excess
~
14 letdown heat exchanger comes through here. The reactor 15 coolant pumps' cooling is there.
16 Normally, this excess letdown heat exchanger is 17 isolated, and this valve was unattached -- or attached in a 18 slave relay for testing this valve. At the time this valvo 19 alternately was shifting component cooling water pumps which 20 caused a pressure surge, which led to this relief valve 21 opening, and it stuck open.
22 And with this flow coming out here -- assume this 23 would be Unit 2 up here, as what the unit it occurred on 24 because it was isolated from Unit 1 at the time due to the 25 testimony -- and this pump drained down, with the leak p_
V
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- 1. DAVbur 1 occurring over here. This side of the service tank drained qC 2 down to this pump, to this heat exchanger and out the
^
3 break.
4 At the point where this level comes down to a 5 trip set point is where this component cooling water pump 6 tripped. The low pressure discharge automatically started 7 the standby pump, which then drained down this side of the 8 surge tank, out the same break, and eventually this pump _
9 tripped when it got to the low level on this side of the 10 surge tank.
11 At.that point they isolated the leak, probably 12 via this valve. I am not sure because the plant was in Mode 13 5, so the reactor coolant pumps weren't running. They were O 14 isolated here, and they had the system back on the line 15 within 12 minutes.
16 Now, normally -- or not normally with the Byron 17 design -- this could be a very severe transient or accident 18 because in most plants you could end up with loss of reactor 19 sealant pump seal cooling because you lose coolant into your 20 charging pump. It turns out that at Byron it was not a 4 21 concern because the component cooling water pump system at 22 Byron is rather unique. It only supplies one safety loop, 23 which is the RHR pump and the RHR heat exchangers.
24 The significance of Byron. There was no real 25 safety significance of Byron because of the unique ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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- l7210 04 09 50 1 DAVbur 1 component cooling water system design, which is that the
(~'8
\- 2 safety loads are minimal.
3 MR. WARD: You say that is unique to Byron?
4 MR. LE FAVE: Yes, Byron and-Braidwood.
5 MR. WARD: And probably Zion, too?
6 MR. LE FAVE: No, Zion has a problem with 7 component cooling water. They supply charging pumps, also.
8 That was one of their high risk, I believe.
9 I think Byron and Braidwood are the only plants 10 that I am aware of that are like this --
11 (Slide.)
12 -- that could sustain this kind of loss without.a 13 real problem or possible problem.
14 The unique features of the Bryon CCW that allow 15 these things to run cross-connected with no automatic 16 splitting are that the system does not supply the charging 17 pumps or the charging pump room coolers with any cooling 18 water.
19 DR. MOELLER: Excuse me. What does supply them?
20 MR. LE FAVE: Essential service water.
21 For other PWRs, the CCW is a high contributor.
22 Its loss is a high contributor to risk.
23 At Byron the ESW takes its place. This is a high 24 centributor to the core melt factor.
25 All the CCW pumps are protected from damage by a n~-
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7210 04 10 51 1 DAVbur 1 low surge tank level because you have to protect the pumps i i
' _/ 2 before you can recover from this effect. They have lots of 3 time to recover, but they have to have those pumps 4 available.
5 The entire system is designed to seismic Category 6 1 requirements. This is also a unique feature.
7 Generally, almost all plants have a common header 8 between trains. It is usually nonseismic and is 9 automatically isolated on an SFAS signal, safety injection, 10 or a low surge tank level. A lot of plants have to have a 11 low surge tank level to protect from losing the system.
12 It turns out, we discovered yesterday, there is 13 one nonseismic portion that supplies the containment 14 penetrations. It is a two-inch line. It has automatic 15 isolation on a high flow, and it also gets a containment 16 isolation signal. So there is no problem.
17 And the only ESP /ECCS loads supplied by the Byron 18 CCW system are the RHR pumps and the RHR heat exchangers, 19 which are not needed except to bring the plant to cold 20 shutdown.
21 (Slide.)
, 22 The pumps are needed immediately following a 23 large break LOCA for low pressure safety injection. Still, 24 if we have a large break LOCA these pumps are automatically
_ 25 supplied. There is no passive failure mode. You only have
\_/
I ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 04 11 52 1 DAvbur 1 to sustain a long term passive failure mode following the iA' 2 LOCA, which they can withstand.
3 Following the LOCA, they split the system to 4 supply an RHR pump through this heat exchanger and the other 5 RHR pump and heat exchanger through this heat exchanger, so 6 that in a passive failure and in a long term failure 7 following the LOCA they still have one train available.
8 But looking at Byron, determining that Byron 9 didn't really have a problem, we looked at the other PWRs to 10 see if a similar event could occur. It would be significant 11 because their loads are normally cooled by the CCW. Loss of 12 seal cooling and loss of primary makeup can occur at plants 13 where the charging pumps which supply RCP seal cooling and 7
('
14 seal injection and primary makeup are supplied by CCW.
15 And I think I have already said that the only 16 safe shutdown loads at Byron are the pump and the heat 17 exchanger.
18 DR. KERR: Excuse me.
-19 Having said that -- I will ask the question 20 without sounding impertinent -- but so what?
21 I mean the previous statement says at plants --
22 MR. LE FAVE: Well, the other plants have to be 23 automatically isolated.
24 DR. KERR: I am saying is there something that 25 needs to be done?
l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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.. - ._ _ _. __ ._.._ _ ___ _._ - _ ~
~ 7210:04 12 53 1 .DAVbur 1 MR. LE'FAVE: No. As far as we know, there is an j'h. .
\- .' 2. I&E bulletin going out.
3 DR. KERR: So what I have learned so far is that 4 the Byron incident shows that things are in pretty good 5 shape at Byron?
6 MR. LE FAVE: Yes. Well, actually, let me put up 7 another drawing here.
8 (Slide.)
9 This particular event would not be a concern 10 really at any of the plants because the excess letdown heat 11 exchangers are normally isolated, okay, so that their normal 12 operation, you are not going to have those items on the 13 line.
14 DR. KERR: So we are getting this report because i
15 at the last report we thought there might be a problem, and .
16 now we are being told that there isn't?
f 17 MR. HERNAN: Right. At the December meeting we 18 indicated that NRR was going to go back and look at this j 19 design and compare it to the standard review plan.
l 20 DR. KERR: Thank you.
l 21 22 4
23 24
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7210 05 01 54 1 .DAV/bc 1 MR. LEFAVE:' So, if the other point did not have q
J 2 automatic isolation, they have to have a low search tank 3 . isolation. Generally, it's a nonseismic line. They have-to 4 have that for protection.
e 5 And Byron is unique, doesn't have to have it.
6 (Slide.)
7 Similarly, the other PWRs. We're also concerned 8 because of the sharing of units one and two. This happened 9 with only one unit on the line in mode 5, the reactor 10 coolant pump for running.
11 But, when you look at the other plants, 12 forgetting about what caused the leak, you know, the relief 13 valve, a pick crack or something, you run into the same 0,_
14 problem with the other PWRs, a similar leak. You know, that 15 common line.
16 Invariably, the CCW systems have a. common line.
17- For both Byron and the other plants, it would result in a 18 core shutdown because they lose cooling to the reactor 19 coolant pump motors and bearing oil coolers.
20 DR. KERR: Is it characteristic of these relief f
21 valves that they rarely fall open?
22 MR. LEFAVE: I don't know what the results of the 23 findings on that are. Wired failed open. I think I&D is 24 following up on that, I think at Byron. They determine what 25 the problem was with the valve. They are looking into it.
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.1 .DAV/bc 1 I don't know if they're going to make any modifications on sm.
w-) 2 what was unique to that valve.
3 We haven't had any feedback on that.
=
4 MR. EBERSOLE: One of the more interesting 5 aspects of this is, when it leaked in one compartment, it
/
6 automatically started leaking in the backup compartment.
7 Is there no method of preventing that?
8 MR. LEFAVE: The only way would be to provide 9 automatic isolation or a splitting of the system in, which I 10 say the other plants would have to have. Otherwise, it 11 would be unacceptable because of the charging pump cooling.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: Do the other plants have this 13 cascading tendency?
14 MR. LEFAVE: Yes. Even if you had -- well, 4
15 generally, they are running cross-connected. That's pretty 16 much the average design. Here, if there's two surge tanks, 17 the same thing would have happened.
18 They all have this common line. They invariably 19 have a common line to cool the reactor coolant pumps, and 20 other nonsafety loads, so to speak.
21 So the problem is always there unless you have 22 automatic isolation between these two loops. Or, if you
! 23 have isolation of this common line, which the other plants 24 would have to have.
25 MR. EBERSOLE: So you find that, at Byron, it I
l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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(
1 17210 05;03 56 1 lDAV/bc 1 didn't matter. It would have mattered at other plants, r'N
'-/L 2 except that the other plants have features that stand guard-3 against this.
4 MR. LEFAVE: Yes. ,
5 MR. EBERSOLE: This was just brought back-because 6 you all asked for it.
- 7. DR. KERR: Further questions.
8 MR. EBERSOLE: If you're interested, the fellow 9 -has produced a paper on the varieties of designs, on common 10- cooling systems. So, if you want to look at that, you 11 cannot tell what the component cooling system does just.by 12 calling it that.
13 It may do anything.
O 14 MR. WARD: Jessie, there's a paper.
15 MR. EBERSOLE: One of the fellows developed a 16 description of the variety of mode in which one uses the 17 component cooling system. It's in our files.
18 DR. KERR: You have a copy.
19 MR. WARD: I'd like tc get a copy.
20 MR. LEFAVE: We're also writing a safety 21 evaluation of this effect and that effect.
22 MR. EBERSOLE: There's no commonality about 23 component cooling pumps whatsoever.
24 DR. KERR: Thank you. Any other questions?
25 (No response.)
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'7210 05 04 57 1 DAV/bc 1 MR. EBERSOLE: Thank you.
(") ' .
k.' 2 DR. KERR: Mr..Ebersole, I'm going to suggest a 3 10-minute break.
4 MR. EBERSOLE: That's all right if you want to 5 call it.
6 DR. KERR: We'll start at five after.
7 (Recess.)
8 DR. KERR: Please go ahead.
9 MR. GIITTER: My name is Joe Glitter. I'm with 10 the Office of Inspection and Enforcement in the Events 11 Analysis Branch.
12 Today, I'm just going to discuss the unanalyzed 13 design condition that exists in several ice condenser O 14 plants.
l 15 There are three problems this unanalyzed design 16 condition poses. One, a potential for decreased EECS sump
)
17 inventory following a LOCA.
18 DR. KERR: Excuse me. What is the unanalyzed 19 design condition?
20 MR. GIITTER: I'll get to that in just a second.
21 Two potential for ice condenser bypass, and two
! 22 potential for loss of one or both air return paths. The 23 unanalyzed design condition is caused by water accumulation
- 24 or pooling in the air return fan pit. The pit that the air i
25 return fan sits in and water accumulation above the divider l CI) i ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347 37(H Nationwnic Cogerante 8(433M64
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'7210 05 05 58 1 DAV/bc 1 deck seals that seal the operating deck to the containment
(
2 shell.
3 The significance of this unanalyzed design 4 condition is that the risk associated with ice condenser 5 plants may be greater than previously considered.
6 The design condition was discovered by a TVA 7 engineer while he was doing a design basis verification
- j. 8 walkdown.
i . .
~
9 Following a LOCA, the steam will displace the air 10 in the lower compartment. The steam-air mixture will rush 11 up, force the lower inlet doors of the ice condenser open 12 where the steam will be mostly condensed as it goes up 13 through the ice condenser, and their high, high containment 14 pressure a phase B isolation will cause the containment 15 spray fans to start after about 30 seconds.
16 Then, after about a 10-minute time delay, the air 17 return fans will start. Water from the containment spray i
18 will train down on the operating deck and, ideally, should 19 be channeled to the refueling canal, where it will go 20 through the drain line down to the ECCS sump, where it's i
21 available for recirculation.
22 Now, the design problem at Sequoyah and Watts Bar 23 is that because they don't have curbing in place, there is 24 not a tendency for water from the containment spray to be 1
3 25 channeled to the refueling canal.
. (1)
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202 347 1700 Nationnide Coserage 800-33MM6
7210 05 06 59 1 DAV/bc 1 Instead, it goes over here to the air return fan g- '
i 2 and. accumulates. Well, the air return fan is a vaned actual 3 fan. It's not a pump. It's not designed to pump water.
4 The water level on this pit is actually going to 5 rise up t'o this operating deck and it's going to cover the 6 inlet, causing the fan to fail.
7 These air return fans are important now. At the 8 TVA plants, there's only one of these that's below the 9 operating deck.
10 The air return fans take the air that's been 11 displaced from the lower compartment into the upper 12 compartments. They circulate that down to the lower 13 compartment through the ice condenser, and that does two
)
\# 14 things.
15 The first thing, it limits the potential for 16 hydrogen accumulation in the upper dome area. And also in 17 the compartment areas of the containment.
18 DR. KERR: Excuse me. Are you saying that these t
19 vents are desirable and necessary? We'll accept that.
20 MR. GIITTER: The air returns are very 21 important. They'll also further scrub fission products and 22 reduce the steam.
23 Through the first pass, you still have about 60 24 percent of your ice bed left. If you have the air return 25 fans running, you're going to cool down the containments ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347 37(X) Nationwide Coverage 8(Xk336W46
"7210 05'07 60-1: DAV/bc 1 that much quicker, depressurize it that much quicker.
rs
'\- 2 The question is -- excuse me?
3 DR.-OKRENT: How many air return fans are there 4 at Sequoyah?
5 MR. GIITTER: In all ice condenser plants there 6 are.two air return fans. -
7 DR. OKRENT: Where's the other one? You said 8 there is one located there.
9 MP. GIITTER: Maybe a plan view will show you.
10 (Slide.)
11 This is the ice condnenser. It is behind the 12 crane wall. It comes to about 300 degrees of the 13 containment circumference. On each side of the ice
) 14 condenser are the air return fans. This is one that's i
15 recessed.
16 This one is above the operating deck. This is I
l 17 just in the TVA plants now.
18 MR. EBERSOLE: You implied that if you didn't 19 have the air return fans, you would take longer to cool 20 down. As a matter of fact, isn't it a fact that you would 21 have an excess temperature in pressure if you didn't use the 22 rest of the ice?
23 MR. GIITTER: That is absolutely true. If you go f 24 back and you look at the pressure curves for the design 25 basis accident, when containment spray comes on, you really l(E) l i
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. t
.' 202-347-37(x > Nationwide Co.crage RXF3346M6
'7210 05 08 61 1 DAV/bc 1 don't see much of an effect in terms of depressurization.
. ,r 2 It's.only when those air return fans come on 3 after about 10 minutes that you see the containment pressure
~
4 go down about 2 psig very quickly.
5 So they are very effective and very important in 6 terms of reducing pressure.
7 You had a question the.other day I might as well 8 address now. What happens if you lose'both air return fans?
9 You know, in a design basis accident, you assume you lose 10 one. They're a hundred percent redundant, a hundred percent 11 capacity for each fan.
12 Say, if you lose one, the consequences really 13 aren't that much different. If you lose both of them, O 14 you're going to be approaching your design basis pressure 15 for containment.
16 Now, whether or not you exceed that is 17 debatable. It's possible you will exceed it. But, if you 18 do, it probably wouldn't be by very much. That's assuming 4
19 you don't have any hydrogen. That's what it gets down to.
l 20 In terms of risk, I would say the real importance 21 of those air return fans is to prevent hydrogen accumulation 22 in the lower compartment in the ice condenser containment.
23 MR. WARD: Joe, maybe you'll get to this. But, 24 does the different pressure transient affect the ECCS 25 performance?
1 i
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]L DAV/bc 1 MR. GIITTER: I will get to that. And that is
-(
L NJ 2 the second problem at Sequoyah and Watts Bar. The static 3 head above the seals around the air return fans and the 4 divided x-seal will cause a differential pressure that those 5 seals aren't designed for.
6 As a result, TVA has postulated that those seals-7 will fail and water on the operating deck will drain through 8 those seals and go into this lower accumulator room.
9 Let me show you real quickly what I'm talking 10 about when I talk about the divided X-seals, because it's 11 kind of hard to visualize with that bigger drawing.
12 (Slide.)
_ 13 This part of the containment up here, you enlarge 14 that, take it in cross-section here and a cross-section 15 here. This is the personnel hatch right here.
16 Okay. You see here is a recessed area for water 17 to accumulate. This is the divider deck seals we're talking 18 about right here. There's a static head above those divider 19 deck seals that causes the problem.
20 MR. EBERSOLE: What is the material of those 21 seals? Is it degradable?
22 MR. GIITTER: I haven't been able to find out 23 what the seal material is.
24 MR. EBERSOLE: I hope it's not inflatable.
25 MR. GIITTER: No, it's not. It's not like the
%.J' ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 05 10 63 1 DAV/bc 1 problem at Hatch, i
n is') 2 So the problem is water from the operating deck 3 can get down into the accumulator room. This accumulator 4 room is behind the crane wall. And, therefore, it doesn't 5 immediately communicate with the ECCS sump.
6 So, until the water level rises to about 12 feet, 7 what's happening is water is being diverted to the normal 8 path from the refueling path down into the ECCS sump.
9 The result of that is the ECCS sump level will be 10 below that level, which would result in automatic transfer 11 from the injection mode of ECCS to the recirculation mode of 12 ECCS.
13 In other words, the operators would have to do 14 the manual transfer. But, it is above the level, based on 15 TVA's calculations, at which you will get vortexing the ECCS 16 sump and subsequent cavitation of your LPCI pumps.
17 Let me leave that up here. Now, that's a problem 18 at Sequoyah and Watts Bar. Originally, we didn't think that 19 McGuire and Catawba had this problem. The reason we didn't 20 think they had the problem is because they have drains in 21 this air return fan pit that go down to the ECCS sump 22 eventuallyd.
23 It turns out, however, that because they don't 24 have curbing in place, much of the water that would drain on
,- 25 this operating deck would have a tendency to go into the air u, 3 ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 05 11 64 1 DAV/bc 1 return fan at a rate faster than what the drains can
(~')
's 2 accommodate.
3 In fact, at McGuire, they went in and didn't 4 section at McGuire and eventually found blockage in those 5 drains. There was a light bulb and some other debris in one 6 of the drains.
7 So, even though they do have drains here, they
, 8 were also subject to the problem with the air return fan.
9 In the case of McGuire and Catawba, both of the air return 10 fans are located below the operating deck, so they have a 11 potential to fail both of the air return fans as opposed to 12 just one at TVA.
13 They're still investigating the problem to see if
14 they have a problem with the divider deck seals. They 15 haven't determined that yet, to my knowledge.
- 16 MR. EBERSOLE: Didn't I hear you say there were l 17 curbs that had been removed because people tripped over
- 18 them?
19 MR. GIITTER: Yes. The curbs in the case of 20 McGuire. There were originally some curbs. All they are is 21 angle irons that are bolted down to the concrete, and 22 there's a sealing between the angle iron and the concrete 23 that channels the water to the refueling canal.
24 You can't see it from this drawing.
- 25 (Slide.)
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7210 05 12 65 1 DAV/bc 1 It channels the water into the refueling canal
.g k-) 2 -and-there's drain lines in this refueling canal that go down 3 to the ECCS sump.
-4 The problem at McGuire and Catawba is the curbing 5 that would be located in this general vicinity to channel it 6 into the refueling canal instead of the air return fan. At 7 McGuire, it had been taken out following a refueling 8 outage. At Catawba, it was never there in the first place.
9 So I have heard, and this is just speculation, 10 that they may have had a problem moving their carts out of 11 the personnel hatch because of that curb, so they took it 12 out and didn't consider what it was there for.
13 MR. EBERSOLE: Let me make a comment here. This O'
14 is a case where operators and maintenance people not 15 cognizant of the purpose of something like that see in it 16 only an obstruction and it's difficult to deal with it.
17 And they willingly take it out and nobody knows 18 about it. Unless they're informed what things are for, 19 there are no prohibits that I know of that keep them from 20 doing this.
21 DR. KERR They concluded that the risk of 22 falling over that thing is greater --
23 (Laughter.)
24 DR. OKRENT: Maybe the PRAs completely failed to 25 call attention to this particular failure.
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7210 05 13 66 l' DAV/bc' 1. MR. EBERSOLE: Exactly.
ry
'J 2 DR. OKRENT: There were two PRAs done on 3 Sequoyah, as I recall. One'by the staff and another one by 4 TVA.
5 MR. EBERSOLE: I'm almost certain they didn't 6 include this aspect of the design.
, 7 DR. MOELLER: Excuse me. I'm failing to follow 8 a particular point. I thought you said that the loss of an 9 air return fan could lead to this differential pressure 10 which caused the seal to fail.
11 MR. GIITTER: No. The loss of the air return
)
12 fan, of one air return fan, is considered in the design 13 basis accident analysis. And it wouldn't really have that
? ) 14 much of an effect.
T 15 But, the loss of both air return fans would 16 because you do rely on at least one air return fan. Now, 17 the problem is, in reducing containment pressures, 18 especially over the long term, and utilizing the ice
! 19 condenser for additional fission product removal and 20 condensation of steam, some numbers I've seen come out as 21 far as fission product removal, if you just use the ice 22 condenser for the initial blowdown, you might remove 50 23 percent of your elemental iodine.
24 However, if the air return fan is available to i
25 continue to circulate air and steam through that ice iO l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 05 14 67 1 DAV/bc 1 condenser, it might be anywhere from 75 percent to 95
\s/ 2 percent efficiency.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: There's another purpose of that.
4 That is, if you allow it to remain a completely vapor 5 region, which you have in the bottom area of containment, s
6 and then, by one way or another, make'.that to spray, you 7 have such a rapid condensation, you collapse this thin 8 containment.
9 It's not designed for instantaneous 10 pressurization of the lower half.
11 MR. GIITTER: We looked a little bit at that.
12 The only plant that has sprays in the lower containment is 13 Cook. Cook has a different containment design than g.
\# 14 Sequoyah,WattsBar,ba'tawbaandMcGuire, in that it is a 15 reinforced containment with a steel liner.
16 DR' . MOELLER: Let me again express what my 17 problem is. The loss of one air return fan can lead to a 18 differential pressure that causes the seal to fail. And the 19 water, therefore, leaks in and fails the fan.
20 MR. GIITTER: There's two different failure. One 21 is the failure of the air return fan because of water l
22 pooling in the pit that the air return fan is located in.
23 It physically covers the inlet to the air return 24 fan. The fan is not designed to pump water. The other s 25 failure is of the divided seal and the seals around the air
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2 DR. MOELLER: Two kinds of failure.
3 MR. GIITTER: That's correct. And the problem 4 there is, essentially, you're bypassing your ice condenser.
5 Now, I don't think that is so much of a problem.
6 The calculations I've seen indicate that you can 7 have as much as 40 square feet or so of bypass initially.
8 We're talking about a situation where you have a 9 bypass ccndition later. So I don't think that in itself 10 would be that much of a problem. It would tend to increase 11 containment pressures and it would be an additional burden 12 for the containment spray.
13 The real significance of the design condition is 14 you have a greater potential to fail your containment. And 15 I would say it's primarily because of the hydrogen problem.
16 Secondly, if you do fail your containment, you're 17 going to have a larger source term.
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 L(1) l l
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)
[/
s- 2 interactive events where the drainage system interfaces with 3 the air return fans, and they've collided.
4 MR. CANTRELL: Catawba had to shut down last week 5 to install the curbs, and they had to allow McGuire to go a 6 couple of hours beyond their LCO to put curbs back in.
7 DR. KERR: Thank you.
8 MR. GIITTER: I was going to say that conditions 9 have been apparently taken care of or fixed at McGuire and 10 Catawba. TVA is considering not only putting in curbing on 11 the operating deck, but they are also considering putting in 12 drain lines in that pit. <
\
13 The only plant that seems to be unaffected by O 14 this design condition, the only ice condensor plant, is 15 .cok. It appears that Cook has done everything right, in 16 terms of having curbing in place, having drains in the air 17 return fan put. And the design at Cook is quite a bit 18 different. The air return fans sit right here. They are 19 actually ca a grading of about 15 from the bottom of the l 20 pit. This pit does have drains. There is curbing on the 21 operating floor to channel water from containment spray into 22 the refueling cavity and down into the ECCS sump. They have 23 looked at the divider deck seals, and they don't believe 24 they have a problem there either.
25 Any other questions?
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7210 06 02 70 1 DAVbw 1 DR. KERR: Mr. Ward?
2 MR. WARD: I still don't find anything about the 3 ECCS performance, maybe there is no problem, but as I 4 recall, if you go through the recipe of Appendix K 5 calculations in the ice condensor plants, there is 6 something as to what you assume, calculate or whatever about 7 the containment pressure. To the extent that they had the 8 NA/UHI system, does this change? Is that a risk associated 9 with what you've discussed?
10 MR. ROSENTHAL: No, it wouldn't be, because the 11 UHI system dumps far earlier in the event than the time 12 scales we are talking about here. But we did think it 13 important to bring this to the committee as illustrative of i <
14 the containment-specific features and the need for detailed 15 analysis, as part of severe accident loads or other 16 initiatives. The fact that the details in the plants are 17 different and require very specific examination, and we saw 18 this is an illustration, of course, the specific problem has 19 been addressed by all the ice condensors as fixed or being 20 fixed.
21 MR. EBERSOLE: I think this is a little bit 22 illustrative of us being in sort of a Catch-22 position. We 23 have to look at large important topics like safety goals and 24 containment efficacy, and so forth, and we would love to do 25 that, but we have somewhat of a horror of getting down into l )
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,n.,
k-) 2 are at opposite ends of a very broad spectrum, very high 3 generality, very find detail. That is a pretty broad 4 field.
5 DR. KERR: Further questions of comments of 6 Mr. Glitter?
7 (No response.)
8 DR. KERR: Thank you.
9 MR. ROSENTHAL: The next speaker is Eernie 10 Sylvester of NPR, the Project Manager for Brunswick. The 11 first topic is EGG room cooling design deficiency. This was 12 discovered as the result of an EEI PRA.
13 MR. EBERSOLE: Another example of the same kind,
(~)
\# 14 and this has stood for 10-odd years, they didn't really have
. 15 diesels. That sort of flavored the total loss of AC power.
16 (Slide.)
17 Notice again, it's instrument air.
18 MR. SYLVESTER: Good morning. As Jack said, I am 19 the NRR Project Manager for Brunswick.
20 The first of the two items I would like to talk 21 about with regard to Brunswick is a design deficiency which 22 was discovered at Brunswick this past December during the 23 course of a PRA review of all plant systems. It was found 24 that all the air supply HVAC dampers that supply air to all 25 the four diesel generator rooms failed close on loss of the ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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.1 DAVbw 1 nonsafety-related instrument air. As a result, all the A/ 2 diesel generator rooms, like I said, four which are shared 3 by the two units, all four rooms would cooling air.
4 As a result of the loss of the cooling air, the 5 potential that all four diesel generators would stop running 6 because of overheating of system controls, the on-site 7 safety review group started a program --
8 DR. CARBON: Excuse me. Would you expand on that 9 just briefly. You said there's a potential. Is it likely?
10 How long would it take? Do you have any idea?
11 MR. SYLVESTER: The licenseee was doing an 12 analysis on how long it would take. It would occur.
f 13 DR. CARBON: You are saying it would occur j
14 eventually?
15 MR. SYLVESTER: There's six nonsafety-related air
- 16 compressors, all on a nonsafety bus, which cannot be loaded 17 under the diesels. The air compressors stopped, and the 18 instrument air line pressure decreased 20 psi. These supply 19 dampers would fail shut. This is a common supply plenum to 20 all four diesel generators. There are two lines per room.
21 So eight of these pneumatically operated dampers, the 22 pressure decreases to 20 psi after some time. All eight 1
23 would shut.
24 MR. WYLIE: It is a common instrument air line?
25 MR. SYLVESTER: It doesn't really matter whether O_s ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 06 05 73 DAVbw 1 it is common or not. All six compressors would stop on lost
' N 2 of offsite power.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: May I ask a question.
4~ In the very beginning of what you are telling us 5 is, these diesel generator rooms are dependent on a common 6 duct work. Not only that, they are dependent on a bunch of 7 dampers, which is, in turn, also dependent on a common air 8 system. The logic for this escapes me, why they have to 9 have a common air supply in the first place rather than 10 having a window in each room and a discharge to use outside 11 air. And you just eliminate the commonality. Here they are 12 loaded with commonalities.
13 MR. SYLVESTER: The supply plenum is fed from
14 either outside area or recirculated air from each diesel 15 generator.
16 MR. EBERSOLE: Is there a fan?
17 MR. SYLVESTER: There are supply fans.
18 MR. EBERSOLE: We go a little bit further back 19 and we find all the diesels dependent on fans rather than 20 just having a window in the room and a discharge per diesel 21 generator.
22 I am just saying, this system is loaded with 23 design problems.
24 MR. SYLVESTER: One of the interim measures that
,_s 25 the licensee took after they discovered this, of course, was
! \
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7210 06 06 74 1 DAVbw - 1 this procedure is for opening these dampers manually and kJ 2 opening-doors to the room.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: Let me just sort of introduce a 4 thesis. We had better go back and look at these common 5 features of these diesel generator rooms. If this is ,
6 representative of many, I think we are going to find lots 7 more problems.
8 DR. KERR: How long would the diesel generator 9 run? Is somebody going to get to that?
10 MR. EBERSOLE: He said a short while. He didn't
.11 say.
12 MR. SYLVESTER: We have Mr. Steven Floyd of 13 Carolina Power & Light, the licensee for Brunswick, here.
/~}
14 He might be able to go into that further.
15 MR. EBERSOLE: Can we get a comment from you?
16 MR. FLOYD: Yes, sir. I am Steve Floyd from 17 Carolina Power & Light Company. Our preliminary analysis 18 indicates that we would have expected about a 24-degree rise l
19 in temperature from the initial design temperatur of 104 20 degrees in about 30 minutes to 60 minutes time frame.
21 MR. EBERSOLE: Is that with the diesel at full 22 power?
23 MR. FLOYD: That is with the diesel at full 24 power.
25 MR. EBERSOLE: That is spilling heat from the i
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-2 DAVbw 1 jacket and waste heat from the generator proper?
'As' 2 MR. FLOYD: That is correct, sir. There is an 3 exhaust fan for the diesel, yes. That would be just the 4 ambient heat around the generator.
5 MR. EBERSOLE: And around its associated 6 controls. That would be around the generator with its 7 controls.
8 DR. CARBON: That is 24 degrees in half an hour.
9 MR. FLOYD: A minimum of a half hour, perhaps as 10 much as an hour, depending on when someone can make the 11 analysis.
12 DR. CARBON: And then they stop running?
13 MR. FLOYD: We didn't actually run a test to see
' \,_] whether they would stop running or not. Our standard 14 15 operating procedure, we don't bellee the diesel would have 16 actually stopped running. We think there would have been 17 adequate time during the 30 minutes to take corrective 18 action.
19 MR. EBERSOLE: What would have been the 20 corrective action?
21 MR. FLOYD: Just opening the doors. We have an 22 alarm in the control room to tell us that there is high 23 temperatures in the diesels. Our standing operating 24 procedure is also to dispatch an operator to the diesel 25 generators. Any time the diesels start, he would certainly ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 06 08 76 2 DAVbw' I be there in a matter of minutes.
2 MR. EBERSOLE: What would be the first common 3 irreversible failure in, I presume, the diesels? Solid 4 state controls, for instance?
5 MR. FLOYD: I don't have that information, sir.
6 MR. WYLIE: Let me ask a question. You have air 7 receivers on this system, instrument air.
8 How long after you lose power, do you close off 9 the air?
10 MR. FLOYD: I don't have the answer to that.
11- The assumption in the analysis was a matter of minutes.
12 MR. SYLVESTER: We assume it is a function of how 13 leak-tight the instrument air system is.
~0' ' 14 MR. WYLIE: I understand it is a matter of 15 usage. You do have accumulators?
16 MR. FLOYD: They are not accumulators. They 17 would just be the residual air in the lines.
18 MR. WYLIE: There is not air receivers?
19 MR. FLOYD: Not to my knowledge.
20 DR. KERR: Mr. Rosenthal, you seem to be 21 disagreeing.
22 MR. JORDAN: That sounded a little strange.
23 I would assume there is an air receiver compressor station, 24 but there is not an accumulator in the vicinity of the duct.
. 25 MR. FLOYD: That is right. There would be a ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 06 09 77 zl ' DAVbw 1 receiver at the pressure.
k/ 2 The assumption in the analysis, I believe, was 3 that it would only be a matter of minutes, though, before 4 that receiver would go down. That may be overly 5 conservative. Again, I am not familiar with all the 6 details.
7 MR. EBERSOLE: When the diesels go into 8 operation, there is a delta T rise in the room of some 9 degrees. So it starts from an ambient of better than 10 outside. air. What is it?
11 MR. FLOYD: The way the system is set up, we 12 have one supply fan operating at any time the temperature is 13 below 78 degrees. When it goes above 78 degrees, two
\~# 14 additional supply fans go on.
15 MR. EBERSOLE: When you say 78 degrees, are you 16 talking about the ambient in_the room?
17 MR. FLOYD: The ambient air temperature of the 18 room; yes.
19 MR. EBERSOLE: So you keep them quite cool, 20 normally?
21 MR. FLOYD: Not necessarily. In the summertime, 22 the rooms would certainly be probably more in the
. 23 neighborhood of 90-some degrees.
24 MR. EBERSOLE: So if they start from 90, they get 25 a little warm?
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,fl -DAVbw 1 MR. FLOYD: Yes, sir. The assumption in our lf'\
. %# 2 analysis'was_that they started at 104 degrees.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay.
4 MR. SYLVESTER: The set up came from the
! 5 architect-engineer. The NRC Staff has checked with other 6 plants.that have had the same AE to see if a similar problem 7 existed in their diesel generator room. And they don't have 8- the same design deficiency. This particular. design 9 deficiency.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: Any questions?
11 DR. OKRENT: I have an observation.
12 When the question of systems interaction finally 13 got the Staff's attention, they went out and spent some tO
'"# . millions of dollars trying to find some supermethodology 14 15 that would enable them to study systems interactions. They 16 then funded some million dollar studies on a plant that 17 already had the system interaction study done, and as I 18 recall, concluded that, in general, system interactions 19 didn't seem to represent the risk and that the amount of 20 money you would have to spend to look for them would be 21' vastly greater than what you might reduce in risk.
22 This was the conclusion, and in fact, when the 23 lower echelon Staff tried to make some recommendations, 24 maybe there were some things worth doing, more than one of 25 upper management wrote negative comments about the merits ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 06 11 79 1 DAVbw 1 of doing systems interaction studies.
kJ 2 So we see here, in this example, in the previous 3 one, categorical negation of upper-level conclusions by a 4 Staff management, and it is really an unfortunate situation, 5 in my opinion, and really warrants somebody going back to 6 see what the root cause is of how the Staff arrived at what 7 I'll call its clearly faulty conclusion.
8 DR. KERR: What suggestion do you have?
9 DR. OKRENT: That it not be examined by the group 10 responsible for making the decision, as was done by CRGR in 11 trying to decide whether it was causing a chilling effect.
12 DR. KERR: No. What should we do?
13 DR. OKRENT: I'm worn out on systems interaction, n
14 Mr. Chairman. Since 1974, we have raised the question.
15 DR. KERR: Let the record show that Mr. Okrent is 16 worn out!
17 MR. EBERSOLE: I'm kind of worn out too, but here 18 this thing --
19 DR. KERR: Only people who are not worn out.
20 MR. EBERSOLE: This is had been in place for 21 ten-odd years. Is this correct?
22 MR. SYLVESTER: Yes. Unit 2 was licensed in 23 1974.
24 MR. EBERSOLE: And all these years, people have
,s 25 been muttering and talking more or less about studying.
(
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- 1 DAVbw 1 This.is an actual hard-wired or hard-tied interactive 4*# - 2 combination. It is not just a spatial coupling. Exactly 3 one-of the things it should be derived from the most simple 4 consideration of the potential for that. I would argue that 5 at this plant I may have now gobs of system interactive 6 considerations not even looked at.
7 I would impose on the Brunswick folks a highly 8 rigorous search for system interactive features that they 9 haven't looked at, this being the trigger that caused that 10 to be done.
11 MR. HERMANN: Mr. Ebersole, I belileve that ihow 12 this was found.
13 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay.
(~)'
, 14 MR. SYLVESTER: The diesel generator system was 15 the last system.
16 MR. EBERSOLE: And how many others were found?
17 MR. SYLVESTER: This was it.
18 MR. EBERSOLE: Great.
19 MR. SYLVESTER: Is that correct, Steve?
20 MR. FLOYD: Yes, it is.
21 MR. MOELLER: I had a comment, following up the l 22 events that we've heard this morning, or commenting upon 23 them. If you look at them, we are seeing in the realm of 24 system interaction, of course, many potentialities, but I am j- 25 very much impressed by the number of system interactions v
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7210 06'13 81 k
2 DAVbw 1 that we are hearing about that involve ' air supply systems of 2 instrument air systems, chilled water systems, air cleaning, 3 air monitoring and air ventilation systems and the
- 4. tremendous significance they can have.
5 Now you ask, what can we do? Well, if AEOD has 6- done a good job of increasing studies in the department of 7 electronics, they've done a number of analyses on these 8 lines, we might ask them, formally, to consider, on a 9 systems interaction basis, analyses of'the systems that I 10 have just mentioned.
11 12 i 13 g
14 a
15 16
'17 18
. 19 20 i 21 22
, 23 24
!O J
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7210 07 01 82 11 -DAVbur 1 DR. KERR: One thing we heard this morning is k/ 2 that initially, though there was concern about it, that-3 everything is okay.
4 DR. MOELLER: Right. At the meeting last month, 5 Dr. Okrent asked about chilled water systems. So I looked 6 at.that in some presentations we had heard, say, six months 7 or so ago.
8 We found that if you believe those PRAs the 9 contribution to core melt from failures in the chilled water 10 systems can be quite significant. In every case they said, 11 oh, we fixed it. So it is no longer true.
12 But I am not convinced.
p_s 13 DR. CARBON: Would you comment briefly on how
( ')
14 extensive a study this was by the Brunswick people, the 15 systems interaction study, and why did they do it? .At their 16 own initiative or by order? Is this unique? Are other 17 utilities doing the same thing?
18 MR. SYLVESTER: I will give my-level of answer.
-19 Then I will ask Steve to comment on that.
l 20 This was done at the licensee's initiative. They l
21 decided to do a PRA review of all plant systems, all plant i 22 safety systems. There are other plants that are getting 23 into the mode of doing PRA stuuies because they see this as 24 something that will be required and subjects that will be l
I 25 talked about at the NRC.
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(_
- 2 think he can go into the level of detail.
3 DR. CARBON: At this point how great was the 4 magnitude -- 10 man-years?
5 MR. SYLVESTER: I think we will have to get that 6 from the licensee.
7 Steve, what was the magnitude of -- the_ scope of 8 detail of the PRA studies?
9 MR. FLOYD: This was a full Level 1 PRA on all 10 safety systems. We took it on our own initiative, based 11 upon some work we had done previously in our spray and 12 friction reduction programs, which we initiated ourselves 13 two and a half or three years ago before the industry went _
- )
-(
14 for the generic scram frequency reduction program.
15' We started out as a single point vulnerability 16 analysis of our safety systems in an effort to reduce our 17 scram frequency.
18 At the conclusion of that we thought we would 19 receive quite a bit of benefit from such a study and that
.20 therefore we would probably get even more benefit from going 21 on further in the Level 1 PRA study to identify system 22 interdependencies, which is exactly how we found this 23 particular problem here.
24 DR. CARBON: How big an effort was that?
_ 25 MR. FLOYD: I am not sure we discussed V
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DAVbur 1 man-years. I know we spent somewhere in:the neighborhood of
\/ 2~ $2 million plus to date doing the Level 1 PRA.
3 It has been partially an in-house and partially a 4 contracted effort.
5 MR. EBERSOLE: May I ask while you are up, this 6 air supply, is that chilled air?
7 MR. FLOYD: I don't believe'it is.
8 MR. SYLVESTER: It is either outsido air or 9 recirculated air.
1 10 MR. EBERSOLE: But it is a function for four 11 fans?
i 12 MR. FLOYD: It is four supply fans all together.
,_ 13 Three of them normally operate with the diesels running.
"# The fourth one is a spare.
14 15 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay. Then you have four fans, 16 you need three, but this is for four diesels?
17 MR. FLOYD: Yes, sir.
18 MR. EBERSOLE: That is interesting. You have a 19 common duct to the four so-called independent diesels, and 20 you require three fans to support four diesels?
l 21 MR. FLOYD: That is correct, sir.
22 MR. EBERSOLE: That is interesting.
23 Incidentally, there are folks here who say, I 24 don't know what the hell system interactions are. Perhaps 25 this is a good time to say whether you do or you don't.
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-7210'07 04 85 1 DAVbur 1 This'is one~. I think you might be better off
- /~')
' 's / 2 just to prop the doors open and leave them that way than
- 3 have this system.
4 DR. KERR: Any.further questions?
5 MR. CANTRELL: There are heaters in that supply 6 duct that keep the rooms above freezing, and they stop for 7 cooling purposes.
8 DR. KERR: Further questions.
9 (No response.)
10 DR. KERR: Next presentation.
11 DR. MOELLER: Well, you could have the NRC issue 12 regulations that accidents can only occur in the winter 13 months.
14 (Laughter.)
15 DR. KERR: It is also possible that these diesels.
16 might have operated if somebody had gone down and opened the 17 door, but I guess that is not a good idea.
18 MR. SYLVESTER: The second item I have is less 19 system interaction and more nuts and bolts.
20 DR. KERR: Should we treat nuts and bolts 21 together or separately?
22 MR. SYLVESTER: I think there is a system i_ 23 interaction between nuts and bolts. After a scram on i 24 January 5th, there was a loss of high pressure coolant 25 injection capability to a stuck open water injection ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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, . (_ ;) . .
2- 'due to a. stuck open bypass valve.-
3 ~I do have some schematics to show the details of 5' 4 this. .The cause of both of these failures,.both of.these 5 problems was equipment failure.
6 In the case of the HPCI system it was motor 7 burnout. In the case of the RCIC it was a failure.of-the= '
. 8 valve internals.
9 As a result of these two post-scram failures.
i.
10 there was a potential for loss of all high pressure coolant l
'll injection. The automatic depressurization system, the core j
12 spray system, and the low pressure coolant injection mode of 13 RHR were still available but were not tried because we
( )' -
14 didn't need to as it turned out.
i- 15 MR. EBERSOLE: At.this point could you say,
- 16. however, that the use.of them would have been rather
~
17 objectionable in that you would suffer a pressure or 18 temperature transient?
19 MR. SYLVESTER: I think that is fair to say, and-20 they didn't. rush in to using-them. They did what-they could 21 with the high pressure system rather than try to do it with 22 low pressure.
23 The initial event here was a turbine trip that 24 resulted in a reactor scram from 100 percent power when they i
4 25 were trying to increase the output voltage with the .
10 1
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7210 07 06' 87 1 DAVbur 1 generator voltage regulator due to some dirty contacts in e s k/ 2 the voltage regulator.
3 As a result'of this, they got a degraded voltage 4 condition that propagated through some of the plant 5 distribution system. The degraded voltage condition caused 6 some relays to open in the leak detection system, probably 7 the main steam tunnel or the internal building steam area.
8 As a result, the MSIVs. closed.
9 (Slide.)
10 The sequence of events after the scram are as 11 follows:
12 We have got a low reactor water level signal. It 13 went down to a low, low level, which is 112 inches, 14 momentarily. It was long enough to open the steam admission 15 valves to the HPCI turbine and the RCIC turbines, causing 16 the turbines to roll. But the low, low level signal didn't 17 lock in long enough for the injection valves to open on 18 either system. So the HPCI and RCIC systems operated in a j 19 min flow recirculation mode back to the suppression pool as
, 20 the level came back up.
l 21 The reactor was being fed at this time by main i
22 feed pumps on their pump coastdown curve. As the pressure 23 peaked at 1119 psig, five SRVs opened automatically.
24 Between the swell from the SPVs popping and the main feed 25 continuing, a high level signal was received, which
(~1 iv I
l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
m- m_m c_, -
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7210 07 07 88 1 DAVbur .1- automatically secured the HPCI and RCIC systems.
l 2 By shutting down the turbines, the steam emission 3 valves. closed on both turbines and the entire system shut 4 down.
5 MR. EBEPSOLE: At this point there was no 6 feedwater? You ceased rolling the main feeds?
7 MR. SYLVESTER: The main feeds were still pumping 8 to some extent on coastdown, and there was a CRD pump 9 operating.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: Yes, those little ones.
11 MR. SYLVESTER: So the level did decrease, and 12 the high pressure coolant injection system was started 13 manually from the control room, and this injection valve was i 1 14 opened.
15 A couple of minutes later the RCIC system was 16 started manually. The level again increased, and the 17 injection valve on the HPCI system was shut. RCIC continued 18 to inject. The HPCI system injection was secured by closing 19 this valve and opening FOO8, which put HPCI into a full flow l 20 recirculation to maximize the use of steam by the turbine 21 and to help with depressurization of the reactor.
22 As the situation seems to be getting under hand, 23 the inboard MSIVs were opened, the steam drains were opened 24 to equalize pressure, and more steam was taken from the l 25 reactor. The reactor water level decreased again, and the ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347 3700 Nationwide Coserage 800-336-6M6
7210 07 08 89 1 DAVbur- 1 operator went to reinitiate the use of HPCI. Turbines and
's / 2 pumps were rolling. It was on a recirc mode. We closed 3 this valve and went to open this valve. This valve would 4 not open. Apparently, the last evolution burned out the 5 valve motor, as they found out later.
6 So to conserve inventory, the inboard MSIVs and 7 the main steam drains were shut. Another CRD pump was 8 started, and over the course of the next half hour or so 9 SRVs were opened manually.
10 As the vessel level increased -- well, the HPCI 11 system is out of commission at this point, and eventually 12 the turbine inlet valves were shut to conserve inventory
?- 13 there. But HPCI is still injecting.
14 (Slide.)
16 MR. SYLVESTER: Sorry. RCIC is still injecting 17 through FOOL 3.
18 The level again increased. So the full flow test 19 line recirculation valve for RCIC was opened and the 20 injection valve shut. Now, RCIC is recirculating through l
l 21 the CST through FO22, which is a RCIC valve designation, and i 22 through FOll, which is a redundant isolation valve that is 23 actually part of the HPCI recirculation line.
24 About 25 minutes after RCIC was put into l
25 recirculation, the level decreased to the point where the l n,
~
l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202 147-3k 0 Nationwide Coverage fkX)-336-fM6
.7210 07 09 90 DAVbur 1 operators tried to put RCIC into an injection mode. -FOl3 71 k- 2 was open. FO22'was closed. The control room indication 3 showed F022 fully shut.
4 Flow indications showed that only partial RCIC 5 flow was getting into the vessel. An operator was 6 dispatched to the valve and found from the local valve 7 indication that the valve was half open.
8 At this point his level continued to decrease.
9 The partial RCIC flow and two CRD pumps were not adequate to
, 10 maintain flow. The licensee -- the operators then shut the 11 HPCI valve to.stop any recirculation flow. The full RCIC 12 flow then went into the vessel, and plant conditions were 13 stabilized at that point.
(~)'
14 It is interesting to note that these FOll and 15 FO22 are different valves, and they could not have failed in 16 a similar manner.
17 (Slide.)
18 Now, we are going to get into the nuts and bolts
- 19 of how that RCIC valve failed open.
20 The RCIC valve F022 is a rising stem globe valve,
! 21 in motor terms a threaded collar which raises the stem as 22 long as the stem is not allowed to rotate. The stem 23 rotation is prevented by this anti-rotation device, held in f
24 place or kept from rotating by a valve yoke guide. The 25 anti-rotation device is positioned axially along the stem
- :O l
i ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210_07 10 91 1 DAVbur 1 by a set screw. There is a key here.
- 2 What had happened was that when the anti-rotation 3 device was installed on the valve, the valve stem was not 4 drilled properly for the set screw. It was assembled 5 without the set screw going into the stem. The set screw 6 was staked, but it wasn't staked firmly enough to prevent 7 rotation. It backed up enough to allow the anti-rotation 8 device to slide down the stem.
9 So when they tried to shut the valve, the collar 10 turned, the stem turned, the globe stayed where it was. The 11 control room indication of valve position only counted 12 turns.
13 I understand that the newer valves that use this 14 type device use a full-length valve yoke guide.
15 DR. KERR: What are the lessons in this for you 16 and us?
17 MR. SYLVESTER: I think maintenance needs some 18 attention to prevent things like this.
19 DR. KERR: Was there some evidence that the valve 20 would have failed completely if it had not been adequately 21 maintained?
22 MR. SYLVESTER. Other valves assembled by the 23 same crew, they found four valves either with keys missing l
24 or valve stems not drilled.
j 25 DR. SIESS: Was the drilling done by an 7_
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l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 07 11 92 1 DAVbur 1 installation crew, or was that done by the manufacturer?
\/ 2 MR. SYLVESTER: I believe by the installation 3 crew to facilitate line-up of the set screw and the hole.
4 MR. EBERSOLE: Would you be critical of the 5 instrumentation being so indirectly used to not detect 6 actual disc movement?
7 That is, jusU the counting of turns is quite a 8 ways from actually moving the valve.
9 MR. SYLVESTER: I think we showed that. There 10 were other indications that the valve wasn't shutting. ,
11 There's always other ways of detecting valve position, or 12 usually is.
13 MR. EBERSOLE: It is a close call on the loss of
14 high pressure feedwater.
15 MR. JORDAN: Excuse me. On the valve position 16 thing, Limitorque valves, traditionally the valve operator 17 gives you position by an odometer type device. It is a 18 geared readout. It counts turns. There isn't normally a 19- physical limit switch that shows either rising stem position 20 or the numbers of turns of the actual shaft.
21 So we really do rely on thousands of valves out 22 there in odometer type communication positions.
23 MR. EBERSOLE: Some distance from the actual 24 intended function?
_ 25 MR. JORDAN: Yes.
(.)
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i7210 07.12 93 il :DAVbur 1 MR. EBERSOLE: That is kind of an' intrinsic.
,~~
I-s 2 common' weakness of whatever parameter you are interested 3 in. In this case it is a valve.
4 MR.-SYLVESTER: A direct indication would 5 certainly make our job a lot easier.
6 DR. KERR: So'in your view, this does not have l- 7 any industrywide implications, but rather is an indication 8 that perhaps maintenance should be improved at this plant?
- 9. MR. SYLVESTER: Well, as a matter of fact, I 10 guess two I&E. notices were sent out in the past, alerting
- 11 licensees.to vibration problems that can decouple just these-12 types of internals.
13 MR. EBERSOLE: If I can go back to TMI-2, what O 14 are the roots of that?
15 We need our levels. This is just another example 16 of a distance indication of the actual movement. I think 17 there is an industry message here to get with it on giving 18 us direct instrumentation.
19 20 I
21 [
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. 25
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7210.08 01 94 J. DAVbur 1 MR. JORDAN: I don't want to argue with you, but k~/ I 2 let me tell you the problems we have with valve operators in 3 general. It is really generally not valve position. We 4 have a certain percontage of them that are valve position.
5_ The overall problems are these are mechanical 6 devices with electric motors or some other operator, and
~
7 they are subject to mechanical failures. They take a lot of 8 maintenance. They take a lot of care in setting limit 9 switches, having the right size, protective devices, and so
.10 on.
11 As a result of Davis-Besse, there was a bulletin 12 issued that focused on valves for high pressure, both BWFs 13 and PWRs, to look at their ability to respond in the 14 accident case. That has caused a considerable amount of 15 work on the part of industry, and we are getting feedback 16 from it. That is expanding in a plant-by-plant case, the 17 amount of effort they put on motor-operated valves in
~
18 general, both in care in setting limit switches and having 19 the right torque switches, having the right size motor, the 20 right gearing, and so on.
21 So there is in the industry a very large 22 effort. I think MOVATS equipment and other diagnostic 23 equipment has been useful in identifying valves that may not 24 work in the accident situation.
25 So I would only say this is an example of valve ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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i 7210 08 02 95 1 ~ DAVbur
,/- .
1 proble'ms. Industry is working hgrd0 bn it, and the NRC has
, k- 2- looked with great interest on'the further problems. . AEOD 3 just recently did issue another case study on motor operated i
4 valves and their relative reliability that urged the staff 5 to work harder.
/
6 MR. WYLIE: It is your conclusion, then, that 7 it.dustry has given it the correct amount of attention?
8 MR. JORDAN: I won't say correct yet. I will say 9 that more attention in the last year -- substantially more 10 attention. I am not certain it is enough yet, 11 DR. KERR: The consensus seems to be it is 12 entirely a maintenance problem.
13 Is it possible that the quality of the valves
(')
14 being specified is in failure?
15 MR. JpBDAN: It is a maintenance and a design 16 combination. In the specification of some of these valves, 17 their whole opening capability against the accident 18 condition is not assured. That was the big focus.
19 In this particular case, I would say it is 20 maintenance and design vulnerability to these sorts of
' So it is a system that requires great care.
21 failures. It 22 is a very sensitive piece of equipment.
23 HM R . EBERSOLE: One aspect of this that I don't 24 think we covered, before we actually descended to that 25 objectionable state where we are forced into a blowdown,
.C) t J
ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS INC 202-347-3700 Nationwide Coverage 80lL336-6646
-7210 08 03 96 1 DAVbur 1 there are manual cranks on these valves, aren't there?
(}
\/ MR. SYLVESTER: I don't know which valves have 2
3 them.
4 MR. JORDAN: Most Limitorques have a manual crank 5 on them. In this case the manual crank -- in fact, I know 6 the manual crank has the same problem with the anti-rotation 7 device. It wouldn't help.
8 MR. ROSENTHAL: Just for some perspective, we did 9 an LER search of times when RCIC and HPCI had both failed. I 10 remember it happened roughly a hundred times. In no case 11 has a plant actually gone ADS to blowdown. Usually people 12 were able to recover the feedwater system.
13 MR. EBERSOLE: Is there an impediment to getting
\'_] 14 feedwater back which shouldn't be there?
15 I think you have to equalize the valve pressures 16 on both sides of the MSIVs. That takes some maneuvering in 17 time, doesn't it? Should there be any more expeditious way 18 of getting back to opening the main steam lines?
19 DR. KERR: Is the core spray on this reactor 20 operated by high pressure?
21 MR. SYLVESTER: No, it is a low pressure system.
22 MR. EBERSOLE: To get back to the main steam, to 23 get the condenser back is important. Would you say anything
- 24 about the importance of getting that heat sink and power
- ,_ 25 supply back?
IU ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210 08 04 97 1 DAVbur 1 DR. KERR: Are you suggesting some sort of change g
i k ! 2 in design, in the way we operate MSIVs?
3 MR. EBERSOLE: So you can get the main steam line 4 back, and you have to go back to the condenser to get your 5 pumps going.
6 You remember that happened at the fire at Browns 7 Ferry. They were having trouble trying to get the 8 condensers and main feedwater, and I think there is an 9 impediment in place by design which probably ought to be 10 reexamined.
11 DR. KERR: Do you think we ought to assign this 12 to the proper subcommittee?
13 11R . EBERSOLE: It might be we ought to get back It 14 to what I call the balance of plant.
15 DR. KERR: Further questions for Mr. Sylvester?
16 (No response.)
17 DR. KERR: Does that conclude your presentation?
18 MR. SYLVESTER: Yes.
19 DR. KERR: Does the licensee representative have 20 any further comment?
21 MR. FLOYD: No, sir.
22 MR. EBERSOLE: Before we close this topic, I 23 asked you to look at this. I would be responsive to take 24 any kind of action any of you would bring to them, whether 25 you yourself think you see something, whatever kind of n
v l
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7210 08 05 98 1 DAVbur 1 action as a subcommittee chairman I should take.
,\
~[ 2 I think just this action here that we have here 3 in presenting these things and the feedback we get just 4 verbally at this time is in most cases pretty much a 5 productive operation in itself. But if you think otherwise,.
6 I would like to hear.
7 Yes, sir.
8 DR. OKRENT: Well, I earlier raised a question
, 9 about whether enough attention was being paid to underground 10 components. Maybe it is, but I have no basis myself for 11 knowing if that is the case. If you know, fine.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: That could be a topic of a 13 letter.
O 14 DR. OKRENT: But you need more than a look by 15 mechanical engineers or civil engineers, and so forth, if 16 you are going to examine a thing like that.
17 MR. EBERSOLE: I will see what I can do about i
18 that.
19 Anything else?
20 DR. MOELLER: I wanted to ask, I wondered if any 21 other members of the committee shared with me the thought of l
22 asking AEOD to consider looking at air-related cooling.
23 DR. KERR: We don't know what is being done.
24 DR. MOELLER: Right, we don't know what is being
(
! - 25 done.
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7210 08 06 99 1 DAVbur 1 DR. KERR: Do you-think the subcommittee should
.p/
\- 2 write a letter?
3 DR. MOELLER: Fine, that.is a good suggestion.
4 DR. KERR: That might help us to know what is 5 being done.
6 DR. MOELLER: And I will refer this to the staff 7 to be sure. We will do that.
8 MR. WARD: Can I comment, Bill?
9 It seems to me the purpose of these sessions is 10 primarily for information from the staff to the committee to 11 help us be informed or become informed about, I guess, the 12 realities of the operating plants.
13 I think I have a problem with the committee
( 14 adopting an attitude where it thinks that it should or in
, 15 fact can react to specific things. Anything in the form of 16 a letter, there may be occasional items, but in general I 17 would hope this would be sort of an input to the committee 18 which it can integrate in some way.-
19 If some issue comes up that we think needs to be 20 pursued further by the subcommittee, as Bill suggests, it I
21 would seem to me that is very appropriate.
22 MR. EBERSOLE: So we will do it indirectly and go 1 23 back to subcommittees. For example, Shewmon would be the 24 one to answer Dave Okrent's question.
25 MR. WARD: But I think for us to come out with
- ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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7210~08 07 100 1 DAVbur 1 some sort of pronouncement based on the limited amount of (3
k/ 2 information we'got here today is beyond --
3 MR. EBERSOLE: All right. So what ~ I will do is I 4 will go to work on this. There are two subcommittees that I 5 can see might pick up these air problems as well as this 6 underground problem.
7 DR. LEWIS: I agree with Dave. We have a 8 perfectly natural tendency to listen to each one as if we 9 were the foreman on the spot and trying to fix it, and that 10 isn't'our intent here. It is to get a certain amount of
, 11 wisdom which we can then use.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: It is a process.
13 DR. OKRENT: I am sorry, I thought that one of 14 the purposes was to see whether there were generic 15 implications.
16 DR. LEWIS: That is what I mean by " wisdom."
17 DR. OKRENT: Maybe you mean " wisdom" that way.
18 It may be other people interpret it differently.
19 But it is not clear to me that on more than one 20 occasion that this information is disseminated broadly 21 enough within the staff with the generic implications, and 22 so forth, to people who are in middle and upper management.
23 In other words, the people sitting here know 24 about it but I don't know that whoever is looking at 1150 is 25 aware of the problems in the PRAs they are counting on.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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n 7210 08 08 101 DAVbur 1 The design deficiencies don't go into the PRAs. Systems !
,.,1
\/ 2 interactions don't go into the PRAs in general. When they 3 are found, they are corrected. So again they don't appear 4 in the PRAs.
5 DR. LEWIS: I don't disagree with what you just 6 said, Dave.
7 MR. HERNAN: I guess we are a little confused on 8 what the involvement of the committee is in these events.
9 We think the indication we are getting from the Commission 10 is that we have an obligation to let you know what is going
-11 on. So we will continue to go through the process to 12 screen.
13 I guess there is feedback to the staff as we hold
' (_
.' )
14 these meetings, and we would certainly act upon it.
15 DR. KERR: Mr. Jordan?
16 MR. JORDAN: I would first like to respond to 17 Dr. Okrent in terms of feedback to the staff on these 18 events.
19 These events have all previously been briefed to 20 the staff at the management level so that the lessons that 21 are available are communicated and are done on a weekly 22 basis through a meeting between I&E and NRR and AEOD, where 23 the same sorts of people go through each week.
24 They have five or so events that represent the t
l 25 ones that are of greatest importance, so that the events l
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7210 08 09 102 1 -
DAVbur 1 that have been presented here have been accumulated and have s' 2 been sorted out and were deemed to be the most significant 3 for communication to.you.
4 But there are strong lessons in many of the 5 others. So I just want to reassure you that communication 6 is being made to management, to the division directors, 7 branch chiefs, office directors, t'hrough legal means.
8 DR. OKRENT: You just rake me feel worse in the 9 following sense:
10 The staff still, so far as I can tell, seems to 11 think that systems interactions, you know, are not a 12 problem. In fact, that was the position being taken at the 13 CRGR until the committee wrote a letter on it, and it is 14 still a limited approach that the staff is proposing.
15 So if somebody is hearing all this and being told 16- the implications and it doesn't sink in, I would say there 17 is something to think about.
18 DR. KERR: It is barely possible that people 19 interpret these incidents as something other than systems 20 interaction, so it may be that some of the things that are 21 being found can be identified as other than systems 22 interaction.
23 But I don't think that is going to make you 24 happy.
25 MR. EBERSOLE: Let's get to the PRA on l CE)
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\- 2 DR. KERR: Let's not get off on PRAs.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: I am saying it is not-necessarily 4 true that the PRA, the focus on it --
5 DR. KERR: Look, PRAs have historically -- I 6 think everybody recognizes that they do not find every 7 possible source of failure, whether it is systems 8 interaction or nonsystem interaction, and has been the case 9 in the past. As people look at the plants in more detail, 10 they have found other things.
11 I don't think anybody disagrees with this. It 12 just causes us to use PRAs and everything else with a
.13 certain amount of caution. They are only as good as our
\
('#
'- 14 understanding of plants.
15 MR. EBERSOLE: My feeling is that the subordinate 16 part of the PRA is given too short shrift.
17 DR. OKRENT: What bothers me about the 18 situation -- and in fact your comments, which sort of are, 19 in a sense, defensive of what I will call the status quo --
20 is that these PRAs that the staff is using, or part of 21 them, argue that everything is okay so far as severe 22 accidents are concerned; so far as we can tell, nothing 23 needs to be done unless we learn something new, and so 24 forth.
25 But the facts belie this, in my opinion. Yet, ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Coverage 80l>336-646
7210 08'11 104 l '. DAVbur 1 'nevertheless, the old song continues to be sung, and it is S'
. ' - 2 unfortunate.
3 MR. ROSENTHAL: When reviewing the events --
4 DR. KERR: Excuse me. That is a good note on
.5 which to end.
1 I- 6 I want to thank all of you for your responses to
, 7 our questions.
8 A 15-minute break.
9 (Recess.)
10 11 12 13
, 14 15 s 16 l 17
, 18 h
19 1
20 t
21 i 22 l 23 24 l -
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(_)1 DAVbw 1 DR. KERR: The next item on the agenda is a 2 discussion of rad waste management and disposal with 3 comments by the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Moeller, and a 4 briefing by representatives of NMSS.
5 DR. MOELLER: No.
6 DR. KERR: Oh, they couldn't make it; right. So 7 Mr. Moeller is going to talk tMice as long and half as 8 fast.
9 DR. MOELLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do 10 have several items we wanted to share with the committee.
11 Jack Parry is here and Owen Merrill. And I am going to talk
/~ 12 upon Jack to go into a little more detail on at least one U}
13 item.
14 There are many events occurring within the NRC 15 relative to high level waste and low level waste. If you 16 meet with them, you find that the pace of the work in these 17 areas is very rapid and moving forward very well.
18 On January 21, 1987, Paul Shewmon and I, joined 19 by Owen Merrill and Jack Parry, went out to Silver Spring 20 and spent a day with the NRC Staff, which we are doing 21 periodically, to be briefed on this subject, and I wanted to 22 give you just a few highlights, dividing it into the 23 high level waste activities and the low level waste 24 activities.
25 On the high level waste activities, the ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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'd committee is aware, of course, of the federally funded 1 DAVbw I 2 Research and Development Center, which is to provide 3 'research to the NRC Staff in this subject area. And the 4 proposals for the various groups that desire to fulfill that 5 role are to be submitted by February 10. So the dates are 6 coming, the proposals will be received, and then the NRC 7 will be reviewing them.
8 They are also working very vigorously at the 9 international level. Some of the topics being pursued _are 10 the development validation of models for assessing the 11 performance of a repository. They are also pursuing
(- 12 cooperatively, on an international basis, studies of a range
\-)S 13 of media for potential high level waste repositories. The 14 Federal Republic of Germany is working on salt, Italy is i
15 working on clay, France, Switzerland, Sweden and the 16 U.K. are working on granite, and I believe the Japanese 17 also.
18 The NRC Staff said, because of the U.S. interest f
19 in salt, they wished they could get more of the other 20 countries working in this area.
21 DR. MARK: You didn't mention Canada. It is 22 certainly working on granite.
23 DR. MOELLER: Yes. Canada could be included I
{} 24 there as working on granite.
In terms of some of the specific topics that the l 25 i
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l -DAVbw 1 NRC Staff is working on at the moment, one is the definition 2' of high level waste. They've.got.to come up with an l~ 3 official definition and-the Congress has already defined it
. 4 as something that is highly radioactive and requires
- - 5 permanent isolation.
6 DR. SIESS: That is definitive then, isn't it, if 7 Congress does it? Do we take it to the Supreme Court?
s.
- 8 DR. MOELLER: The Staff, interestingly enough,11s' -
9 very concerned, because the congressional definition says
, --10 highly radioactive-and requiring permanent isolation. They j
11 can see certain groups separating their wastes into a kind 12 where it either only requires permanent isolation or it is 13 neither radioactive, and therefore, not be handled as.high 14 level waste.
15 Spent fuel, of course, is clearly defined as a
! 16 high level waste. The law also says, the first something or 17 other that comes off of the chemical reprocessing system, L 18 that is also defined.
, 19 MR. EBERSOLE: What are old used control rods?
20 DR. MOELLER: They are not high level ~ waste.
21 They are low level. The same with the resins from the
- . 22 cooling water, and so forth.
! 23 MR. PARRY: Or Class C, depending on what 24 system.
}
[ 25 DR. MOELLER: The other thing they are really i ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
mm.m, s.e_m_...
3 33 -
s7210 09 04 108
)
1 DAVbw 1 digging into and some of the challenges the Staff faces is, 2 in their overall assessment of high level waste respository, 3 they are trying to look at the respository as a system, as 4 well as looking at it component by component. And they have 5 many questions on which they want advice. One is, how do 6 you evaluate a component? One at a time? And they have the 7 EPA standards have to be met. And they ask the question, 8 how much of the total goal or how much of meeting the EPA's 9 regulations can be assigned to a single component?
10 They also decided that if the DOS, as the 11 applicant comes in and says, well, components A, B, F and G
(-] 12 are adequate. We don't even need to look at C, D and E.
' _J 13 They say, well, we will require you to look at C, D and E to 14 be sure that they do not represent a detriment or a negative 15 factor, in terms of the other components that you are 16 looking at.
17 Because Paul Shewmon was with us, we spent 18 considerable time looking at the problems of the corrosion 19 of the waste package and the research program on that, the 20 effects of stress corrosion cracking, the potential effects 21 of biological activity, which is one area they are into.
22 And again --
23 DR. KERR: What biological activities?
(~N 24 DR. MOELLER: All right. The instance with which
- L.]
l 25 I am most familiar is, for example, at Hanford, where they 1
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()1 DAVbw 1 had plutonium in the environment. For many years, the 2 plants, the vegetation did not take up the plutonium.
3 Finally, they reached a stage where suddenly the plants were 4 taking up plutonium. They found that certain biological 5 activity within the soil produces chelating agents, which 6 totally changes the behavior of certain radionuclides.
7 They were wondering, as I recall, if certain 8 types of biolgical activity here could cause an acceleration 9 or change in corrosion rates.
10 DR. KERR: This could be in the storage facility, 11 several thousand meters underground. There would be some 12 biological activities?
13 DR. MOELLER: Yes. So we understand.
14 DR. MARK: Look, there were little animalculi in 15 the TMI water.
16 DR. MOELLER: That's been a major problem there.
17 DR. MARK: In the reactor at Los Alamos in 1962 18 or '3 --
19 DR. KERR: These are supposed to be dry storage 20 sites, aren't they?
~
21 DR. MARK: A big colony of things. We're getting 22 a million rems a year. We are thriving on it.
23 DR. MOELLER: Recently, though, in LERS, and so 24 forth, we have seen the effects of biological activity on 25 something. I am sorry it escapes me at the moment, bat it ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1 DAVbw 1 has come to the forafront. It completely changed the 2 behavior of something.
3 MR. PARRY: At the BWIP site, there has been a 4 considerable amount of methane gas available and a lot of 5 organics between the crevices of the basalt. And only the 6 Nevada site is dry, in the normal sense. BWIP is quite.
7 wet. And of course, the salt site, although it isn't salt, 8 is still considered as a wet site, since it is below the 9 water table.
10- DR. MOELLER: They are also looking, as they have 11 in the past, at scaling factors, how you scale from 12 short-term tests in thousands and tens of thousands of 13 years. They also are looking to the subcommittee to help 14 them on assigning priorities to the key issues that they 15 face and deciding whether those key issues shall be handled 16 by writing a generic technical position or by rulemaking.
17 They really want, and they are very receptive, in terms of 18 their total program, both research and operations, in terms 19 of licensing operations, in terms of high level waste. They 20 are looking for feedback from the ACRS. And really, I feel 21 a very heavy responsibility, if we try to provide them what 22 they are really seeking, in terms of low-level waste --
23 DR. OKRENT: Excuse me. Is there going to some 24 special high level waste committee, or has that bee.1
}
25 decided?
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w 1 DAVbw 1 DR. MOELLER: I'll talk about it in a moment..
2 In terms of the low-level waste program, they are
~
3 developing a long-range plan. Here again, they have asked 4 us for comment and feedback, as soon as it is provided to 5 us.
6 DR. MARK: Does the planning extend for 10,000
-7 years?
8 DR. MOELLER: It is for five years, I think, 19 initially. They are also anticipating, over the next few 10 years -- don't ask me how many -- but from five to ten ,
11 individual states or state compacts will come in, will i
12 submit applications for low-level waste disposal sites or 13 facilities. In trying.to get ready for these applications, 14 they are following pretty much the experience lin the nuclear 15 power plant area. For example, they are currently 16 developing a standard format and content for a license 17 application for a low-level waste facility. They are 18 developing a standard NRC review plan for such applications,
! 19 and on both of these, they are submitting them or will be 20 submitting them to us and want definitive and detailed 21 comment.
l 22 DR. REMICK: Can I ask a question? I know I j 23 asked this before. I don't remember the answer I got. The i
24 licensing of low level waste sites in agreement states, is l 25 that an NRC licensing action, or is it the agreement state l
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2 MR. PARRY: It is actually the agreement state 3 themselves, but there is a separation between them. That 4 is, the party that applies for'it does not give the -
5 license. They do have a separate agency to handle that.
6 The purpose of the plan and the development of the plan and 7 the format and the guide, and so forth, is to provide the 8 states with a uniform approach, which they may or may not i 9 use, but at least it tells them what level of detail they 3
t 10 should go into and what level of detail their application 11 should have.-
i 12 DR. REMICK: So this guy could be used by the NRC
' {N u_)
g 13 in the cases where they would be the licensing agency.
i 14 Okay.
t 15 DR. MOELLER: In the case of the Commonwealth of l
16 Pennsylvania, the representative presented to the l 17 subcommittee the plan there, and they plan to be more i
18 stringent than the NRC would have been.
- 19 DR. MARK
- Is this written as if one were i 20 thinking only of shallow land burial, or does it include the 1
21 range of possible options?
22 DR. MOELLER: They are working very diligently to 23 look at not only shallow land burial but all of the viable
{} 24 alternatives to this. They have tried to write and modify, 4
25 and I never remember whether it is 10 CPR 61, they try to ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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f-g 2100909 113-Q1 DAVbw I wrote that so it is applicable to any of these alternatives, 2 but they have pinpoint the viable, most prominent 3 alternatives, and they are dealing with each of them.
4 MR. PARRY: The Staff does feel, however, that 5 low level burial is fully acceptable and is a perfectly.
6 appropriate way to go.
7 DR. MOELLER: To show you again how they are 8 following the nuclear power plant experience, they are 9 considering having an NRC resident inspector at various 10 disposal sites.
11 DR. MARK: Oh, God!
q V
12 (Laughter.)
13 MR. PARRY: Excuse me, Dade. There are presently 14 resident inspectors at the salt sites, at two of them. One 15 position is vacant now, and of course, the resident 16 inspector would only be at those sites that the NRC 17 licenses.
18 DR. MARK: How much do they pay?
19 MR. PARRY: They're GS-15s.
20 DR. MOELLER: Dr. Kerr wants to know, what are 21 the high level sites where the reps are currently.
22 MR. PARRY: At Hanford BWIP site and at Nevada.
23 DR. KERR: They are licensed high level?
24 DR. MOELLER: I am sorry. They are not
}
25 licensed. There is a resident inspector.
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es72'10 09.10 114 L )s 1 DAVbw 1 DR. KERR: Inspector?
2 MR. PARRY: No.
3 DR. MOELLER: He is called a resident inspector.
4 MR. PARRY: Licensing respresentative.
5 DR. KERR But the facilities aren't licensed, 6 are they?
7 DR. MOELLER: No, they are not, but he sits in on 8 the meetings, he has access to the information. So this~is 9 very important to the NRC Staff.
10 DR. SIESS: For the education of the NRC Staff?
11 DR. MOELLER: It is the way to keep up with 12 things by sitting in on the meetings; yes.
13 DR. KERR: This is an operational site, or wone 14 that is being developed?
15 DR. MOELLER: It is one that is being explored or 16 characterized.
17 DR. KERR: So it is not a low-level site?
18 DR. MOELLER: These are high level sites.
19 DR. KERR: It is not a high level site yet.
20 DR. MOELLER: No. They are proposed.
21 DR. KERR: A possible to be high level site.
22 Okay.
23 DR. REMICK: How about at WIPP? Is there one 24 there?
(O')
25 MR. PARRY: NRC has no position there.
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( i 1 DAVbw 1 DR. MOELLER: WIPP is not to be licensed.
2 DR. SIESS: I don't care'if it is for educational 3 purposes. You can learn a lot at WIPP.
4 MR. PARRY: That is my we visit there.
5 DR. MOELLER: Okay. Moving ahead now, getting 6 back to waste in general, I wanted to mention, because the 7 committee was asking last month about this licensing support 8 system, as a backup for all Federal Government work-on waste 5 9 management, the NRC, with DOE funding, and with the advice 10 of an advisory committee, not us, they are setting up this 11 licensing support system, which will be a data base, a (s 12 computer data base of information, technical information, on
\-] 13 the disposal of radioactive waste. The day we spent with 14 them, we toured, very briefly, the operations in Silver 15 Spring, where they are doing this, and then Jack went back 16 out, and Owen went also.
17 I wanted Jack to take a few minutes and brief the 18 committee on what this consists of.
19 DR. SIESS: Is it going to have any effect on us?
20 MR. PARRY: In the long range, yes, sir. The 21 first thing I think I should bring to the committee's 22 attention, is the fact that DOE has recently, actually, on 23 the 21st of January, announced a five-year drawback of delay 24 in the expected date of the operation of the repository.
25 This is documented in a draft amendment to their ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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- s7210 09 12- 116 1 DAVbw 1 mission plan, which Owen and I will provide to the committee 2 for their general information.
3 DR. MARK: I thought that date was stipulated by 4 Congress in the act.
5 MR. PARRY: That is a pertinent comment.
6 Representative Markey and several senators have commented on 7 that point also at some length.
8 MR. WARD: You are in good company, Carson.
9 DR. OKRENT: That includes Congressman Udall.
10 MR. PARRY: Oh, yes , although he was more upset 11 about the dropping of the second repository. That delay is 12 going to affect the submission date for the application for t.
13 the repository, and it has now shifted to about 1995. The 14 effect of that -- pardon me. 1995 -- I'm sorry, I have a 15 very bad cold. 1995 is about the date of the submission of 16 the application. The NRC is supposed to complete that work 17 in 36 months now, not 27 months, which was the original 18 proposal.
19 That extends the period of time that NRC has to 20 consider the matter, but the basic value of the licensing 21 support system, which is essentially a data retrieval and 22 document retention system, is that it will provide an 23 instantaneous or essentially instantaneous capability for
{} 24 25 participants in the hearing process to do their own discovery process, thus eliminating the necessity for ace-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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- 1. DAVbw 1 manual retrieval of documents, the copying of them, which is 2 required because of the legalities of the hearing system and 3 providing facsimiles.
4 5
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' ('l DAV/bc 1 The system that the staff is developing will have 2 the capability of holding all the expected documents, some 3 16 million of them, in their entirety, with addenda, notes, 4 appendices, and so forth, so that the participants can 5 search on their own and thus relieve the staff and shorten 6 the time of that necessity.
7 Dr. Sun joined us at the Willste Building on the 8 28th. I would not. characterize his feelings on the thing, 9 on the system. If you'd care to have his comments, he's in 10 the audience and he'll be glad to provide them.
11 Not being a computer expert myself, I was 12 impressed as a semi-layman with the capability of what they 13 have. I think it represents a real forward step. It is a 14 similar system that's being used in the National Air and 15 Space Museum and in the Library of Congress.
16 DR. SIESS: Is this going to include all of those f
, 17 16 million documents you mentioned?
18 MR. PARRY: That's correct, yes.
19 DR. MOELLER: And you will be able to dall up an 20 individual word, any word that's in any document.l 21 DR. SIESS: Like Lexis.
22 DR. REMICK: Has there been any discussion you 23 know -- it's a matter of curiosity on my part -- about
(} 24 25 intervenors claiming that we don't have the money to buy the terminals and the printers to access that information?
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-3210 10 02 119 U 1 DAV/bc 1 And they're being taken unfair advantage of?
2 MR. PARRY: This has been discussed and what the 3 staff is planning to do and is starting to do with the DOE 4 is to go through a negotiated rulemaking with the Department 5 and with the principal participants.
6 That will set the requirements for the system.
7 DOE, they are hoping, will pay for the entire system and 8 will provide the terminals, and so forth, for the authorized 9 participants.
10 There comes a price on those participants. That 11 is, they must put all their documents in that system in that 12 format, too. And they must agree not to attempt to distract (g
f-
)
13 or disturb or extend the hearing process by raising 14 precisely the questions that you alluded to.
15 DR. SIESS: It looks like an even trade. The 16 Canadian paper industry is going to lose, but the Korean 17 computer industry will get ahead.
18 DR. MOELLER: We also asked them how you make 19 sure or how you judge the qualifications of the document to 20 be entered into the files. How do you know it's good 21 science, and so forth?
22 Do you remember the answer? I guess --
23 DR. SIESS: They're not going to put everything 3
N 24 in there? Just good stuff?
\(~_]
- 25 MR. PARRY: Everything.
l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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,-~s7210 10 03 120 DAV/bc 1 DR. MOELLER: So I guess everything will be in.
2 okay. Well, you had asked about that.
3 Thank you, Ja.k.
4 MR. PARRY: Just an aside. It's an IBM mainframe 5 that runs it, so it's not Korean.
6 DR. MOELLER: The main thing that we were going 7 to talk about today, for which the staff was unable to come, 8 was to talk about the advisory committee for the NRC high 9 level waste program.
10 The-discussion of course is how best for them to 11 obtain independent advice on these activities. Comparable 12 to what the ACRS provides for nuclear power plant problems 13 or questions.
14 My guess is, and we'll have to confirm this, that 15 probably this will be put on the agenda for the March 16 meeting and, hopefully, they'll be able to come then to tell 17 you what they have in mind.
18 And they do definitely want in writing, as I 19 understand it, feedback from the full committee on this 20 matter.
21 Lastly, I would like to mention that, in response 22 to the minutes of the planning committed and to Jessie 23 Ebersole's requests and others, we have had work underway on 24 approachs for evaluating the risk associated with the high
)
25 level repository as compared to a nuclear power plant.
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1 'DAV/bc 1 In my opinion, Jack Parry had set down some 2 pretty good beginning words on that matter and I had 3 modified it a little bit. But we're going to share that 4 draft with you, which we acknowledge contains some errors in 5 the numbers, and so forth. But we're going to share that.
6 with you.
7 And we also ask that you provide us feedback.
8 And if you will do so, we'll modify it. We'll then take it 9 to our waste management subcommittee. I guess we're doing 10 this a little bit in reverse, but we'll take it to them and 11 we'll get critical comment and review and polish it off and, 12 hopefully, come up with something that will meet your
(-}
\m-13 needs.
~
14 DR. SIESS: I've read it. And what comes out of 15 it, although it's not explicit, is the distinction
, 16 between--it's not in terms of risk, I guess--the distiction 17 between let's say the health ef fects and perceptions.
18 Both were mentioned. I think they're both 19 important. But driving this is not necessarily potential 20 consequences but what people are concerned about.
21 MR. EBERSOLE: Dade, in that connection, I think 22 there's some relationship between what is said in this paper 23 here -- they somet.imes consider transition to retrievable 24 storage. I've seen that in the news in recent weeks.
{~}
25 I wondered if you could comment on where you see ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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A7210 10 05 122 1 -DAV/bc 1 that now, the potentiality of having an MRS facility.
2 That's in my hometown. I might comment that the 3 local political structure is adamantly against this. They 4 have several representatives or one lady and two men 5 claiming they're going to protect the citizens of 6 Tennessee. A lot of flag-waving.
7 Yet, I suspect if you took a vote of the affected 8 community, you would find them enthusiastic to put that 9 facility in there, realizing the lack of real hazard that 10 comes about f rom stored fuel.
11 I even wonder if the state has the prerogative to 12 influence the installation of such a facility in view of its 13 low risk.
14 DR. MOELLER: I believe the congressional law, 15 doesn't it, for an MRS, give the state any?
16 MR. PARRY: There is a requirement that the 17 consult but I don't believe that the states have the legal 18 authority to raise an objection with Congress as they do on 19 the repository.
20 I might mention that the extension of the 21 schedule for the repository almost absolutely mandates the 22 development of an MRS somewhere.
23 DR. REMICK: lias that MRS proposal gone to 24 Congress or DOE? Is that stalemated? I thought it was.
25 MR. PARRY: I'm not sure of the legality of the l
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1 DAV/bc 1 situation. It was a very complex situation where Tennessee 2 tried to file on the same day that DOE was trying to submit 3 the papers to the sergeant-of-arms of the Congress, or 4 something like that.
5 And I really don't know what that situation is.
6 But, another aspect of it is that probably the MRS capacity 7 eventually will have to be expanded because even the 8 extension that is the mission plan amendment now is not 9 adequate for a detailed site characterization; specifically 10 at the BWIP site; it's only two and a half years.
11 MR. EBERSOLE: I've been bugged by the political
(" 12 reaction in that I think that the political structure, the
. (
13 three representatives, in all probability, have sampled the 14 people -- I spell that PWPUL -- and found where the majority 15 was of opinion and are trying to array them behind their 16 polit. nl structures to make big noises about this.
17 And I sure hope they're ineffective in their 18 efforts.
19 DR. MOELLER: Mr. Chairman, that concludes our 20 report. I would close by emphasizing once again that we 21 would very much appreciate comments on this initial first 22 rough cut, comparing risk of the repository and of the 23 plant, because we need your guidance.
~
24 DR. KERR: Thank you, Mr. Moeller.
25 Any further questions or comments?
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l .DAV/bc 1 DR. REMICK: I'm sorry. Is that the first.
2 portion, or is that the total report?
3 DR. MOELLER: We will not discuss the 4 establishment of an advisory committee until next month, 5 when the staff will be here.
6 DR. REMICK: I missed that. I'm sorry. ,
7 DR. KERR: There being no other scheduled 8 business until 1:30 this afternoon, I declare a recess until 9 1:30.
10 (Whereupon, at 12:00 Noon, the meeting recessed, i 11 to reconvene at 1:30 p.m., this same day , in unreported ,
12 session.) i li O 13 14 i
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16 17 18 r 19 20 21 f 22 23 24 -
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CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER LJ This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the matter of:
NAME OF PROCEEDING: ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 322ND GENERAL MEETING DOCKET NO.:
PLACE: Washington, D. C.
C) DATE: ,,1e ,, ,ehr ,r, e, 1,e, were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear.
Regulatory Commission.
(sigt) . . ,
(TYPED)
DAVID L. HOFFMAN Official Reporter ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS INC.
Reporter's Affiliation,
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O AIR SUPPLY 00E IGURATION NUTE REDUNDANT SEALS AIR SUPPLIED FRm U-2 TO ALL SEALS COULD BE MAMJALLY TRANSFERRED TO U-1 BU 112' NO PROCEDURE BASED FUEL POOL LEVEL NOTE SEAL LEAK DETECTION INSTRlfENTATION NOT OPERABLE BECAUSE DRAIN VAL LEFT OPEN FOLLOWING CALIBRATION. PR2 ABLY WOULD NOT WORK ON CATASTROPHIC FAILURE ADDING MAKE UP WATER TO POOL APPROXIMATELY 1 PER SHIFT TO COWENSATE FOR EVAPORATION AND LEAKAGE IN FIEL POOL CLEAN UP/ COOLING SYSTEM U-2 EC0VERING FRm REFUELING OUTAGE HAD PROBLEE WITH EXCESSIVE USE OF AIR MANAGEFENT LETTER EQUIRED CLEARANCE TAG ON EACH " DROP" AUm0RIZED TO AIR OTHERWISE VALVE BE CLOSED UNKNOWN TIE: REGULATOR FAILED AND DOWNSTREAM VALVE THROTTLE TO SUPPLY AIR O TO SEALS -
- ON 12/02, 4-12'0PERATORS REPD/ING CLEARANCE NOTED LEVER VALVE CRACKED AND CLOSED NOT REPORTED AT TIE
, SEALS DEFLATED SLOWLY NECESSARY TO MAKEUP WATER TO FUEL POOL FDRE FREQUENT BUT NOT DOCitE SHIFi OPERATING SUPERVISOR NOT INF0WED AND ONCmING SHIFT NOT IWORED
- LEAKAGE NOTED IN 1URBINE BUILDING AND EACTOR BUILDING AT PEETRATION, FIRST SAFPLES NOT CONTAMINATED.
SEARCH BEGAN TO DETERMIE SOURCE OF LEAKAGE (CORRELATION BETWEEN SFP
! AND LEAK IN TURBINE AND REACTOR BUILDING NOT RE00CNIZED)
'
- WHEN FUEL POOL COOLING PlFFS TRIPPED ON LOW LOW SKIWER SURGE TANK LEVEL, TE ON SHIFT OPERATING SUPERVISOR ECALLED PREVIOUS EVENT IN WHICH THE P0OL/ REACTOR CAVITY GATES WERE LEAKING, BECAE ALARED AND WENT TO
- REFUELING FLOOR WITH OPERATOR TO INVESTIGATE.
. CHECKED GATE SEAL PRESSURE AND TRANSFER CANAL SEAL PRESSURE - NO AI PRESSURE ON TRANSFER CANAL SEALS AND WATER LEVEL DROPPING (LATER D TO BE ABOUT 56 FEET LOW)
O
- RESTORED AIR PRESSURE AND LEAKAGE STOPPED NO RADIATION ALARM ON REFUEL FLOOR
- b hdVbbhub_ ink -
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CONCLUSION GPC ESPONSE TO EVENT WAS EXCELLENT AFTER LEAK IDENTIFIED LITTLE OR NO RADI0 ACTIVE ELEASE OFF SITE DESIGN OF SEAL ASSENLY QLESTIONABLE (GPC CONTENDS THAT SYSTEM ET ALL REGULATORY REQUIREE NTS)
SEALS DID NOT HAVE REDUNDANCY SINCE ALL WERE SUPPLIED FROM SAE AIR HOSE (GPC CONTENDS REDUNDANT AIR WAS AVAILABLE MANUALLY BUT NOT SINGLE FAILUE PROOF)
LEAK DETECTION SYSTEM WAS INADEQUATE AND MAY NOT HAVE WORKED EVEN IF PROPERLY VALVED LEAK DETECTION /OOLLECTION SYSTEM NOT TIED INTO SPENT FUEL POOL LEAK DETECTION SYSTEM AS IMPLIED IN FSAR (GPC CONSIDERS FUEL POOL LEVEL ALARM AS TE PRIMARY LEAK DETECTION SYSTEM)
NLEROUS PRECURSORS TO HAVE AVOIDED:
Q' INCEASED FREQUENCY OF SPENT FUEL POOL LOW LEVEL ALARMS - NOT DOCLENTED OR TURED OVER WORK ORDER NOT WRITTEN WHEN EGULATOR FOUND FAILED, AIR VALVE WAS THROTTLED AIR VALVE CLOSED COWLEIELY - NO PROCEDURE NOT PASSED ON PROCEDURE INADEQUATE FOR CALIBRATING LEAK DETECTION ALARM SYSTEM: NO PROCEDUE FOR RETURNING TO SERVICE NO PROCEDURE TO R0tIIINELY CHECK AIR PESSUE ON SEALS e**
O
l AGENDA FOR ACRS MEETING Friday O February 6, 1987 8:30 a.m.
Room 1046 H-Street Washington, D.C.
RECENT SIGNIFICANT EVENTS Presenter / Office Date Plant Event Telephone Page 12/4 Hatch 1 & 2 *AIT for Leak from Spent Fuel Pool F. Cantrell, Reg II pj,g T
g 242-5534 11/20 Oyster Creek *Drywell Shell Corrosion R. Hermann, NRR A (UPDATE) 24754 11/20 Byron 2
- Loss of Both Component L. 01shan, NRR Cooling Water Pumps 24937 7 (UPDATE) W. LaFave, NRR 28945 l b31/10 Sequoyah/ Ice Condensor Containment- J. Glitter IE /A Watts Bar Unanalyzed Design Condition 24043 12/24 Brunswick 2 EDG Room Cooling Design Deficiency E. Sylvester, NRR 29512 2O 01/05 Brunswick 2 Scram with Complications E. Sylvester, NRR 22 29512
" Requested by ACRS at meeting on December 11, 1986.
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FOLLOW UP DN OYSTER CREEK - DRYWELL SHELL CORROSION FEBRUARY 6, 1987 (R. HERMANN, NRR)
PROBLEM: LOCAL CIRCUMFERENTIAL WASTAGE OF DRYWELL SHELL OUTSIDE THICKNESS, SAND POCKET REGION CAUSE: WASTAGE THOUGHT RELATED TO MOISTURE ENTRAINED IN SAND POSTULATED MECHANISM - UNIFORM CORROSION OF STEEL IN AN AQUE0US ENVIRONMENT ACCELERATED BY CONTAMINANTS SIGNIFICANCE: DEGRADED SHELL MAKES CONTAINMENT INTEGRITY UNCERTAIN.
DISCUSSION:
INFORMATION NOTICE 86-99 ISSUED DEC. 8, 1986 MEETING HELD WITH LICENSEE - DECEMBER 12, 1986 SEVEN CORES REMOVED DRYWELL WALL a SAND
~'t
- GENERAL WASTAGE VERIFIED - BAYS 17-19, BAY 11 (V *
(LOCAL AVERAGE - 0.841", MIN 0.741")
LOCAL SMALL LAMINATIONS IN PLATES - BAY S ULTRASONIC MEASUREMENTS VERIFIED SHELL THINNING TO 0.700 INCHES ANALYZED
- LOCAL SHELL DISCONTINUITY SAFETY EVALUATION - RESTART CYCLE - DEC. 29, 1986
- MID-CYCLE INSPECTION - NO LATER THAN SEPT. 30, 1987
- PLANS FOR MITIGATING CORROSIVE ATTACK - JUNE 30, 1987 FOLLOWUP:
REVIEW 0YSTER CREEK PROPOSED CORRECTIVE ACTIONS COMPLETE AND ISSUE GENERIC LETTER FOR BWR MARK I OWNERS
! EVALUATE POTENTIAL FOR A SIMILAR PROBLEM AT OTHER l
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BYRON 2 - LOSS OF B0m CCW RFPS (IPDATE)
(NOVEMBER 20, lWh - (W. LEFAVE/L. ULSHAN, NRR)
SIGNIFICANCE AT BYRON THEPE WAS NO SAFETY SIGNIFICANCE BECAUSE OF LPIIQUE C04 SYSTEM DESIGN (SAFETY LOADS ARE MittIMAL)
AT OTHER RVR PLANTS IF A SIMILAR EVENT COULD OCCUR, IT WOULD BE SIGNIFICANT BECAUSE OF THE LOADS NOPMALLY COOLED BY C04 (LOSS OF RCP SEAL COOLING ATID LOSS OF PRIMARY MAKEUPI .
LOSS OF P.CP SEAL COOLING AND LOSS OF PPIMARY MAKEUP CAN OCCUR AT PLAtJTS WHERE THE CHAPGING PlfPS, WHICH SUPPLY RCP SEAL O C00 Lite ISEAL It!JECTION) AND PPIMARY MAKEUP, ARE SUPPLIED BY C04 DISONST(Yl THE Ot'LY SAFE SHUTDOWN LOAD AT BYRON SUPPLIED BY CCW IS THE RHR SYSTEM (PUMP AND HEAT EXCHANGER).
AT OTHER PLANTS THE LEAK WOULD HAVE BEEN AUTOMATICALLY ISOLATED BY A LOW SURGE TAtlK LEVEL SUCH THAT THEY WOLILD t10T BE SUSCEPTIBLE TO THE SAME EVEtlT.
SIMILAP LEAK AT OTHER RYPS W0l'LD HAVE SAME PESULTS AS AT BYPON (FORCFD SHUTDOWN) EVEN WITH AUTO ISOLATION DUE TO LOSS Ge PCP BEARit'G AND MOTOP COOLERS.
l'OST ESSENTIAL HCAT LOADS THAT ARE COnLED BY C04 AT MAtJY PLAtJTS APE CTLED BY ESSEt!TIAL SERVICE WATER AT BYPON.
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FJrTIPE CCW SYSTEM IS DE9IGNED TO SEISMIC CATEGOPY I
, REQUIREMENTS.
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RHR PUMP OIL COOLERS PHR HEAT EXCHANGER LETDOWN HEAT EXCHANGERS EXCESS LETDOWN HEAT EXCHANGERS SEAL WATER RETUPN HEAT EXCHANGER SAMPLE HEAT EXCHANGERS
. SPENT FUEL POOL HEAT EXCHANGER POSITIVE DISPLACEENT CHAPGIFG PUMP
- WASTE GAS COMPRESSORS
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- BOPIC ACID EVAPORATOR CONTAINMEtiT PENETRATIONS
- CENTRIFUGAL CHAPGING PUMPS APE COOLED BY ESSENTIAL SERVICE WATEP 9
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FEBRUARY 2, 1987 ICE CONDENSER CONTAINMENT- UNANALYZED DESIGN CONDITION JANUARY 10, 1987 (J. GitTTER, IE)
PROBLEM:
POTENTIAL FOR DECREASED ECCS SUMP lNVENTORY FOLLOWING LOCA.
POTENTIAL FOR ICE CONDENSER BYPASS.
POTENTIAL FOR LOSS OF ONE OR BOTH AIR RETURN FANS.
CAUSE:
WATER ACCUMULATION (POOLING) AROUND AIR RETURN FAN INTAKE MAY LEAD TO. FAILURE OF AIR RETURN FAN, FAN SEALS, AND DIVIDER DECK SEALS.
SIGNIFICANCE:
RISK ASSOCIATED WITH ICE CONDENSER CONTAINMENT PLANTS WITH SAME PROBLEM MAY BE GREATER THAN PREVIOUSLY CONSIDERED.
DISCUSSION:
PROBLEM DISCOVERED AT SEQUOYAH AS THE RESULTS OF A " DESIGN BASIS VERIFICAT'ON" WALKDOWN.
FOLLOWING A LOCA, WATER FROM CONTAINMENT SPRAY WILL FILL PIT WHERE AIR RETURN FAN IS LOCATED. (AIR RETURN FANS START 10 MINUTES AFTER A PHASE "B" ISOLATION.)
UNDER THE CONDITION POSTULATED, THE FAN COULD BE TRYING TO DRAW IN AS MUCH AS 650 GPM G7 WATER - THE MANUFACTURER WILL ONLY GUARANTEE THE FAN FOR 50 GPM OF WATER ENTRAINED IN AIR FLOW.
l AIR RETURN FANS: 1) HELP PREVENT LOCAL H 2 ACCUMULATION,
- 2) INCREASE FISSION PRODUCT SCRUBBING AND, 3) HELP REDUCE CONTAINMENT PRESSURE.
SEAL FAILURES CAUSED BY EXCESSIVE DIFFERENTIAL PRESSURE MAY RESULT IN LEAK PATHS AT SEALS SURROUNDING THE AIR RETURN FANS AND/OR THROUGH FAILED DIVIDER DECK SEALS. .
- p LEAK PATHS DIVERT WATER FROM ECCS FLOW PATH (1.E., LEAKAGE INTO LOWER COMPARTMENTS OUTSIDE POLAR CRANE WALL THAT DO NOT DRAIN TO ECCS SUMP).
p LEAK PATHS MAY ALSO CONSTITUTE A BYPASS OF THE ICE CONDENSER.
D
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_2_
FOLLOWUP-UP:
INVESTIGATION OF GENERIC APPLICABILITY UNDERWAY (SEE TABLE 1).
TVA iS INVESTIGATING POSSIBLE DESIGN MODIFICATIONS.
4, DUKE HAS COMPLETED DESIGN MODIFICATIONS. I 3
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O O O' POTENTIAL FOR BYPASSING i
POTENTIAL FOR POOLING ICE CONDENSER THROUGH POTENTIAL FOR DECREASED UTILITY UNITS AROUND AIR RETURN FANS? SEALS OR OPEN DRAIN LINES? ECCS SUMP INVENTORY?
- SEQUOYAH 1, 2 YES YES, THROUGH DAMAGED SEALS. YES i
WATTS BAR 1, 2 YES YES, THROUGH DAMAGED SEALS. YES MCGUIRE 1, 2 YES, CURBING DESIGNED TO CHECK VALVES ON DRAIN LINES UNDER INVESTIGATION
, PREVENT POOLING AROUND AIR ARE DESIGNED TO PREVENT RETURN FANS WAS REMOVED. BYPASS THROUGH DRAIN LINES.
! DRAIN LINE FROM PIT TO LOWER COMPARTMENT CLOGGED WITH DEBRIS.
)
CATAWBA 1, 2 YES, CURBING AROUND AIR YES, THROUGH DRAIN LINE. UNDER INVESTIGATION RETURN FANS WAS NEVER IN LOCKED OPEN MANUAL ISOLA-i PLACE. DRAINS CAN NOT TION VALVES ON DRAIN
! ACC0fMODATE RUN0FF FROM LINES. THIS BYPASS WAS I OPERATING DECK. ACCOUNTED FOR IN THE SAFETY ANALYSIS.
l I
i AMERICAN COOK 1, 2 NO. FAN INTAKE SITS LICENSEE STILL INVESTIGAT- NO. DRAINAGE BACK TO ELECTRIC ON GRATING
AB0VE BOTTOM OF PIT.
I PIT DRAINS TO IKTER-MEDIATE 30MPS.
TABLE 1. STATUS SUPMARY OF INVESTIGATION OF ICE CONDENSER UNANALYZED DESIGN CONDITION.
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BRUNSWICK 1 & 2 - EMERGENCY DIESEL GENERATOR ROOM O COOLING DESIGN DEFICIENCY D_ECEMBER 24, 1986 (E. SYLVESTER, NRR) -
PROBLEM:
HVAC DAMPERS FAIL CLOSED UPON LOSS OF NON-SAFETY INSTRUMENT AIR EMERGENCY DIESEL GENERATOR BUILDING MAY LOSE COOLING AIR DURING LOSS OF 0FFSITE POWER CAUSE: DESIGN DEFICIENCY SIGNIFICANCE:
POTENTIAL FOR COMMON CAUSE LOSS OF EMERGENCY DIESEL GENERATORS DISCUSSION:
DESIGN REVIEW - EMERGENCY DIESEL GENERATOR HVAC DAMPERS CONTROLLED BY NON-SAFETY INSTRUMENT AIR LOSS OF 0FFSITE POWER WILL CAUSE A LOSS OF NON-SAFETY O
- INSTRUMENT AIR LOSS OF NON-SAFETY INSTRUMENT AIR WILL CAUSE DAMPERS TO SHUT DAMPER DESIGNED FUNCTION IS TO FAIL CLOSED IN THE EVENT OF A FIRE TO PREVENT FIRE SPREAD (TENTATIVE CONCLUSION)
EDG INSTRUMENTATION AND CONTROLS QUALIFIED TO OPERATE WITH AMBIENT TEMPERATURE UP TO 104*F MODIFICATION AFTER PLANT BUILT ADDED TWO FIRE PROTECTION DAMPERS IN DUCT NEW FIRE PROTECTION DAMPERS HAVE FUSIBLE LINKS THAT MELT TO CLOSE DAMPER AT HIGH TEMPERATURE ORIGINAL (AIR OPERATED) DAMPER NOT NEEDED FOR FIRE PROTECTION LICENSEE HAS BLOCKED OPEN ORIGINAL (AIR OPERATED) DAMPERS UNITS CONTINUE OPERATION NRR STAFF CONFIRMED INDIAN POINT 2 & 3 AND SEABROOK (OTHER PLANTS ,
WITH SAME A.E.) DO NOT HAVE SAME DESIGN DEFICIENCY ,
FOLLOWUP:
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- LICENSEE IS INVESTIGATING LONG TERM SOLUTION NRR FOLLOWING-UP LICENSEE ACTIONS _
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JANUARY 5, 1987 - (E. SYLVESTER, NRR)
PROBLEM:
LOSS OF HPCI INJECTION CAPABILITY - STUCK CLOSED INJECTION VALVE PARTIAL LOSS OF RCIC INJECTION CAPABILITY - STUCK OPEN BYPASS VALVE CAUSE:
EQUIPMENT FAILURES
- VALVE MOTOR BURNOUT (HPCI)
- VALVE INTERNAL MECHANISM FAILURE (RCIC)
O SiGNisiCANCe:
P0TENTIAL LOSS OF HIGH PRESSURE REACTOR WATER LEVEL CONTROL DISCUSSION:
TURBINE TRIP AND RESULTANT REACTOR SCRAM DUE TO FAILURE OF GENERATOR AUTOMATIC VOLTAGE REGULATOR
- I DEGRADED VOLTAGE ALSO CAUSED MSIV CLOSURE LOW RX WATER LEVEL SIGNAL - RCIC STARTED - HPCI STARTED -
BOTH IN MIN-FLOW MODE - MAIN FEED INJECTION ON PUMP C0ASTDOWN FIVE SRV'S OPENED AUTOMATICALLY HIGH LEVEL SECURED HPCI AND RCIC (STEAM INLET VALVES SHUT)
HPCI STARTED AND INJECTION VALVE OPENED REMOTE-MANUALLY -
RCIC STARTED HPCI PUT INTO PRESSURE CONTROL MODE (FULL FLOW RECIRCULATION)
INB0ARD MSIV'S AND STEAM DRAINS OPENED .
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FOLLOWUP EVALUATION OF LIMITORQUE ACTUATOR SHOWED PROPER SETTINGS AND ALIGNMENT O
- RCIC VALVE FAILURE DETERMINED TO BE MAINTENANCE RELATED -
IMPROPER SET SCREW ALIGNMENT IN ANTI-ROTATION DEVICE FOLLOW-UP:
LICENSEE STILL INVESTIGATING HPCI VALVE MOTOR FAILURE LICENSEE INSPECTING ANTI-ROTATION DEVICE INSTALLATION IN ALL l SAFETY-RELATED AND SOME NON-SAFETY RELATED VALVES
( NRR AND REGION FOLLOWING LICENSEE ACTIVITIES O
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MEMORANDUM FOR: Ernest D. Sylvester, Licensee Project Manager, NRR VIA: Paul Fredrickson, Chief, Projects Section 1A, DRP FROM: William Ruland, Senior Resident Inspector, Brunswick
SUBJECT:
ACRS BRIEFING INFORMATION Included in this memo are operator actions taken during the transient on January 5,1987. No attempt has been made to explain the root causes of the equipment failures.
At 1612 hours0.0187 days <br />0.448 hours <br />0.00267 weeks <br />6.13366e-4 months <br />, Unit 2 reactor experienced a turbine control valve (TCV) fast closure scram from 100% of full power. The initiating event was a malfunction of the main generator auto voltage regulator. While attempting to raise the voltage as required by procedures, the auto voltage regulator became erratic.
Voltage oscillated up and down randomly in large swings. On one spike down, the loss of excitation relay actuated causing the generator field breaker to open and a load reject signal to be generated. The TCVs fast close on a load reject signal. The loss of excitation relay actuation also initiated a' primary generator lockout. The resultant trip of the generator caused a power O drain on the system and a 60% to 70% of nominal voltage degraded voltage condition. This condition existed for approximately five seconds. The following sequence of events describes the plant response of major systems and operator actions required to place the plant in a stable condition.
TIME:SEC. EVENT COMMENT 1612:45 Reactor Scram.
1612:46 Group 1 (MSIV Closure). Degraded voltage on E Bus probably allowed leak detection logic to momentarily de-energize.
Diesel Generators (DG) Per design, DG start on primary start, generator lockout.
- Recirculation Pumps Probably on high reactor trip. pressure.
High Pressure Coolant Momentary Low Level No. 2 starts Injection (HPCI)/ Reactor systems but clears before Core Isolation Cooling injection valves' other j (RCIC)Turbinesstart. permissives are met.
1613:04 Safety Relief Valves (SRV) F, J, K, G, H open.
l 37
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TIME:SEC. EVENT COMMENT 1616 HPCI/RCIC Turbines trip. Reactor Vessel level increases to 1208" because of SRV lift swell and feedwater injection while feed pumps coast down.
Manual SRV A lift. Per Emergency Operating Procedure (E0P).
1618 Manual SRV E lift.
1619 HPCI manually started HPCI F006 (inboard injection to feed vessel. isolation valve) is manually opened.
Standby Gas Treatment Per E0P and operations procedures System manually started. OP-19.
1620 Residual Heat Removal (RHR) Loop B placed in Torus Cooling Mode.
1621 RCIC manually started to feed vessel.
1623 Manual SRV J lift.
1625 HPCI flow to vessel HPCI F006 valve is closed.
secured. Placed in full flow test mode for pressure control.
RCIC remains in injection mode.
1632 Vessel level at 181". Normal value is 187".
1 1637 Open inboard Main Steam Per E0P. To equalize around Isolation Valve (MSIV) MSIVs such that MSIVs can be and steam line drains. reopened and main condenser used as heat sink.
1642 Reactor low level No. I HPCI, RCIC and main steam line reached (162.5"). drain steam flow exceeds RCIC and Control Rod Drive (CRD) A pump ability to add water.
4 28
3 w-g . V TIME:SEC. EVENT COMENT Manual opening of HPCI Attempting to use HPCI to F006 fails. Overload supplement RCIC flow to vessel.
alarm comes in. Valve fails to move off seat.
1653 Second attempt to open Breaker reset. Next attempt HPCI F006 fails, results in overload alarm again.
Valve never moves.
Vessel level at 144".
1655 Close steam drains and To conserve inventory.
inboard MSIVs.
Start CRD Pump B. Both CRD pumps running.
1658 Vessel level at 137".
Pressure et 853 psig.
1700 Torus temperature is 95 degrees F.
1705 Second Loop of RHR, A, placed in Torus cooling mode.
1706 Vessel level at 132".
1708 Manual SRV F lift.
1710 , Torus temperature is
' 97 degrees F.
1713 Manual SRV D lift.
1716 Manual SRV G lift.
1721 Manual SRV C lift.
Estimate from vessel level chart.
l 1811 RCIC manually started RCIC F022 valve (full flow test cnd placed in full line isolation), is manually flow test mode. opened. First time valve is actuated during transient.
l l
. 27 i
- . - . - - - _ _ . _ . - . - . _ . . . _ - . - - - - _ _ - - . - _ _ - - . - - - _ _ . - - - . - _ . . _ , _ . . _ , _ . , _ _ _ _ . ~ _ _ _ . . _ _ - , _ - _ _ _ _ _ - - _ - - - . - - _ _ _ . -
. _ . . . _ ~ _ . . . _ _ _ . _ _
I TIME:SEC. EVENT COMMENT
- 1815 Unsuccessful attempt to RCIC F022 valve gave full close switch RCIC from full indication but pump discharge flow test mode to pressure would not exceed '350 injection into vessel. psig.
Vessel level decreasing. RCIC using steam but not adding water. Both CRD pumps could not make up inventory loss.
Redundant RCIC full If level had continued to flow test line isolation decrease to low level No. 2 valve, HPCI F011, is (112"), the HPCI F011 valve manually closed. would have received an automatic low level close signal.
1817 RCIC injection into vessel 2018 Open MSIV's Started 2A Reactor Cooldown continued. Cold O,2050 -Feedpump shutdown reached on January 6 at 1950 hours0.0226 days <br />0.542 hours <br />0.00322 weeks <br />7.41975e-4 months <br /> without any major problems.
Personnel Involved:
Two control operators (licensed reactor operators, RO) and one senior control operator (licensed senior reactor operator, SRO) were manipulating controls on the main control board. Theyweresupervisedbyoneshiftforeman(SRO fulfilling SRO in the control room) and the Shift Operating Supervisor (SR0 i responsible for overall plant operations). The Shift Techinal Advisor was also present. All the above personnel were normally assigned to the shift.
An additional SR0 from the relief shift was used as a recorder. The unit I control operator and shift foreman did not participate.
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