ML21223A089
| ML21223A089 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 07/23/2021 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| Nourbakhsh, H, ACRS | |
| References | |
| NRC-1600 | |
| Download: ML21223A089 (196) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Safety Research Program Subcommittee Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: teleconference Date: Friday, July 23, 2021 Work Order No.: NRC-1600 Pages 1-151 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1
2 3
4 DISCLAIMER 5
6 7 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONS 8 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 9
10 11 The contents of this transcript of the 12 proceeding of the United States Nuclear Regulatory 13 Commission Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, 14 as reported herein, is a record of the discussions 15 recorded at the meeting.
16 17 This transcript has not been reviewed, 18 corrected, and edited, and it may contain 19 inaccuracies.
20 21 22 23 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 5 (ACRS) 6 + + + + +
7 SAFETY RESEARCH PROGRAM SUBCOMMITTEE 8 + + + + +
9 FRIDAY, JULY 23, 2021 10 + + + + +
11 The Subcommittee met via Video 12 Teleconference, at 2:00 p.m. EDT, David Petti, 13 Chairman, presiding.
14 COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
15 MATTHEW W. SUNSERI, Member 16 RONALD G. BALLINGER, Member 17 VICKI BIER, Member 18 DENNIS BLEY, Member 19 CHARLES H. BROWN, JR. Member 20 VESNA B. DIMITRIJEVIC, Member 21 GREG HALNON, Member 22 WALTER L. KIRCHNER, Member 23 JOSE MARCH-LEUBA, Member 24 DAVID A. PETTI, Member 25 JOY L. REMPE, Member NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 ACRS CONSULTANT:
2 MIKE CORRADINI 3 STEVE SCHULTZ 4
5 DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL:
8 ALSO PRESENT:
9 JEREMY BOWEN, RES 10 CHRISTOPHER COOK, RES 11 RAJ IYENGAR, RES 12 LOUISE LUND, RES 13 KEN MILLER, RES 14 SCOTT MOORE, Executive Director, ACRS 15 MERAJ RAHIMI, RES 16 STEVE RUFFIN, RES 17 DOGAN SEBER, RES 18 ROB TREGONING, RES 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 2 Opening Remarks and Objectives 3 By Matt Sunseri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 4 I. Introductory Remarks 5 By Louise Lund . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 6 II. Overview of the Division of Engineering 7 By Louise Lund . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 8 III. Discussion of Technical Research Activities 9 Regulatory Guide and Programs Management Branch 10 Reactor Engineering Branch 11 IV. Discussion of Technical Research Activities 12 and Focus Areas 13
- Regulatory Guide and Programs 14 Management Branch 15
- Reactor Engineering Branch 16
- Materials Engineering Branch 17
- Instrumentation, Controls, and 18 Electrical Engineering Branch 19
- Seismic, Geotechnical, and Structural 20 Engineering Branch, Dogan Seber . . . . 127 21 V. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 22 VI. Adjourn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 2:00 p.m.
3 CHAIR SUNSERI: Good afternoon, it is two 4 o'clock Eastern Time, this meeting will now come to 5 order. This is the Safety Research Program 6 Subcommittee meeting in preparation of the ACRS 7 Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards biennial 8 review of the NRC Safety Research Program. I'm Matt 9 Sunseri, Chair of today's subcommittee meeting, and 10 the ACRS lead for the review of the activities of the 11 Division of Engineering within the office of Nuclear 12 Regulatory Research.
13 I'm going to call the roll of the members 14 I expect to be present, and maybe, if I skip somebody, 15 we'll pick you up at the end. So, I'll start with Ron 16 Ballinger.
17 MEMBER BALLINGER: Here.
18 CHAIR SUNSERI: Vicki Bier?
19 MEMBER BIER: Here.
20 CHAIR SUNSERI: Charles Brown? Charlie 21 let me know he's here, he just had to step away for a 22 second. Vesna Dimitrijevic?
23 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: I am here Matt.
24 CHAIR SUNSERI: Thank you, and Greg 25 Halnon?
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5 1 MEMBER HALNON: I'm here.
2 CHAIR SUNSERI: Walt Kirchner?
3 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Here.
4 CHAIR SUNSERI: Jose March-Leuba?
5 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Here.
6 CHAIR SUNSERI: David Petti?
7 MEMBER DAVID PETTI: Here.
8 CHAIR SUNSERI: Joy Rempe?
9 MEMBER REMPE: Here.
10 CHAIR SUNSERI: All right, that's the --
11 MEMBER BLEY: So am I.
12 CHAIR SUNSERI: Dennis is here, okay, 13 great, good Dennis. And I guess just for 14 completeness, I'll check Pete Riccardella, I don't 15 expect him, but all right, okay we have a quorum. We 16 hold this open meeting to gather information to 17 support our biennial review of the NRC Safety Research 18 Program. The ACRS section of the USNRC public website 19 provides our charter, bylaws, agendas, letter reports, 20 and full transcripts of all full, and subcommittee 21 meetings including the slides presented.
22 The meeting notice, and agenda for this 23 meeting are posted there. We have received no written 24 statements, or requests to make an oral statement from 25 members of the public. Mr. Hossein Nourbakhsh is the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 the designated federal officer for today's meeting.
2 The subcommittee will gather information, analyze 3 developing issues, and facts, and formulate proposed 4 positions, and actions as appropriate for deliberation 5 by the full committee.
6 A transcript of the meeting is being kept, 7 and will be made available. Due to the COVID 8 pandemic, today's meeting is being held over Microsoft 9 Teams for ACRS, and NRC staff. There is also a 10 telephone bridge line allowing participation of the 11 public over the phone. When addressing the 12 subcommittee, the participants should first identify 13 themselves, and speak with sufficient clarity, and 14 volume so they may be readily heard.
15 When not speaking, we request that 16 participants mute your computer microphone, or your 17 phone line. This is the second of three division 18 level reviews of the Safety Research Program. Our 19 comprehensive review began a couple of months ago with 20 an overview presentation by the Office of Research.
21 We have subsequently held one division level review in 22 the area of safety analysis, and we have a coming 23 review of the Division of Risk Analysis.
24 We use these reviews to evaluate, amongst 25 other things, the need, scope, and balance of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 Agency Safety Research Program. Our review culminates 2 in a letter report to the commission that we 3 anticipate providing later this year. And today we 4 have a lot of material packed in here. We've got 5 about three, and a half hours of material, I plan to 6 take a break around the half-way point, sometime 7 between, we'll find a convenient blank between branch 8 chief presentations, and before I turn to Louise Lund, 9 I will ask Joy Rempe, our overall leader for this 10 annual review, if she has any comments that she wants 11 to make. Joy?
12 MEMBER REMPE: Well thank you Matt, I 13 don't, I think you've done a great job of summarizing 14 where we are, and where we're going, and I appreciate 15 it, and I appreciate your help, as well as the staff's 16 help in providing these overviews.
17 CHAIR SUNSERI: Thank you. All right, we 18 will now proceed with the meeting, and I call on 19 Louise Lund, the director of the Division of 20 Engineering of the NRC Office of Regulatory Research 21 to begin today's presentations. Louise, good to see 22 you.
23 MS. LUND: Good, yes, thank you very much.
24 Good afternoon, I'm Louise Lund, the director of the 25 Division of Engineering in the Office of Nuclear NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 Regulatory Research. This afternoon, you'll hear from 2 my deputy, Jeremy Bowen, branch chiefs, and one team 3 leader as they describe the activities in their areas.
4 We're pleased to be here to represent the staff, and 5 the division that all contribute to the significant 6 work accomplished to support the mission of the 7 agency.
8 As the second research division to make 9 the presentation, I wanted to include in my opening 10 remarks some of the themes that you heard from Ray 11 Furstenau, and Kim Webber at the beginning of the 12 Division of Systems Analysis presentation that apply 13 equally across the office. Specifically, we're 14 incorporating more transformative ways to complete our 15 work, and staff the organization given the changing 16 nuclear industry. Specifically an aging operating 17 fleet with more plants decommissioning, and a strong 18 interest in introducing new technologies to support 19 both the sustainability of the existing fleet, and the 20 deployment of advanced non-light water reactor 21 technologies.
22 As Ray mentioned, and I will repeat here, 23 we think it is important that we complete research 24 activities as they were originally scoped out, and we 25 are working diligently to transition to that mindset NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 throughout our division. You'll hear about some of 2 these completions from the branch chiefs during their 3 presentations. The key to this approach is completing 4 the requested reviews, getting feedback from our 5 business line partners in NRR, and NMSS, also in NSIR, 6 and by conducting the annual program reviews to ensure 7 that we stay focused on the activities important to 8 the mission of the agency.
9 This helps promote a culture that supports 10 doing the right research at the right time. Next 11 slide please. Overall our vision is to be the 12 technology, and engineering hub to help enable the 13 agency to become a more modern, risk informed 14 regulator. As such, we believe the key to achieving 15 this is to be ready for future technologies, to 16 advance regulatory technical knowledge, and build an 17 enhanced staff capacity, and competencies in emerging 18 technical areas.
19 I took over the leadership of the division 20 in mid-2019, and brought on Jeremy as my deputy in 21 early 2020. We took the opportunity to assess how the 22 division was positioned to support the future needs of 23 the agency. The management team that you will hear 24 from today has made it part of our culture to 25 continually assess the current, and future needs of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 the research programs, and staff capabilities, and to 2 explore collaborative engagements to increase the 3 leverage, and impact of our research activities.
4 As a result, the Division of Engineering 5 research programs are more agile, and we have 6 developed new approaches to ensure increased 7 transparency of our research activities. We recognize 8 that the nature of the engineering research programs 9 needed to evolve over the next five years with 10 increased emphasis on advanced, and new reactors, risk 11 informed approaches, applications of advanced 12 technology to reduce uncertainties, and risk, and 13 modernization of the existing fleet.
14 Also key to our future success is being 15 active in our engagements with a variety of 16 stakeholders, and in the robust identification of 17 potential future focus research. To match the 18 evolving nature of our programs, we recognize the need 19 to focus on building appropriate staff capacity in 20 evolving areas. We pursued hiring actions, and 21 training to develop, or enhance the important skill 22 sets of cyber security, advanced sensors, reactor 23 engineering, and materials engineering.
24 All of this was done with the focus of 25 having a work force capable of working on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 interdisciplinary activities. One of the biggest 2 challenges that we faced in the past 17 months has 3 been trying to meet our objectives with the backdrop 4 of this pandemic. I know we're not unique in this 5 respect, we've had to adapt, and evolve to meet, and 6 sometimes adjust milestones when there were impacts to 7 our contract activities due to restrictions to the 8 access in the laboratories.
9 One example of how we adapted is that we 10 had planned for a member of the Division of 11 Engineering staff to go on rotation to Oak Ridge 12 National Laboratory to get more familiar with 13 nondestructive examination for advanced manufacturing 14 technology. Although restrictions prevent the 15 physical rotation, we were able to turn it into a 16 virtual assignment, and he has been actively engaged 17 in that assignment for the past year, and we are 18 continuing to work with Oak Ridge to determine when he 19 can get on site to finish his rotation.
20 In a similar way we were looking at 21 getting help from the labs to build up capabilities in 22 cyber security. Although we had planned some in 23 person support, we ended up looking at alternative 24 ways to engage, and we ended up getting support 25 virtually in that area as well. Another area where we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 were anticipating some in person interactions was in 2 our efforts on developing our understanding of the use 3 of graphite for advanced non-light water reactor 4 application.
5 We had in person engagements planned for 6 our regulatory counterparts in the UK, but we adjusted 7 to virtual bilateral discussions to continue our 8 collaborative efforts. We anticipate conducting in 9 person visits in the future. Slide three please.
10 CHAIR SUNSERI: Hey Louise, this is Matt, 11 let me ask a question right here. That was a great 12 example of some of the collaboration, and reaching 13 out, and using available resources, but my question is 14 outside of the pandemic, are you finding there's a lot 15 of competition for the available expertise? I mean 16 with all the advanced reactor work that's going on, 17 and their own research projects, are you finding it 18 difficult to get the resource you want, much less 19 notwithstanding the difficulties in actually being 20 able to communicate with them?
21 MS. LUND: Absolutely. I think that is 22 particularly true in cyber security, in also materials 23 engineering, but we're also finding that the clearer 24 we are in some of our postings as to what we're 25 looking for, and trying to not look for unicorns in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 what we're looking for as well, I would say we've been 2 very successful in hiring up, and in fact Chris cook 3 can tell you about some of the success we've had in 4 hiring to start developing our cyber security 5 capacity, and some of the training that we've embarked 6 on in that area.
7 So, I would say yes, it's continued to be 8 a challenge, but I think we've been very successful in 9 bringing on some very competent, very highly skilled 10 individuals.
11 CHAIR SUNSERI: Thank you, I appreciate 12 that.
13 MS. LUND: So, for slide three, since the 14 office wide overview presentation to the committee 15 back in April, we've conducted a reorganization of the 16 Division of Engineering. This was done to rebalance 17 the staff, and work load to better align with the 18 evolving nature of our programs that I just discussed.
19 The recent reorganization puts us in the best position 20 to realize our vision, and accomplish our objectives, 21 so let me briefly introduce the branches, and branch 22 chiefs, three of which have changed since the program 23 review in 2019.
24 The regulatory guide, and programs 25 management branch is led by Meraj Rahimi as the branch NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 chief. Meraj came to DE last year in May on rotation 2 from NMSS, and we were fortunate to have him agree to 3 transfer permanently to this position. In the 4 reorganization, this branch was consolidated, and 5 given a new name to capture the broader nature of the 6 valuable broad, programmatic role they provide for DE, 7 Research, and the whole agency.
8 This branch supports the NRC mission by 9 providing timely, and effective management of the 10 development, and maintenance of reg guides, resolution 11 of generic technical issues, NRC staff's participation 12 in the development, and use of consensus standards, 13 and facilitating the future focus research program.
14 The reorganization had the biggest impact on the two 15 materials branches. The reactor engineering branch is 16 led by Raj Iyengar as the branch chief, who is very 17 familiar to the committee from many previous ACRS 18 meetings supported by this division.
19 This branch's principal role will be 20 fulfilling the core functions broadly associated with 21 high temperature materials, advanced sensors, and 22 digital twins, component performance software, and 23 ASME code case reg guides. The materials engineering 24 branch is led by Steve Ruffin as the branch chief, who 25 just recently joined the division to back fill for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 Steve Frankel, who retired in May of this year. Steve 2 has an extensive materials background from working 3 previously as a branch chief for one of the materials 4 branches in NRR, and came to us from working as an 5 executive technical assistant in the EDO's office.
6 This branch's principal role will be 7 fulfilling the core functions broadly associated with 8 materials degradation, aging management, advanced 9 manufacturing, nondestructive examination, and end 10 service inspection. Both will continue to operate 11 collaboratively on issues crossing organizational 12 boundaries. Matrixing of projects between the 13 branches, and coordinating engagement with external 14 stakeholders will continue.
15 The instrumentation controls, and 16 electrical engineering branch is led by Chris Cook as 17 the branch chief. He joined the division in January 18 of this year after an extensive background as a branch 19 chief, most notably in the external hazards area, and 20 also most recently as an executive technical assistant 21 in the EDO's office. In addition, we'll hear from Ken 22 Miller who is the team leader in this branch for the 23 electrical engineering work.
24 This branch was not impacted by the 25 reorganization. It develops, and implements a broad NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 research program in the areas of both electrical 2 engineering, and instrumentation, and controls, but it 3 supports identification, and resolution of safety, and 4 security issues in an effective, and efficient manner.
5 The structural geotechnical, and seismic engineering 6 branch is led by Dogin Seber who, similar to Raj, is 7 very familiar to the committee from many previous ACRS 8 meetings supported by this division.
9 This branch also was not impacted by the 10 reorganization. It develops, and applies methods, 11 data, standards, guidance, and modeling tools to 12 assess the seismic hazard, and structural performance 13 of structures, systems, and components, and resolves 14 structural engineering issues associated with security 15 assessments. Slide four please. As Ray mentioned in 16 his opening remarks for the Division of Safety 17 Analysis, we support the systematic approach 18 implemented by the Office of Research to prioritize 19 research emphasizing enterprise risk in the project 20 selection evaluation termination.
21 This slide provides a snapshot of the work 22 completed since we last met, and the initiation of the 23 future focused research projects thus far, and by that 24 I mean from 2019. Some of these will be specifically 25 mentioned in the individual branch presentations, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 most of what you'll hear about are current programs in 2 the future directions of the work in the branches. In 3 order to best support the needs of the program 4 offices, and the agency, we understand that we need to 5 wrap up various research projects to make room for the 6 emergent work in order to position the agency to be 7 ready for future regulatory decisions. Slide five 8 please.
9 In the letter from the ACRS on the 2019 10 program review for research, recommendations were made 11 regarding increasing the level of collaboration. On 12 this slide, and in the branch discussions today, we 13 want to provide additional insights on our 14 collaborations. We understand how important it is to 15 maintain external awareness in terms of state of the 16 art in emerging technical areas, we aim to be engaged 17 as best as we can.
18 The graphic on the slide represents many, 19 but not all of our important collaborations in our 20 divisions programs. We have engagements with a broad 21 range of domestic, and international groups, including 22 our regulatory counterparts. These partnerships 23 promote the exchange of information, establish 24 pathways for collaboration, and research activities, 25 and enhance the agency's technical, and regulatory NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 readiness, and capabilities.
2 And we're not just interacting with 3 stakeholders in the nuclear industry, but we also look 4 at other industries that have been utilizing 5 technologies for years, or decades that are now being 6 implemented in the nuclear field. That is the case 7 for areas such as Digital I&C, Advanced Manufacturing 8 Technologies, and Digital Twins. Where we have 9 limited resources, we are leveraging these 10 collaborations where we can to increase efficiency of 11 staff efforts, and use of resources. And now I'm 12 going to turn it over to Jeremy Bowen to provide a 13 programs overview for the Division Engineering, and 14 discuss future ACRS engagements.
15 MR. BOWEN: All right. So, good afternoon 16 everyone, my thanks as well for the opportunity to 17 come speak to you today. So, as Louise mentioned, DE 18 provides technical expertise, and research support for 19 a spectrum of engineering issues related to operating 20 reactors, new reactor design, and siting, and spent 21 fuel management. We maintain core agency expertise in 22 materials performance, electrical engineering, 23 issuance, computation, and controls, seismology, 24 geotechnical engineering, and structural engineering.
25 Essentially our staff's been many of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 quote unquote traditional engineering fields. We also 2 provide support, and management for agency wide 3 programs related to regulatory guides, generic issues, 4 consensus goals, and standards, and to peer focused 5 research. Like Louise said, I'm going to provide an 6 overview of the scope of our programs, then touch on 7 a few specific areas of new, or emerging work to give 8 you a preview of some of the topics where we plan to 9 come back to the committee in the future, and provide 10 more dedicated briefings. So, slide seven please.
11 Louise just talked about the branch 12 functions, and I'm now going to try, and provide an 13 overview of each of the product areas. So, for 14 context, and reference the overall budget for the 15 combined engineering research products across all of 16 the business lines is over 23 million dollars in 17 fiscal year 2022. This equates to roughly 70 expert 18 staff overseeing approximately 17 million dollars in 19 contract activities.
20 This has been relatively stable for the 21 past years, and we do expect that to continue for the 22 foreseeable future, though obviously there will be 23 some areas that increase, while others decrease.
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20 1 is associated with the advanced reactors, and another 2 six percent involves new reactor design work. About 3 one percent is dedicated to spent fuel storage, and 4 transportation.
5 The breakdown in the reactor area roughly 6 matches the breakdown of the agency's overall budget, 7 and although we currently have minimal resources 8 dedicated to spent fuel storage, and transportation at 9 this time, this is an area where we're exploring 10 potential growth. The current focus thus far has been 11 on aging of casks, but we're coordinating with our 12 partners to understand what areas we need to explore 13 next.
14 Before talking a little bit more about 15 each program, I would like to note that the graphic 16 you see here on the slide is only intended to provide 17 a high level representative breakdown of our work. We 18 all know the joys of budgeting are much more complex, 19 and this is just really one way of subdividing the 20 programs. So, moving --
21 MEMBER REMPE: Jeremy, this is Joy, can I 22 interrupt with a question?
23 MR. BOWEN: Sure.
24 MEMBER REMPE: Just to get me oriented, 25 should I assume that most of the advanced reactor work NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 is in the materials area if I look at this 49 percent?
2 I mean if we took off the advance money, would it be 3 the same distribution between materials, and external 4 hazards, and all this stuff?
5 MR. BOWEN: Yes. So, I think your first 6 statement was probably pretty accurate. Most of the 7 advanced reactor work falls in the materials 8 performance right now. There is a little bit that's 9 in the external hazards area, and the guidance, and 10 infrastructure. But for the most part it's in the 11 materials area right now, looking at stuff like 12 graphite, molten salt, things like that. Raj Iyenger 13 is actually going to go into that a little bit more.
14 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, thank you.
15 MR. BOWEN: Sure. So, like member Rempe 16 noted, the materials research does roughly account for 17 about half of our resources, and that's really why we 18 had two branches dedicated to managing the work in 19 that broad area. The program area for materials 20 encompasses component integrity analysis, corrosion, 21 metallurgy, nondestructive examination, modeling, and 22 simulation, mechanical systems, and digital twins.
23 So, the objective here is really to maintain, and 24 enhance our independent evaluation capabilities, 25 assess materials, and component degradation, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 understand new kinds, or uses of materials.
2 In the instrumentation, and controls area, 3 we continue to support advances in the use of new 4 technologies on the safety side. We've also started 5 to build our capacity to support regulatory decisions 6 associated with cyber security, Louise mentioned this, 7 and Chris Cook will go into much more detail. This 8 has actually been an area of substantial growth for us 9 over the past year.
10 Similar to cyber security, we're starting 11 to explore work related to wireless technologies, both 12 the safety, and the security aspects, as there is 13 clear industry interest in the application. Though, 14 we're really just in the infancy here, and the first 15 step is trying to define, and understand the intended 16 use. In the structural, geotechnical, and external 17 hazards area, we support the periodic, and ongoing 18 seismic safety assessments that were formalized as 19 part of the post Fukushima lessons learned.
20 We're also enhancing the use of risk in 21 seismic, and structural evaluations, and we're focused 22 on enhancing our understanding of the impact of long 23 term operations on nuclear plant structures. Skipping 24 down a bit to the electrical area, here we're also 25 looking at the impacts of long term operation, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 we're engaged in updates to industry guidance, and 2 condition monitoring. Then finally as I mentioned 3 earlier, DE provides an agency wide coordination, and 4 program management role for regulatory guides, generic 5 issues, consensus codes, and standards, and future 6 focused research.
7 Although it may seem like a bit of an odd 8 pairing to have this program management function with 9 the engineering group, we have found substantial 10 value, and synergy between the interaction of those 11 staff. We've made substantial strides in the past two 12 years to enhance processes, and build upon the 13 interdependence of all these programs with their 14 technical counterparts. Before moving on, I would be 15 remiss without elaborating a little bit more on future 16 focused research.
17 The unique aspect that I'd like to 18 emphasize here, is the fact that this is the sole 19 vehicle by which the office of research has dedicated 20 control over the assignment of resources. All other 21 research activities are based on the relatively near 22 term needs of the program offices, and the resources 23 are agreed upon through mutual discussions with those 24 partners. The future focused research program began 25 in fiscal year 2020, and we've already seen great NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 success coming out of that.
2 We suspect that there will be 3 opportunities for ACRS engagement on the technical 4 aspects of many of the future focused research 5 projects in the future. As you see we have a very 6 broad portfolio within DE, and we could easily spend 7 several hours discussing any one individual project.
8 So, it was very helpful to have a conversation 9 beforehand to get some insights from the committee on 10 specific areas of interest for you all. So, next 11 slide please. So to that point --
12 (Simultaneous speaking.)
13 CHAIR SUNSERI: Just one question, I 14 recently saw, I mean we've been following of course 15 the license stream renewal, and subsequent license 16 renewal, and I'm going to say something that probably 17 is not right, and so that's why I'm asking the 18 question. I recently saw where the agency has 19 discontinued looking at, I guess whatever the next 20 phase of license renewal beyond subsequent license 21 renewal would be, are you going to, somewhere in this 22 presentation talk about that? I didn't pick up on it 23 specifically, but there's a lot of information here, 24 I might have missed it.
25 MR. BOWEN: So, thanks for the question, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 1 that's actually an area, we don't have the specific 2 topic dedicated to that. There are a lot of things 3 that overlap between the subsequent license renewal 4 period if you will, the 40 to 60 year time frame, and 5 then the 60 to 80, and now there's some discussion 6 about life beyond 80. So, the sum of the questions 7 that are being talked about within research, and NRR 8 right now are trying to understand where there might 9 be, I'll say overlap between research that we've 10 already done, technical, or regulatory questions that 11 we've already answered to support subsequent license 12 renewal that might also be useful to understand what 13 would come next.
14 And then we're also trying to understand 15 where there might be other questions we need to ask.
16 So, there have been a couple public meetings, and 17 engagements to kind of gauge the interest by the 18 industry, and also to engage our external stakeholders 19 to see if there's any insight that folks may have on 20 what areas we might need to ask a little bit more, or 21 continue to explore. So, those questions are out 22 there, those discussions are ongoing. Like I said, we 23 don't have a specific dedicated topic within this 24 presentation, but certainly several of the specific 25 areas that you all asked about would absolutely have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 1 an impact on subsequent life beyond 80, beyond the 2 subsequent license renewal period if you will.
3 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay, that's helpful. So, 4 I think what I understood you to say is that there's 5 no comprehensive beyond 80 review, but I'll call it a 6 la carte, whatever it is cable aging management, 7 concrete whatever, specific focus areas that would 8 contribute to any studies for beyond 80 I guess.
9 MR. BOWEN: That's right, and it's kind of 10 starting that process to ask those questions.
11 CHAIR SUNSERI: Great, thank you. Because 12 what I was reacting to, is I saw the results of some 13 of those public meetings, and so that's what piqued my 14 interest, thank you.
15 MR. BOWEN: Sure. All right, if we're 16 ready to move on to slide eight? So, like I 17 mentioned, we could spend several hours on any one 18 topic, so when we were preparing for this, we arranged 19 the remainder for the presentations so that each one 20 of our branch chiefs will provide kind of a high level 21 overview of their branch functions, then they'll touch 22 on many of their major projects. Hopefully this will 23 give you an understanding of the activities that are 24 accomplished across the entire division.
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27 1 with a bit more detail on the focus areas that were 2 identified by the committee, including a discussion of 3 major accomplishments since our last biennial review, 4 and then the branch chiefs will also touch on the 5 future planned direction of each of these projects.
6 We appreciate your questions, and insights as we move 7 throughout the presentation.
8 As we were preparing, we did recognize 9 that there would be value in having a more fulsome 10 discussion with the committee on several select 11 topics, some of which we actually had already 12 envisioned future interactions with you all, so we 13 planned to arrange dedicated meetings with the 14 committee on the topics that you see on this slide in 15 the future. So, for advanced manufacturing 16 techniques, the regulatory question we're really 17 trying to figure out is what do we need to do to be 18 ready to assess the use of components installed in 19 nuclear facilities that were created using advanced 20 manufacturing techniques?
21 For harvesting, we're asking ourselves 22 what opportunities are available to learn from 23 components in the field, and how best to obtain the 24 valuable information from these materials. In digital 25 twins, we're asking how, and when we can be ready for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 the use of digital twins in a regulatory application, 2 both for the current operating fleet, and for advanced 3 reactors. The risk informed performance based seismic 4 activity, we're asking what's necessary, and 5 appropriate for this practical design of advanced 6 reactors.
7 MEMBER BLEY: Jeremy?
8 MR. BOWEN: Yes?
9 MEMBER BLEY: This is Dennis Bley. Do you 10 have specific goals, and ideas about how you might use 11 digital twins? Where does that stand?
12 MR. BOWEN: So, that is a great question, 13 and if I could ask you to hold off for just a couple 14 minutes, Raj Iyengar is going to go into a lot more 15 detail on digital twins.
16 MEMBER BLEY: Excellent.
17 MR. BOWEN: So, in fact I appreciate you 18 being the straight man, so even though we've been 19 making a lot of progress on these, and we plan to come 20 back to you, the way we're going to go through the 21 presentation, the branch chiefs are going to touch on 22 each of these in their remarks, cover each one of 23 these four areas in a little bit more detail, 24 hopefully give you some insight so that you'll know 25 what we're doing right now, but we're also asking for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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29 1 any feedback, or any questions you have so that we can 2 prepare for our future engagements with you on each of 3 these four areas, and like I said, hopefully have a 4 more fulsome discussion at that time.
5 MEMBER BLEY: I bring that up because we 6 had very interesting engagement with one vendor who 7 was explaining how they're using digital twins to 8 tweak designs, and quickly check on deterministic, and 9 risk impacts of possible design changes. And it was 10 really pretty interesting, are you being able to 11 follow what vendors, and licensees might be doing in 12 this area?
13 MR. BOWEN: Yes. We've actually had some, 14 there was, I'm stealing Raj's thunder a little bit, 15 but we had a workshop back in December, and we had 16 several vendors, licensees, and quite honestly, when 17 we started this, the digital twins was one of the 18 first future focused research programs. When it was 19 initiated, it was kind of out there, I guess I'll say 20 it that way. There was a lot of questions about 21 really what is this going to look like, how is it 22 going to be applied? I think in many respects, we 23 were at the forefront, this is one of those situations 24 where the NRC was not waiting to see what would 25 happen.
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30 1 So, we were one of the first ones to kind 2 of engage in this, the workshop that we held back in 3 December was really the first kind of collective 4 interaction between vendors, licensees, regulators, 5 academia, to all talk about digital twins, and really 6 what it means for the nuclear industry. But since 7 that time there's been a tremendous amount of 8 interaction that's been done on that.
9 We have a report that we've received on 10 kind of the current state of the technology, we have 11 a couple other reports that are underway. So, I think 12 this is an area where, like I said, it's a whole lot 13 more to come, and a whole lot of questions out there, 14 but I think we're at the forefront to be able to be 15 ready for what comes next, so.
16 MEMBER BLEY: Okay, I appreciate that, and 17 I look forward to the talk. I admit, when I first saw 18 the topic, I thought it was kind of in the nonsense 19 area until I learned how some people are making really 20 good use of it.
21 MR. BOWEN: You are certainly not alone 22 Member Bley, I think that's the response we got from 23 a lot of people.
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31 1 research project, which is becoming a great success, 2 is that the digital twin one that you're referring to, 3 or is there another one?
4 MR. BOWEN: No, there are many more, my 5 apologies if I misspoke there. So, we have 12 future 6 focused research projects that were funded between 7 fiscal year 20, and fiscal year 2021. Meraj Rahimi is 8 actually going to talk a little bit more about this, 9 and then the call for the fiscal year 22 projects is 10 actually getting ready to go out. So, no, each one of 11 the projects is very far underway, and every one of 12 them, they span a huge spectrum.
13 Personally, I'm very proud of digital 14 twins because it's within our division, but we do 15 have, I think there's three others that we have within 16 the division of engineering, we've got a lot of great 17 ideas that have come out of our staff, and like I 18 said, several ideas across all of the research staff.
19 So, it's definitely garnered a lot of interest. I 20 don't recall the exact number of submittals that there 21 were, but I want to say over the first two fiscal 22 years, it was something on the order of 50, or 60 23 ideas that were submitted, and I actually wish we 24 would have had an opportunity to fund more of them.
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32 1 we've requested that the commission even double the 2 amount of money that we've had for the program. So, 3 it's an area where it's lots of great ideas, lots of 4 progress. The intent is really to kind of start an 5 idea with the program, and if there is value, then it 6 would transition into more of the, I'll call it the 7 traditional work process. So, user need requests, 8 research assistance requests, stuff like that.
9 MEMBER REMPE: So clearly, anyone that 10 transfers to a user need might be deemed as a success, 11 because it showed there was enough need there, it 12 ought to be continued. And I think that's great, I 13 also think that it's reasonable to assume that some 14 ideas are not going to pan out, but it would be good 15 to have several concrete projects that can easily be 16 demonstrated to be successful, so I'll be looking 17 forward to Raj talking about that a bit more.
18 I also like the idea, you're giving us a 19 head's up of what you think should be future topics 20 for a meeting. Do you have in your mind, what type of 21 schedule, are you planning to do all of these in the 22 next year, two years, or how soon are you planning to 23 go through these?
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33 1 looking within the next year. The branch chiefs, when 2 they talk about these topics, they're going to kind of 3 give you a little bit more insight, and the time 4 frame. Each one kind of depends on where we are in 5 process. Some of these we need the committee's 6 insight on specific guidance reporting out, for 7 example the risk informed performance based seismic 8 design.
9 That's certainly one where we're looking 10 for the committee's endorsement of planned guidance.
11 A couple of the others, digital twins, harvesting are 12 more informational briefings for the committee, and 13 it's really going to kind of be dependent on when we 14 think we've got the right level of information to 15 share with you all so that we can get some valuable 16 feedback, and recommendations. So, that's a long 17 winded way of roughly within the next year, but it 18 very much depends on the project.
19 MEMBER REMPE: So, again, this is good.
20 I've always been a little concerned that not having 21 some sort of concrete documentation, and just having 22 informal interactions, where every member states their 23 opinion may not be beneficial, but if we continue to 24 see a willingness to have these open exchanges, I 25 think it shows that the idea to switch to this type of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 1 interaction is a good idea. So, we'll be watching to 2 see how it goes, but this is encouraging.
3 MR. BOWEN: And thank you for that as 4 well, that comment actually helps us kind of think 5 about when might be the right time for example the 6 reports with the digital twins, there might be a way 7 we can have a document that we could get your 8 feedback, and insights on. So, and I would like to go 9 back for just a second on the future focused research 10 piece. Absolutely the ones that transition into user 11 need, RAR's, whatever, that's certainly a success. In 12 many respects, I think we also see a success in the 13 projects that we evaluate, and the end result is that 14 we don't need to do anything else.
15 That in itself is a learning experience, 16 and insightful for the agency, and helps us kind of 17 understand where we're at, and whether we need to move 18 forward. So, a different kind of success, but still 19 a success.
20 MEMBER REMPE: And I agree with you, but 21 how will this be documented? Do you have something 22 where you'll have like an annual, or semiannual report 23 on future focused research key findings, or how does 24 this get documented so those folks who are reviewing 25 what the agency does says okay, this is a good idea to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 1 have this program?
2 MR. BOWEN: So, each one of the individual 3 projects will have, they have a variety of reports.
4 Some of them have seminars associated with them, and 5 everything. Your point of rolling everything up, and 6 connecting each of the projects back to the future 7 focused research program, that's a good one. We just 8 sent up a note to the commission telling them about, 9 giving them an update on the status of the future 10 focused research program. I think we might explore 11 something like that in the future.
12 We haven't identified the specific 13 vehicle, but your point of connecting back the dots if 14 you will, is a good one, so thanks for that feedback.
15 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you.
16 CHAIR SUNSERI: This is Matt with one more 17 point on this future ACRS engagement, and I'm kind of 18 speaking from the chairman's role with this regard.
19 We appreciate the opportunity to engage you on these 20 topics, we always have to find that balance though, 21 between how much engagement we have early on so that 22 it doesn't create a conflict for us later when we go 23 into the evaluation stage, like we are right now. So, 24 I think you understand what I'm saying, it's just a 25 balancing act basically, that we don't find ourselves NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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36 1 in a position of evaluating things that we had 2 commented on, or had influenced the outcome of too 3 soon in the process. Thank you.
4 MR. BOWEN: Absolutely, and thanks for 5 that caution.
6 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Jeremy, this is Walt 7 Kirchner. I'm struck by the pictures here, especially 8 the lower left, and the upper right, to a lesser 9 extent the other two, but they probably also tie into 10 this. What I'm thinking about is the Internet of 11 Things. So, we're going to hear from your branch 12 chief on what you're doing in the area of the Internet 13 of Things, and cyber security?
14 MR. BOWEN: Yes, Chris Cook is going to 15 talk a little bit about cyber security, and work in 16 that area. And yes, for materials harvesting, we're 17 actually looking at components, not blue corn.
18 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Yeah, this is, that's a 19 John Deere rig, and it's probably being fed by GPS, 20 and other internet connections to decide a lot of 21 things about agriculture, of which I know nothing.
22 But I do know about Deere's use of advanced 23 technology, and the Internet of Things. Then of 24 course with digital twins, I wanted to ask, when you 25 had your workshop, and such, did you bring in vendors NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 from the non-nuclear area?
2 MR. BOWEN: Absolutely, sorry.
3 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Great, because that's 4 certainly an area that for over a decade now, a number 5 of vendors, the jet engine sector is a notable user of 6 digital twins, and the Internet of Things to collect 7 data, and make decisions about preventative 8 maintenance, et cetera, et cetera. I assume from Raj, 9 we're hear more on that in his talk. Thank you.
10 MR. BOWEN: Raj could talk for hours just 11 on digital twins itself, and actually with that, I 12 think that actually concludes the setup I wanted to 13 provide, and unless there are any other questions, 14 I'll turn it over to Meraj Rahimi, and he can talk 15 about the cross cutting coordination program 16 management role that we play.
17 MR. RAHIMI: Good afternoon, my name is 18 Meraj Rahimi, I'm the chief of Regulatory Guide and 19 Program Management branch. Slide ten please. I just 20 want to give an overview of the four programs that my 21 branch manages first. So, the branch is supported by 22 11 full time staff, who manage a number of projects 23 within each of the four programs, and the four 24 programs are regulatory guides, generic issues, codes, 25 and standards, and future focused research.
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38 1 The overall goal of the branch is a 2 timely, and quality completion of all of the projects 3 within each of the four programs. The regulatory 4 guide program, which is the largest of the four 5 programs, in terms of staff support, includes managing 6 the reg guides development, managing the internal 7 review process, issuing the red guide comments, the 8 original topic comments, and the final verification 9 process.
10 The second program that my branch manages 11 is the generic issues program, which involves managing 12 the generic technical issues this position as mandated 13 by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 under 10 CFR 14 1.45. That's our program, the codes, and standards 15 program, which is to facilitate the NRC staff 16 participation in the development, and the use of the 17 codes, and standards. And the fourth program which 18 we've been talking about is the future focused 19 research program.
20 Which provides a vehicle to position the 21 NRC to be ready for future state of the art 22 technologies, and their potential regulatory impacts.
23 Those are the four functional areas, or four programs 24 that my branch manages. In the next few slides I'm 25 going to go into a little bit more detail about each NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 1 of these programs. Slide 11 please. First, the 2 regulatory guides program. So, we strive to provide 3 up to date guidance to licensees, and applicants for 4 more effective licensing reviews, and licensing 5 actions by the NRC. There are currently over 350 reg 6 guides in effect, which my branch maintains, with an 7 additional 35 in the process of being issued at this 8 time.
9 One of the main accomplishments, with 10 respect to managing the program, in the past year or 11 so, has been a significant improvement in the review 12 process, and violations of the reg guides. The 13 improvement has been made possible by working with 14 technical leads at the red guide development stage 15 establishing, and tracking the schedule for the entire 16 process. Early engagement with internal stakeholders 17 that are program offices, OGC, ACRS, and parallel 18 reviews in approval when possible.
19 As a result of this effort, we've been 20 able to issue the vast majority of the final reg 21 guides in the past year or so within six to 11 months.
22 In the past two years, in terms of other 23 accomplishments, the branch has issued 34 reg guides, 24 27 of which have been revision, and seven new guides, 25 and seven withdrawal. We have managed a periodic NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 1 review, and assessment on 24 existing reg guides, and 2 have managed 13 presentations to ACRS subcommittee, 3 and full committee.
4 As part of the continuous process of 5 future direction, is process improvement, to continue 6 the process improvement. So, as part of that effort, 7 the staff would like to increase its coordination with 8 ACRS, particularly at the draft stage of the reg 9 guides if we're issuing them for public comments, in 10 order to consider ACRS members viewpoints, and inputs 11 at an early stage, particularly in those areas which 12 are of high interest to the ACRS members. So, we 13 would welcome any suggestions from ACRS in this 14 regard.
15 Slide 12 please. Our next program, the 16 second program that we manage is the generic issues 17 program. The generic issues program identifies 18 generic technical issues which require NRC response.
19 And our accomplishment, since we met with ACRS as part 20 of the biannual review, we've closed three generic 21 issues, of course for conclusion from the implementing 22 program office. They are the first one, GI 191, 23 that's the containment sub 2B, and that was closed in 24 July 2019. GI 204, that was flood plain evaluation 25 from the post Fukushima lessons learned, and we closed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 1 that generic issue in September, 2020.
2 And the third one, GI 199, seismic 3 reevaluation, which was closed in December 2020.
4 Other accomplishments included revising management 5 directive 6.4, and tech 002, which are the generic 6 issues program implementation documents. They were 7 revised based on a tighter team evaluation with 8 checking performance in 2013. And the recommendation 9 from the team was to simplify the program by reducing 10 the number of stages for generic issues process from 11 five, to three.
12 Increase management involvement, and 13 accountability, and new guidance to identify, and act 14 on immediate safety concerns, and to document the 15 justification for ongoing operations so that the issue 16 could be worked on without having to implement any 17 remedial actions during the time frame the issue is 18 being addressed. Currently as part of the future 19 direction, there's only one pre generic issue to 20 process, which is at the assessment phase, and that is 21 the high energy power controls involving the (Audio 22 interference.) But the division of risk analysis, our 23 sister division in the Office of Research will discuss 24 the technical status of this pre GI in its 25 presentation in their September 20th meeting with you.
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42 1 And generally, the number of proposed 2 generic issues that are being submitted to the program 3 has decreased. The other current work includes 4 updating NUREG-0933 to respect actions taken to 5 document the close out of those generic issues that I 6 talked about. Studies also evaluating further 7 streamlining the generic issue process, such as 8 reducing the screening phase period, which is 9 typically now, nine to 18 months, reducing the 10 assessment phase period, which is now typically one to 11 three years.
12 In addition to that step, it's also 13 revising 10 CFR 50 to reflect instruction to 14 applicants on which generic issues they must address 15 through their applications. Slide 13 please.
16 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Meraj? This is Walt 17 here.
18 MR. RAHIMI: Yes?
19 MEMBER KIRCHNER: How many generic issues 20 are still open?
21 MR. RAHIMI: None, zero, we've had only 22 one, as I mentioned it's at the pre GI stage.
23 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Right, okay, thank you.
24 MR. RAHIMI: Sure. Slide 13 please. Now 25 I'll talk a little bit more about the codes, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 1 standards program. The goal of the codes, and 2 standards program is to enhance the effectiveness, and 3 efficiency of the regulatory process by leveraging 4 external resources, experience, and consensus. In the 5 past few years the staff has endorsed, through reg 6 guides, 19 codes, and standards from different 7 standard organizations such as American Concrete 8 Institute, ANS, ASME, IEEE, the Institute of Nuclear 9 Materials Management, and other standard 10 organizations.
11 There are currently 16 standards from 12 American Institute of Safe Construction, Health 13 Physics Society, IEEE, INMM that are in the process of 14 being endorsed right there. Now I'll talk about the 15 rules, and responsibility regarding the codes, and 16 standards within the agency. Our very own division 17 director, Ms. Louise Lund is the NRC standards 18 executive. She is responsible for the agency's 19 implementation of the National Technology Transfer, 20 and Advancement Act, and Office of Management and 21 Budget Circular A-119.
22 She chairs the NRC standards steering 23 committees, and represents the agency on the 24 interagency committee on standards policy. The 25 standards steering committee within NRC, which our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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44 1 own, with the division's senior management 2 participation, they prioritize the standards of 3 belated activities important to the NRC mission, 4 discuss, and coordinate the availability of resources 5 to support staff involvement as needed through the 6 NRC's development of new government unique standards.
7 The codes, and standards program manager, 8 who is in my branch, he provides the standards program 9 overall coordination in accordance with management 10 directive 6.5, and other guidance's issued by the NRC 11 standards executives. The standard development 12 organization coordinators, which are throughout the 13 NRC, the coordinators who are the NRC leads for 14 specific standard development organizations, their 15 roles are, they coordinate the participation of NRC 16 representatives for specific standard development 17 organization such as, as I mentioned, ASME, ANS, and 18 all the other organizations, and serve as the NRC 19 representatives in the standard boards such as ASME's 20 board on nuclear codes, and standards, and ANS 21 standards program.
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45 1 committees. As SDO committee members, they promote 2 NRC positions in accordance with management directive 3 6.5, NRC standards, and circulating guidance. Slide 4 14 please.
5 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Meraj, sorry to 6 interrupt.
7 MR. RAHIMI: Sure, please.
8 MEMBER KIRCHNER: This is all very useful 9 because usually, I'll just make an observation, your 10 branch's talk is usually at the end of the engineering 11 presentations, and we've used up all of our time with 12 our questions, and we usually make short shrift of 13 this important activity. So, I wanted to ask what is 14 the formal mechanism that the NRC uses to endorse a 15 standard? We see them either in regulators, and, or 16 reg guides, but is there some other mechanism that is 17 used within the NRC to endorse a code, and standard, 18 and then where does one go to find the endorsed codes, 19 and standards?
20 MR. RAHIMI: Yeah, as you mentioned, those 21 are the really two main ways that we endorse codes, 22 and standards, through regulations, such as 5055A, and 23 the reg guides. Those are sort of the two vehicles by 24 which we endorse the reg guides, tend to be standards, 25 and codes. Does that answer your question?
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46 1 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Yes. But say as we look 2 forward to, I'll make a rhetorical example, 10 CFR 53, 3 and we were interested to know, is there some place 4 we'd go to, where there's a compilation of the current 5 standards that are endorsed? Or is it just a search 6 on the NRC website?
7 MR. RAHIMI: Yes, actually we have 8 recently issued the reg guides, sort of endorsing in 9 support of CFR 53, and generally you will see that in 10 the reg guides, in there. But to answer your 11 questions, is there some place which, where there's a 12 compilation, it is throughout. Maybe one idea is for 13 us to identify in the title of the reg guides what it 14 applies to part 53 normally, at the beginning of every 15 red guide you will see the scope, okay, what 16 regulation does it apply? And it states there. In 17 most of them, we kind of include it in that title of 18 the red guide in terms of it applies to the advanced 19 reactors, high temperatures, reactors, it has a 20 summary, it would be at the very beginning of every 21 red guide.
22 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Okay. It was a learning 23 question, because with 10 CFR 53, approach as I 24 understand it, there's going to be extraordinarily 25 reliance on guidance, rather than codification in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 1 actual rule, and that makes for a rather fluid 2 environment, but okay, that works for the time being, 3 thank you.
4 MR. RAHIMI: Thank you.
5 CHAIR SUNSERI: This is Matt, I have a 6 second question on that slide. Last time we visited 7 with you in this area, we were told about enhancements 8 to the codes, and standards process, and I see at the 9 top of this slide we have a statement, enhance the 10 effectiveness, and efficiency of the regulatory 11 process by leveraging external resources, et cetera.
12 So what is your metric for success in this? Are you 13 looking for less requests for additional information?
14 Would success look like a shorter cycle time for 15 review of licensed applications? I mean how do we 16 know that we have achieved this success in this topic?
17 MR. RAHIMI: I mean yes, generally, I 18 think that in general, reg guides, as I mentioned, the 19 whole goal of putting out the reg guides guidance 20 there, I mean again, is a way for the staff to provide 21 guidance to the applicants, and licensees in terms 22 that they can put a better application together, and 23 it would be a more efficient review. Efficient review 24 meaning yes, less RAI's, because there is sort of a 25 guidance in terms of implementation of the regulation.
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48 1 And of course the standards, and codes, they are the 2 really big, significant contribution to this.
3 Because from the technical point of view, 4 it involves really the expert's opinions, just not the 5 staff technical opinion. It is the consensus of the 6 experts, the outside experts that have come up with 7 the recommendation, I mean these are the criteria. So 8 yeah, certainly in terms of the application, reviewing 9 makes it efficient, and the metric with respect to 10 that, yes, in terms of the number of RAI's that are 11 issued. If there is enough guidance there, there is 12 a code, standards that the staff can point to, and so 13 the applicant, licensee says hey, as long as you use 14 these codes, standards, you won't expect that many 15 questions from us.
16 That is indeed sort of the metric in terms 17 of how long does the review take, and how many rounds 18 of RAI's are issued, it comes back, is there a good 19 guidance out there for the applicant, or licensee to 20 use to put together a good application.
21 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay, good, I see Louise 22 has her hand up, Louise?
23 MS. LUND: If you don't mind, I just 24 wanted to make a comment as the agency standards 25 executive. That's a very good question asked to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 1 really what are the measures, and metrics, and what 2 are we striving for? And one of the things that 3 industry is most interested in is figuring out how to 4 get us to prioritize, and endorse things in a timely 5 way. And I'll point to the non-light water reactor 6 PRA standard, and really ones like that, where we 7 recognize industry really wants to get some of these 8 out on the street, and how do we, like Meraj is 9 saying, do things in parallel, and being able to get 10 working copies, a trial standard out, doing various 11 things to be responsive to where we see the needs.
12 Also through our standards forum that we 13 try to hold every year, we've had some discussions 14 too, about for advanced reactors in the vendors, in 15 understanding what their priorities are, and 16 especially because in those areas do we need more 17 technical basis developed, what do we really need to 18 do? So, I would say our metrics, and measures are 19 being able to play the role that we need to play in 20 order to get things endorsed in a timely way to meet 21 the expectations, and needs of the regulated 22 community.
23 And another way that we do this is through 24 our meetings, and through, with ASME, IEEE, some of 25 the other committees, and they prioritize on an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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50 1 ongoing, dynamic basis for us, really what their 2 priorities are, and what they want us to have in the 3 queue, because they understand we don't have 4 inexhaustible resources to work on everything at the 5 same time, so there is a dynamic sort of nature to us 6 trying to be as effective, and efficient in this area 7 as possible.
8 And that comes down to also the people 9 that are on the committees, is trying to be responsive 10 to requests to new committees, and requests where 11 maybe there is not as much work in a certain area now, 12 and maybe it frees up some resources to be able to 13 work in other committees as well, because again, this 14 is an area where we spend a lot of resources, and 15 time, is on code committees, endorsements in this, and 16 so we have to figure out how to use all of our 17 resources in the most effective way possible. So, I 18 hope that's what you were looking for in type of 19 question you were asking.
20 CHAIR SUNSERI: Well, I think it does.
21 So, let me just see if I can give you a short summary 22 here. So, I hear two things Louise, one is that if 23 applicants use the consensus standards, and the codes 24 that have been developed in their applications, they 25 are likely to get less RAI's, and the process is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 1 likely to move along in a more timely manner. The 2 challenge on your side is endorsing the codes, and 3 standards, or getting the consensus standards issues 4 in the right priorities that the industry needs to 5 support the, I'll call it the rate, and the type of 6 applications that they expect to be submitting, did I 7 get that close?
8 MS. LUND: Yes, and for the advanced non-9 light water reactors, having things sufficiently 10 mature that it's worth putting a lot of time into 11 getting a standard put together. So, there's just a 12 lot of moving parts here.
13 MEMBER BALLINGER: This is Ron Ballinger, 14 I feel compelled to take up Pete Riccardella's cudgel 15 on standards. And I wonder whether or not 16 consideration has been given to somehow try to move 17 forward a little bit more quickly. On some of these 18 standards it's taking years to get approval, or get 19 what do you want to call it, I guess approval is the 20 best word to use, or adopting of standards before 21 people retire. It just takes forever, I mean you know 22 that, and it's not necessarily always the agency's 23 fault, the ASME is not what I would call blitzkrieg, 24 but you wonder whether or not the agency couldn't do 25 something that once a standard is in place from the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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52 1 ASEM, or the ASME, whether the concurrence process, if 2 that's what you want to use the word for, cannot be 3 accelerated in some way.
4 MS. LUND: Right. We have looked at 5 various improvements internally to the way we endorse 6 standards. We were also looking at how to expedite 7 getting either the code cases that we can approve 8 without conditions, how to get them on the street 9 sooner, and we have a proposal for that that we've 10 been working through the system, we've had some public 11 meetings on that. There's a number of areas where 12 yes, there do need to be ways to be doing things more 13 timely. I know section three, and section 11 have 14 some initiatives as well.
15 And there's also room for really cross 16 standards development organization coordination as 17 well, and I have to give kudos to the ANS chair Don 18 Eggit for trying to reach out, and trying to do some 19 coordination there, and also trying to look fora 20 redundancy to reduce overlap redundancy, conflict in 21 standards, and things. So, there's a number of 22 efforts sort of ongoing, because I think everybody 23 agrees that standards development takes too long.
24 MEMBER BALLINGER: Yeah, I mean to the 25 agency's credit, you have several employees that are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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53 1 also members of the various committees, and you might 2 wonder if there's a way to improve, or take advantage, 3 let's put it that way, of that membership in helping 4 get the review process going within the agency once 5 the time comes.
6 MS. LUND: Right, and I think that 7 certainly there is, I think efforts to try to ensure 8 that the people who are sitting on the committees are 9 the people putting the eyes on when these, the code 10 cases, and the codes come in for endorsement as well, 11 and premised it through all the different wickets that 12 it has to get through, and that's -- so we threw our 13 entity embark over in NRR, there was an effort to try 14 to look at different ways that this process really 15 could be expedited, and various ways that it could be 16 improved.
17 So, we're in the process of really asking 18 for permission to do various things that really were 19 proposed. We had a couple of public meetings to lay 20 some of these ideas out there, and see which ones 21 resonate the most with the folks in the standards 22 organizations, and also the other interested public as 23 well.
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54 1 to ask the industry folks to prioritize code case 2 review, things that are the most important for them?
3 MS. LUND: Right, we do, because we have 4 actually twice a year management meetings with ASME, 5 and part of that is also looking at priorities in 6 which things have been requested for certain time 7 frames. And if you look at some of the letters coming 8 in from ASME, IEEE, also ANS, they'll actually 9 prioritize, and mention certain ones that they really 10 would like to get done, and which time frames that 11 they'd like to get it done in.
12 And sometimes you'll get something that 13 will rise to the top of the list unexpectedly, because 14 it is important maybe for outages coming up, or 15 something else. So, and we try to be responsive, and 16 also have some discussions in short, try to figure out 17 how best to work that into our work load as well, or 18 if we can't, we try to have engagement as to what's, 19 the difficulties in doing that. So yeah, we are doing 20 that.
21 MEMBER BALLINGER: I for one would be 22 interested in the priorities that you have.
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55 1 and forth, and maybe, hopefully that'll be responsive 2 to really what the comments that you're making, and if 3 you have additional feedback, or ideas we're certainly 4 interested in hearing that too.
5 MEMBER BALLINGER: Thank you.
6 CHAIR SUNSERI: If you could provide that 7 Hossein, he'll get it distributed to us, and Vicki 8 Bier has her hand up. Vicki?
9 MEMBER BIER: Yeah, thank you. I want to 10 come back to something that was discussed very early 11 in the presentation, and let me know if there's a 12 better time to address this later on, which is the 13 issue of staffing, and are you able to hire top 14 quality people in the areas that are needed? And I'm 15 especially concerned about that in the cyber area. I 16 know at universities we have a very hard time hiring 17 good computer scientists, because it's difficult to 18 pay them remotely close to what the top people can 19 make in industry.
20 And also there's kind of a career path 21 issue, which is if I stay in Silicon Valley, then I 22 have a lot of different jobs I can go to a few years 23 from now if I decide I want to change, or whatever.
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56 1 why they want to be in a certain geographic area. So, 2 I just thought I would ask on the cyber side in 3 particular, are there hiring challenges, how are you 4 meeting them? And does the agency need to be creative 5 about things that make this worthwhile for people, or 6 attractive for people?
7 MS. LUND: Yes. I would say that for some 8 of the skill sets it is more challenging to do hiring.
9 We have been successful in doing some limited hiring 10 up to this point. The thing is we're still in a 11 developmental phase, and really just starting to get 12 involved in our cyber security work. So, we've done 13 some limited hiring, and we've been successful in 14 doing that, but I do recognize all of the challenges 15 that you just mentioned.
16 And one of the things too, is our interest 17 also in engaging with some of the national labs, and 18 getting training for some of our existing staff that 19 work in that area, and so it's a multi-pronged 20 approach, it's not only doing selected, targeted 21 hiring, but it's also for the staff that we do have, 22 that have been working in that area, making sure their 23 skill sets are timely, and kept up to date, and it's, 24 so yes, we do for some of the skill set areas we have, 25 that's a constant challenge, and we try to think of an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 1 all of the above approach of how to really meet that, 2 so thank you for that.
3 MEMBER BIER: Sure, and also just 4 encouraging that there may be creative strategies 5 whether it's creating a prestigious one year 6 fellowship that, when somebody would come for a year, 7 and promise that it would be kind of a high impact 8 position, or solving part of the problem through 9 contracting, and consulting, or have a little field 10 office in Silicon Valley. I mean there's, I don't 11 know that I have any answers, but just the problem is 12 out there, and how do we make sure we have the top 13 notch people also.
14 MS. LUND: Yeah, and I think what I'm 15 going to also do is ask for Chris Cook, if you can 16 talk a little bit, when you get to your turn to talk 17 about your branch, since the cyber security thing has 18 been brought up a couple of times, maybe you can talk 19 about the staffing issue, because it falls directly in 20 your branch, and he's done a lot in that area.
21 MR. COOK: Sure, I'd be happy to.
22 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay, we'll take one more 23 topic on this conversation, and then we'll move on.
24 Joy has her hand up.
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58 1 until the end, but since we've derailed from Meraj on 2 this, he made a suggestion when he talked about the 3 reg guides, and a way to improve the process, which I 4 think is good, this interaction, we should listen to 5 the staff if they have some suggestions, to also help 6 them with respect to ACRS, but he wanted earlier 7 engagement, and I think of how ACRS does the decision 8 process on whether we're going to review a reg guide 9 before it comes out for public comment, or after the 10 comments are resolved.
11 And I know the staff usually talks to the 12 cognizant ACRS member, but other than telling the ACRS 13 staff person, hey this one we think is important, are 14 there any ways we can make sure that your needs are 15 addressed better on that suggestion Meraj?
16 MR. RAHIMI: Yeah. This is the area that 17 I really wanted to focus on, because we really value 18 ACRS input, and we would like to get their input at 19 early stage if possible. I mean even as part of a 20 discussion, information meeting, we can sort of brief 21 you, what are the upcoming reg guides in digital I&C, 22 a different area. That way it can get more 23 information, and we can kind of make a decision, and 24 if you have a really strong, high interest in an area, 25 that we can come to you before we issue it for public NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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59 1 comment in order, really to consider your input, as 2 opposed to in some cases we're at the final stage.
3 So, in terms of, because we're striving to 4 put these reg guides really in a timely manner, that 5 way, that's what the licensees, and applicants need.
6 Putting out, and stamping out guidance in a timely 7 manner that can help their application.
8 MEMBER REMPE: There's two ways I know you 9 can make sure your voice is heard. It doesn't 10 guarantee what ACRS will do, because no one can 11 guarantee what we'll do, but you can have, and request 12 informal meetings with the cognizant staff member with 13 this list of reg guides, and point that out, but then 14 it comes to the full committee at P&P, and so make 15 sure you know when that reg guide is being discussed.
16 Because if you don't agree with what the cognizant 17 staff member decides, or recommends, you can stand up, 18 and say I'd like to provide comments at this meeting 19 so that at least the whole committee hears your voice.
20 And I don't usually see the staff come to 21 us about a reg guide discussion, but it's something 22 that's out there in advance, and you're more than 23 entitled to the information to know when it will be 24 discussed to make sure your voice is heard. Will that 25 help you?
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60 1 MR. RAHIMI: Yes, yes. Again, we would 2 like, because as I said, there are over 350 reg guides 3 my branch managers, and in a given year I've got 30, 4 40 reg guides going through process, and reissue. And 5 particularly I'm interested that the ones that we 6 really need to get sort of your input, or your 7 feedback, I'd like to get it at early stage, and 8 however we can do it, and provide you more 9 information, I mean that was one of the improvements 10 to the process that we did.
11 As soon as we get this sort of, let me 12 grab from the program office, the technical leads, we 13 sort of interact with ACR staff, and let them know, 14 and they do a great job in terms of really 15 communicating with ACRS members, and it is at that 16 point, even we can kind of share that draft guide to 17 preview, to get an idea okay, this is definitely an 18 area, or a topic that we might have a high interest 19 in, to better kind of hear about it, see what the 20 staff has put together before we put it out for public 21 comments, that's all.
22 MEMBER REMPE: Again, I think that we try 23 to make sure that the cognizant staff member hears 24 about that in advance, and you can have informal 25 meetings, but if you disagree with what the cognizant NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 1 staff member says, come to the meeting, and make sure 2 your voice is heard at the meeting, and of course then 3 we can't review everything before public comment, 4 because our time is also limited, but we can at least 5 be cognizant of why you think it's important. So 6 again, I think this is a good exchange to try, and 7 make things more efficient for the agency, and not 8 just us giving your comments. So, all of the research 9 folks should feel free to also make suggestions to 10 improve our processes too.
11 CHAIR SUNSERI: All right, thank you. We 12 need to move along here, anything else on that topic?
13 So, there's one more slide in this presentation on 14 future focus, what I'd like to do is get through this 15 presentation, and the next one by the next branch, and 16 then we'll take a break after that. We need to move 17 along though, we're falling behind. Go ahead.
18 MR. RAHIMI: We're on slide 14, and the 19 fourth program my branch manages is the future focused 20 research, which I guess Jeremy talked about. The goal 21 of the future focused research program is to provide 22 actionable insights into technical, or regulatory 23 issues that relate to the NRC's mission to open new 24 areas of foundational knowledge on key regulatory 25 topics. As Jeremy mentioned, really this is the only NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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62 1 program that the Office of Research kind of managers, 2 is our program. And we're really looking to the 3 horizon in the future.
4 Okay, what do we need to really do 5 research to make sure that the agency is ready for 6 future regulatory action? That's the goal, really.
7 So, this program was, this program started in 2020, 8 and since then 12 different research projects have 9 been launched since then. And of course, I guess one 10 of the success stories, the digital twins so far, and 11 they range from digital twins, to automation tool 12 mapping, to drones, and virtual reality tools, to 13 analyze radiological surveys, and looking at the high 14 entropy alloys.
15 So they're really varied, and kind of 16 forward looking research projects. And Member Rempe, 17 I think we have a backup slide which lists all these 18 research projects which is currently under the way.
19 So, it is included in the presentation, but I'm not 20 going to go over one by one, but is included in the 21 presentation, and you can look at them. With respect 22 to the future direction, what is the vision? What is 23 the research program?
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63 1 acknowledged as a sustained research, and development 2 program viewed by program offices as a valuable asset 3 to improve foundational knowledge on key topics. And 4 at the same time, one that encourages potential 5 riskier, non-agenda related extension of projects with 6 more linkage to future regulatory topics. It is 7 anticipated there will be numerous results from the 8 individual research projects such as draft, and final 9 reports, in the queries of training sessions, various 10 software updates, guidance on the use of new 11 technologies, and suggestion for additional research 12 phases.
13 These all will eventually cause the future 14 focused research program to be relied upon as the 15 repository for some of the latest information directly 16 related to the NRC mission. It is important that 17 future focused research program records become a key 18 source for potential staff researchers to consider as 19 they prepare their new future focused research 20 proposals. And as I think it was alluded to, that 21 there is going to be, really to build the repository 22 for the latest information, and we have requested to 23 double the budget for this program by 2023. And with 24 that, I turn it over to Raj Iyengar to talk about his 25 programs, and projects in his branch.
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64 1 MR. IYENGAR: Good afternoon esteemed 2 members of the committee. I am Raj Iyengar, chief of 3 Reactor Engineering Branch. I feel honored, always to 4 appear before you, to present updates on our important 5 research activities, today is no exception. In the 6 next few minutes I expect to present a succinct 7 overview of the newly formed Reactor Engineering 8 Branch. Our branch has 14 staff, and an annual budget 9 of 5 million dollars in support of HC's safety, and 10 security research program on high temperature 11 materials, component performance, mechanical systems, 12 and advanced nuclear technologies for operating new, 13 and advanced reactors, and spent fuel storage, and 14 transportation.
15 Next slide please. Our branch staff plan, 16 and execute analytic research programs to develop 17 technical basis methods, and tools for advanced 18 technology applications with a focus on risk, and 19 safety of operating advanced reactors, and other 20 facilities. There are four broad functional areas our 21 branch is involved in. We support the readiness to 22 review advanced non-light water reactor designs 23 related to high temperature materials, component 24 performance, molten salt fuel cycle, material 25 safeguards, physical security, and consensus standards NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 1 improvements from both technology inclusive, and 2 design specific considerations.
3 One of the areas of strengths is modeling, 4 and simulation of component performance, considering 5 materials degradation, and environmental effects, and 6 applying fracture, and damage mechanics. We have 7 developed, and applied probabilistic based, as well as 8 deterministic based tools for improved risk informed 9 decision making on component safety issues. We are 10 building expertise, and capabilities in modeling, and 11 simulation of environmental effects related to molten 12 salt compatibility, salt chemistry, and high 13 temperature degradation of materials for advanced non-14 light water reactors.
15 In light of the interest in application of 16 artificial intelligence, and machine learning, we are 17 engaged in learning first, and applying data driven 18 approaches to monitoring, and predicting component 19 performance, an emerging functional area for our 20 branch, which is a direct outcome of the 21 reorganization, as well as the success of future 22 focused research program. The application of advanced 23 nuclear technologies influencing safety, and risk of 24 plant design operations, maintenance, and waste 25 management.
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66 1 We are particularly interested in the 2 application of digital twins, and advanced census. I 3 will talk more about these later. Our branch staff 4 provides significant support to our customers on 5 licensing, and regulatory activities. I'll provide 6 more context in a few minutes. Next slide please.
7 This slide gives you a snap shot of major projects in 8 the functional areas I've described earlier. Time 9 will not allow me to discuss this project in any 10 length of detail, however I will briefly touch upon a 11 few of them.
12 We made significant progress in 13 accelerated readiness to review advanced reactors in 14 areas of materials, and component performance.
15 Members heard a briefing this week on staff's effort 16 to potentially endorse ASME section three, division 17 five, this was indeed a monumental effort. In 18 addition our staff, and NRR staff have completed a 19 draft regulatory guide to potentially endorse American 20 Society of Mechanical Engineer's section 11, 21 reliability, and integrity management, this is 22 division two. Which will enable vendors that will 23 depend on in service inspection, and monitoring 24 programs for operational safety of advanced non-light 25 water reactor designs.
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67 1 Recently we have developed a great 2 critique assessment tool for verifying application of 3 ASME section three, division five rules for metallic 4 components. This tool is publicly available, and 5 we're using this tool to demonstrate methods of 6 evaluating non code qualified materials for a reduced 7 operational time of components within code standards 8 should there be any interest from potential licensees.
9 We have benefitted from the information 10 that we obtained from Japan Atomic Energy Agency on 11 high temperature materials, operational experience 12 with sodium fast reactors, and surveillance programs.
13 I'll provide more details on our efforts on molten 14 salt reactors later. Our research project in graphite 15 aims at developing a probabilistic based tool to 16 assess the aging, and degradation of graphitic 17 components. We have partnered with Idaho National Lab 18 to develop this tool, and also some training programs 19 to enhance staff knowledge, and skills in assessing 20 graphitic components.
21 We have completed a report on source 22 dependency of graphite, I want to also acknowledge 23 here our colleagues in the Office of Nuclear 24 Regulation in the United Kingdom, who have been 25 extremely forthcoming in sharing their research, data, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 1 and operational experience on graphitic components.
2 In the modeling, and simulation area we've completed 3 the development of, and release of the extremely low 4 probability of rupture code XLPR, a joint project with 5 Electric Power Research Institute. Members already 6 are aware of this, we've had multiple briefings on 7 this topic.
8 After the recent enhancement of 9 probabilistic code favor for reactor pressure 10 integrity, we are engaged in modernizing the legacy 11 code into a modern software tool including 12 modernization of code structure, and source code, and 13 meeting up to the current software quality assurance 14 standards. We have initiated a project on developing 15 guidelines for alternative framework, and acceptance 16 criteria postulating pipe rupture locations in fluid 17 system piping for small volume, and current light 18 water reactors to incorporate risk in size. The 19 outcome of this work will result in a properly 20 division of branch technical position 3-4 providing 21 increased flexibility, and burden reduction for 22 licensees.
23 I'm glad to say that we have initiated a 24 program on risk assessment of canister performance.
25 I think this will be of interest to Member Ballinger.
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69 1 To better understand the risk of consequence of 2 canister breach. This work will support licensing 3 oversight of aging management programs for chloride 4 induced corrosion cracking, and the developing risk 5 informed inspection frequencies.
6 (Simultaneous speaking.)
7 MEMBER BALLINGER: My hope is the results 8 of this project will be in place before I die.
9 MR. IYENGAR: Well, we have a very quick 10 time line, I am sure you'll be pleased. We are 11 partnering with the Sandia National Lab experts in 12 getting some data. Data has always been the road 13 block in developing rigorous risk, and consequence 14 based approach. So, I think we made some headway here 15 Member Ballinger, thank you for prodding us. I'll 16 touch upon digital twins, and advanced assets later, 17 but I wanted to highlight a small future focused 18 research project we recently initiated to develop rest 19 spots for use in knowledge mining, optimization of 20 modeling, and simulation to incorporate data, and 21 model uncertainties, and accelerate the review process 22 of technical letter reports.
23 Several of our staff represent agency in 24 the ASME boiler pressure code, and standards working 25 groups for ASME section three, and section 11. We're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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70 1 also interfacing with the ASME O&M Committee, 2 Operation and Maintenance Committee on the application 3 of digital twins for some other work that they're 4 doing for advanced reactor component ecosystems. Our 5 branch serves as a technical lead for the 10 CFR 50 6 54A regulatory guide code case rule making. I know 7 there was some comments about how can we speed up?
8 This is one way we can speed up the 9 acceptance of code cases, rather than wait for the 10 code editions. Our staff is often called in to 11 support complimentary analysis for colleagues in NRR, 12 and NMSS on licensing actions. Next slide please.
13 Our staff has developed a strong research program, and 14 collaborations to better understand the performance 15 characteristics, and associate implications on 16 component performance for molten salt reactors. Over 17 the last two years we published ten technical letter 18 reports on technical issues, and caps for molten salt 19 reactors, molten salt compatibility of components, 20 environmental considerations, and graphite.
21 We've conducted a highly successful, and 22 well attended international workshop in advanced non-23 light water reactor materials, and component integrity 24 in December of 2019. The discussions, and 25 presentation led to the awareness of research NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 1 activities underway to address these challenges. I'll 2 touch upon some of the ongoing, and future direction 3 activities. One is on molten salt chemistry. We have 4 ongoing efforts to assess the effects of salt purity, 5 irradiation, corrosion, and fission product chemistry 6 on fuel salt performance, and thermal physical 7 properties of the fuel. We -- yes.
8 (Simultaneous speaking.)
9 MEMBER DAVID PETTI: I have a question on 10 that. The problem with molten salt is there's not one 11 molten salt, there's many, how big is the scope in 12 terms of the number of salt that you're considering?
13 MR. IYENGAR: Well, we are, one of the 14 better known ones is the lithium fluoride salt, which 15 is the catalyst we'll be using. But also this is more 16 recent, which is actually more important, we have much 17 more knowledge gap is on the chloride salt. So, we 18 are looking at the effects of chloride salt, but as 19 you know, there's not much information data out there, 20 and hopefully with the new programs the DOE is putting 21 through, and that (Audio interference.) and others are 22 doing, we'll learn more about the chloride salt. We 23 will be addressing those in terms of what are the 24 technical gaps, and what are the regulatory issues?
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72 1 at seeing what are the methods, best practices that 2 can be followed to address some of the component 3 performance issues.
4 MEMBER REMPE: So, just to be clear, 5 you're not doing any of the actual testing, you're not 6 funding the testing itself, you're funding design 7 developers they will have to have this data for 8 whatever, is that true?
9 MR. IYENGAR: Yes. So, to the extent we 10 are trying to first do the assessment of the gaps, and 11 technical issues, and we are actually working with Oak 12 Ridge National Lab, as well as Idaho National Lab, a 13 number of these projects. So, our focus here is not 14 to say let's go develop data, which is, our resources 15 wouldn't be able to support that, our charter wouldn't 16 be supporting that. But we, on the other hand, we 17 will be cognizant of how can we develop appropriate 18 criteria, or how should the vendors develop 19 appropriate criteria, for example if you take molten 20 salt compatibility, or environment degradation, 21 because that's a very tall issue.
22 So, we would look at others, and best 23 practices that could be followed, and we do a very 24 limited amount of experiments, very limited to see 25 what the effects of impurities would be, those kinds NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 1 of tests we would do. We are not doing elaborate 2 testing, and data development if that's what you are 3 asking us. Did I answer your question Member Rempe?
4 MEMBER REMPE: Yes, I just wanted to make 5 sure that, because as Dave said, there's a lot of 6 different ones out there, and I think that the staff 7 has to be judicious in pushing that effort off to the 8 design developers.
9 MR. IYENGAR: Exactly, I totally agree.
10 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Raj, this is Walt 11 Kirchner, I had the same question in mind as David 12 had. Is your focus on impurities in the salt, fluids 13 that are being proposed, or is your focus more on the 14 interaction, the chemistry, the interaction with say 15 graphite, and, or structural materials, or is it all 16 of the above?
17 MR. IYENGAR: It's all of the above, 18 because impurities have a profound effect on 19 compatibility. It has an effect on redox control, 20 which how can you control the redox potential so that 21 you will actually have less corrosion, or less 22 environment degradation? We are looking into that, 23 there's some advanced sensor applications for that.
24 We are looking into electrochemical chemistry. We 25 have a very knowledgeable staff in our team. Dr.
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74 1 Wendy Leed, who is looking into those things, and 2 there are a number of things that we're addressing, 3 and we're doing our judicious, and independent 4 assessment of the data availability.
5 We are also collaborating, quite 6 interestingly in this topic, there's so much research 7 work that has been done in Czechoslovakia, the Res, it 8 was a research center, that Res, for over the past ten 9 years. I actually discovered that when we went on a 10 meeting to Paris a year and a half ago. So, since 11 then we have actually engaged them, and we've gotten 12 a lot more information, and they're doing a lot of 13 data. So, in other words we are leveraging the data 14 out there, even though we may not be able to do the 15 data development, we are looking at what is available 16 out there, and what can help us develop appropriate 17 guidance.
18 MEMBER DAVID PETTI: This is David, I 19 think you understand the landscape pretty well. I 20 would just say that the Canadians are also one to 21 watch in terms of data, although they're more looking 22 on fission product stuff, but they're going to be a 23 source, and the other thing is fluoride salts have 24 been in neutron environments, there's lots of data.
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75 1 there are some real fundamental questions about do you 2 get recombination, do you get a lot of radicals 3 hanging around? Because that changes chemistry. It's 4 like night, and day when you talk about those two 5 systems, and I think you agree based on what you said.
6 MR. IYENGAR: Yes, absolutely, we actually 7 pointed that out -- sorry -- we pointed that out in 8 our first report on MSR technical issues, and gaps we 9 did at the Oak Ridge National Lab, about two and a 10 half years ago we issued that. Yes, you're right, 11 absolutely, and we're doing some follow up work with 12 Oak Ridge on that.
13 MEMBER DAVID PETTI: Good, thanks.
14 MR. IYENGAR: I did mention something 15 about electrochemical separation, so we're also 16 looking into that aspect, because there's some 17 interest in that. The next area of focus within this 18 broad area is reliability, and risk reduction.
19 Following a potential endorsement of ASME section 20 three division two, reliability, and integrity 21 management, we are planning to initiate a program to 22 better understand, and develop technical basis for the 23 use of reliability indices, or indexes for components 24 for way of use designs based on environmental, and 25 aging considerations.
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76 1 As you know that the reliability, and 2 integrity management code is a process, that's what we 3 are potentially endorsing, but there's lots of fill in 4 the blanks there in terms of how you develop that, how 5 you would apply, and that's something we are already 6 looking into it. And somebody mentioned about how 7 agile, or how fast we are in terms of code 8 endorsement, and I must tell you that this is a prime 9 example of that. Even though the division two is on 10 end service inspection only after the reactor starts 11 operation, we actually started to send the endorsement 12 so many years ahead of that.
13 In order to better understand the risk, 14 and safety, and to develop risk, and form performance 15 based methodologies, we are engaged in the evaluation 16 of the application of advanced sensors for use in 17 tritium controlled redox chemistry control, as I 18 mentioned, off gas control, as well as structural 19 health monitoring. This is an area that I think is, 20 offers significant -- yes Dr. Ballinger.
21 MEMBER BALLINGER: Now is there -- excuse 22 me, there's a train coming by my house -- is there a 23 user need for the division two work?
24 MR. IYENGAR: So, we are doing that as 25 part of the advanced non-light water, advanced reactor NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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77 1 work under the so called 1A funds. But we are 2 actually now in the process of developing user need 3 for the stuff that I'm mentioning to you on both the 4 development, and use of reliability in this case.
5 MEMBER BALLINGER: Okay, it'd be nice for 6 us to get a copy of that once it's available, because 7 the user need on the 1937, or the canister stuff is 8 very informative.
9 MR. IYENGAR: Okay, thank you. Is there 10 any other questions? Okay. So, I'll move on to the 11 last area of emphasis here, is also very new, and it's 12 actually proactive I think. Our staff is engaged in 13 a preliminary assessment of technical issues, and 14 considerations related to the management of molten 15 salt reactor salt fuels prior to reactor operations.
16 The assessment will identify potential technical, and 17 regulatory challenges related to enrichment, 18 fabrication, and transportation of MSR fuels in near 19 term technologies.
20 We're looking at some of the proposed 21 interest based on the near term technologies, and you 22 can get that information from the advanced reactor 23 share point site on the recent vendor interest on some 24 of these technologies. The MSR's results will create 25 novel base streams that will potentially require NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 unique storage solutions. We can preliminarily work 2 to identify any potential regulatory gaps regarding 3 management of MSR waste forms in 10 CFR part 71, and 4 72.
5 Additionally, we are also working on a 6 future focused research project that Meraj mentioned 7 to assess the applicability, and limitations of high 8 entropy alloys, because these alloys actually offer 9 great promise for MSR based designs in terms of 10 compatibility. The only problem is whether they can 11 be developed, and manufactured commercially. So we're 12 looking into their assessment. Next slide please. As 13 you know, there's going to be several questions on 14 this slide, I do want to tell you that I probably may 15 only be able to wet a small percentage of your 16 appetite on this topic.
17 We certainly are looking at any future 18 information only briefing on that. That said, there's 19 currently a great deal of interest in digital twin 20 technology because of its potential impact on many 21 industries, both nationally, and internationally, 22 including the nuclear industry. We started this 23 future focused research effort last year. At the 24 time, the knowledge, and interest for application of 25 digital twins was very low, and Member Bley mentioned NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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79 1 it was far out there, and I certainly agree.
2 But somebody talked about the revolution 3 in the Internet of Things, that happened in the mid 4 2000s, and that impacted significantly the development 5 of advanced manufacturing techniques in other types of 6 building construction using these digital twins. So, 7 that actually was the game changer, and that was 8 further aided by the development of the artificial 9 intelligence, and machine learning algorithms in terms 10 of application of many of these things.
11 So, at the time when we proposed it, it 12 was before DOE ARPA-E awarded the 37 million dollar 13 project under the terminal was before the UK initiated 14 a major effort. So, little did we know that this will 15 change within a year. This future focused project was 16 indeed a success story in that within a year we 17 understood that the future is now for the application 18 of digital twins. Evidence offered by the DOE ARPA-E 19 projects under GEMINA, the French, and the UK 20 initiative on digital twins, these initiatives address 21 application of digital twins for current fleet, as 22 well as advanced reactors.
23 So, what is a digital twin, and what are 24 some of the benefits it can offer? In general, a 25 digital twin is a digital representation of a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 1 physical, or a real asset. The physical asset could 2 be a building, a machine, or in our case, a nuclear 3 reactor. Our focus questions here were what does this 4 mean for safety? What runs the virtual, or digital 5 engine? What does this mean for trust, and 6 transparency? With these questions in mind, we set 7 out to investigate the viability of digital twin 8 technology for regulatory applications.
9 Since the acceptance of the digital twins 10 proposal in May 2020, our staff worked diligently to 11 prepare a sound project plan to accomplish the goals 12 of the project, not only the future focused research 13 element of it, we also added elements should this 14 become something of a user need, or should it become 15 larger, do we have a plan to execute that, and 16 implement it. So, with that mindset, we are planning 17 for our four broad areas. Technical preparedness to 18 assess the technical issues, and gaps related to 19 digital twin applications.
20 Regulatory readiness to address regulatory 21 challenges, and gaps to use digital twins, and to 22 develop a property infrastructure. Assessment of 23 standards for use of artificial intelligence, and 24 machine learning, and multi physics reactor models in 25 digital twins. And of course one of the most NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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81 1 important things is communication, and knowledge 2 management. Where we made sure that we communicate, 3 and engage with active stakeholders, and also develop 4 training programs to build our own staff's 5 capabilities, and capacities, et cetera. We have 6 partnered with Idaho National Lab, and Oak Ridge 7 National Laboratory to execute various aspects of the 8 project.
9 We hope to engage the Department of Energy 10 Nuclear Energy Section, as well as the ARPA-E 11 programs, Electrical Power Research Institute, and 12 international stakeholders to enable information 13 sharing, and knowledge building. We sponsored a very 14 successful digital twin workshop that Jeremy 15 mentioned, we had attendance of 250 folks every day, 16 it was the first ever workshop in nuclear application 17 of digital twins.
18 The workshop included presentation panel 19 discussions by experts from advanced reactor 20 development companies, digital twin industry research 21 organization, national laboratories, and international 22 entities. We are planning a follow on workshop to 23 focus on technical issues, technological advances, 24 industry plans, regulatory topics that the next one is 25 in September 14th, to 16th, we'll be actually NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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82 1 cosponsoring, this workshop is being cosponsored by 2 NRC, DOE ARPA-E, and EPRI, and NIL, and Oak Ridge 3 National Lab.
4 We also recently issued a report on the 5 state of technology assessment for digital twin 6 applications for nuclear reactors, and facilities.
7 This report highlights the potential benefits, as well 8 as challenges in the application of digital twins, or 9 reactor systems, as well as subsystems for reactors.
10 Our key observation from the assessment include the 11 interest in digital twin technologies continue to 12 grow, and the technology is expected to experience 13 rapid, and wide industry adoption within the next ten 14 years.
15 Current efforts in nuclear industry are 16 focused on specific enabling technologies that form a 17 digital twin, such as advanced sensors, digital 18 computing, and communication infrastructure, high 19 fidelity models, data analytics, machine learning, and 20 artificial intelligence, and of course multi physics, 21 and modeling, and simulation, which you are familiar 22 with. There's also a need to develop a common 23 understanding including an agreeable definition of the 24 structure, and functions of a digital twin. That's 25 all I have on this slide, thank you so much.
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83 1 CHAIR SUNSERI: Ron, I see your hand is 2 up, is that from before, or you have a new question?
3 MEMBER BALLINGER: My apologies, I didn't 4 lower it.
5 CHAIR SUNSERI: I thought that was the 6 case --
7 MEMBER BALLINGER: Yeah.
8 CHAIR SUNSERI: That's okay, I just wanted 9 to check.
10 MEMBER BALLINGER: But now that I, now I 11 do have something to say.
12 CHAIR SUNSERI: Yeah, go ahead.
13 MEMBER BALLINGER: On these digital twins.
14 Digital twin is a buzz word. The agency, what would 15 you call a reactor simulator? A digital twin, that's 16 what it is. So, the agency has been using what would 17 now be called digital twins for quite some time, and 18 the advent of very powerful computers just makes 19 things a lot more easier, and makes the models better.
20 So, I would encourage the agency to not start from 21 zero when it comes to digital twins.
22 I would make an assessment of what the 23 agency, and what the industry actually is already 24 doing, which if you stretched it a little bit, they 25 would be digital twins. So, you're not starting from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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84 1 scratch, I don't think you are.
2 MR. IYENGAR: No, no, I mean certainly I 3 wouldn't disagree with you Dr. Ballinger, the 4 simulator is digital representation of reactor to 5 whatever extent you want in terms of detail, you can 6 have a low detail simulator, or high detail simulator.
7 The digital twin takes it far beyond that. Why is 8 that --
9 MEMBER BALLINGER: But you're mot starting 10 from scratch. If an applicant, or utility wants to do 11 maintenance for example, they'll go to their PRA, and 12 exercise their PRA to see what the effect on CDF is 13 likely to be if I take this component out of service.
14 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah, right, I certainly 15 agree with --
16 (Simultaneous speaking.)
17 MEMBER BALLINGER: In effect they're using 18 a digital twin.
19 MR. IYENGAR: Right. So, the leap from 20 that is not only enabled by the Internet of Things, 21 but it's also enabled with the advent, or increase of 22 advanced sensors, should they be reliable. You can 23 actually put in these sensors in many different 24 locations, and get real time information. So, the 25 digital twin will be operating in real time compared NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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85 1 to your physical asset. Now, what is more profound, 2 which I think is probably not well understood, I 3 think, now if a digital twin exists, and there's only 4 one digital twin, not like simulators, five people 5 having different simulators.
6 If a digital twin exists either for a 7 reactor, or a subsystem, which is viable, and 8 reliable, and operates in real time, with real time 9 data, and do data analytics on, and create these 10 learning models, if they exist, you will see the 11 trust, and transparency element that I mentioned to 12 you will become so very easy. And that's what one of 13 the things that we always, between the regulator, and 14 the licensee, trust is always a very important topic.
15 MEMBER BALLINGER: Yeah, I would take a 16 close look at the NuScale simulator, it's getting 17 pretty good.
18 MR. IYENGAR: Yes, and I want to tell you 19 also, we thought about that, and we have a person in 20 our team who is the simulator expert from the TTC, so 21 I just want to let you know. Thank you so much 22 though.
23 CHAIR SUNSERI: All right, thank you for 24 that, and we're going to take a break now until 4:25, 25 and then when we come back, we have three more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 1 branches to cover. So, at the pace we've been going, 2 it's been over 30 minutes per branch, so we only have 3 20 minutes per branch coming back after break. So, 4 keep that in mind, 20 minutes should be plenty to get 5 through your topic, I've seen the slides, so keep your 6 remarks direct. All right, so we are recessed until 7 4:25, thank you.
8 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 9 off the record at 4:03 p.m. and resumed at 4:25 p.m.)
10 CHAIR SUNSERI: It is 4:25, we will 11 reconvene the meeting with the Materials Engineering 12 Branch. And I know I made some remarks prior to the 13 break about the schedule.
14 I think the interaction between the 15 members and the Division of Engineering have been 16 good. But if you reflect on where those interactions 17 have occurred, they occurred on the key parts of the 18 presentation.
19 So, I think if we can just get to those 20 key parts of the presentation, have the good dialogue, 21 we can get through the presentation and still have a 22 timely resolution of today's meeting.
23 So, at that, will turn back to Division of 24 Engineering. So, I guess it's Steve? Are you up 25 next?
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87 1 MR. RUFFIN: I am. But let me just start 2 by saying good afternoon and thank you for this 3 opportunity to present to you.
4 And let me say that I am the newly minted 5 Chief of the Materials Engineering Branch. I'm 6 focusing on newly minted here because we are just 7 north of a couple of months now. And so, I just 8 wanted to kind of make sure that for context some of 9 the historical information that you're referring to, 10 some of those things I may have to take actions and 11 take them back.
12 And because there are a couple of areas 13 where we intend to come back and brief you at another 14 time. And so, that may be my response on a couple of 15 things.
16 But I think we have a good story to tell.
17 I've worked with the great folks in my branch and we 18 prepared me to be able to provide you some 19 comprehensive materials of what we're doing in this 20 branch. And so, I look forward to the conversation.
21 Next slide, please.
22 So, the Materials Engineering Branch has 23 13 staff and provides expertise in metallurgy, non-24 destructive examination methods, physical chemistry 25 and material science, to support NRC needs for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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88 1 methods, data, standards and tools, associated with 2 corrosion and cracking of nuclear power plant 3 structures and components.
4 Those can be summed up within four 5 functional areas: to characterize the causes and 6 effects of material degradations in nuclear plants, to 7 evaluate the reliability of NDE methods, to evaluate 8 advanced manufacturing technologies, and to provide 9 licensing and regulatory support, all of which I will 10 discuss in more detail on the next slide. Next slide, 11 please.
12 This slide lists major technical projects 13 associated with the four functional areas. Two of the 14 material degradation technical projects, IAD and long-15 term operations, which has a significant focus on 16 harvesting, work together providing shared resources 17 and results.
18 The purpose of that research is to get 19 more data on the radiated stainless steel well 20 materials or high fluence effects on radiated 21 stainless steel plate materials, to confirm results 22 from laboratory experiments and analytical 23 simulations, and to understand material degradations 24 during service conditions, to support regulatory 25 decisions, or long-term operations. I will cover this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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89 1 topic more in one of our focus projects.
2 Another of our major projects is primary 3 water stress corrosion cracking, PWSCC, materials 4 testing. In this area, we are developing PWSCC 5 initiation and crack growth rate data on nickel base 6 alloys, using reactive pressure boundary components.
7 We are participating in the Alloy 690 8 PWSCC crack growth rate expert panel, to evaluate 9 recently collected data on nickel-base well metals.
10 The research also includes evaluating data gaps.
11 The data is used to inform regulatory 12 decisions related to inspection frequencies, and 13 future rulemaking to address 10 C.F.R. 55A updates to 14 ASME code.
15 Pristine generator tube inspection and 16 integrity issues. Our focus is on research for 17 detecting and characterizing flaws in steam generator 18 tubes, to support oversight and review of steam 19 generator tube integrity issues, to ensure that 20 service-induced degradation does not compromise their 21 structural integrity or their leak tightness.
22 Next is reliability of non-destructive 23 examinations. This is research on NDE of nuclear 24 plant systems and components, as well as the effects 25 of human performance issues on NDE reliability.
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90 1 This allows us to assess NDE performance 2 key knowledge gaps, and confirm the performance of 3 industry in the technologies and methodologies, to 4 support in-service inspections and disposition of IFI 5 (phonetic) findings.
6 Next listed is advanced manufacturing 7 technologies. And finally, we provide support for 8 licensing amendments, alternative requests and relief 9 requests, provide inspection support to the regions, 10 and support for ASME codes and standards activities on 11 many of the technical areas represented on this slide.
12 Next slide, please.
13 MEMBER HALNON: Steve, this is Greg 14 Halnon, real quick. Do you have a Level 3 NDE 15 specialist on your staff?
16 MR. RUFFIN: I do not know the answer to 17 that, Greg. That might be one I have to get back to 18 you on.
19 MEMBER HALNON: Okay, that's fine. I was 20 just curious. I have oversight of vendors in that 21 area. So, we can talk later.
22 MR. RUFFIN: Yeah. Okay, the first of our 23 two focus projects is advanced manufacturing 24 technologies, AMT, which are techniques and the 25 processing methods that have not been traditionally NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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91 1 used in the U.S. nuclear industry, and not been 2 formally standardized or codified by the nuclear 3 industry.
4 NRC's focus is based on industry interests 5 and five primary techniques or technologies: laser 6 powder bed fusion, direct energy deposition, electron 7 beam welding, powder metallurgy hot isostatic 8 pressing, or PM HIP, and cold spray.
9 Our focus on the five primary techniques 10 is important because, consistent with research model, 11 we must be ready. It is essential that we are 12 prepared for future reviews of AMT applications.
13 A variety of stakeholders are working 14 towards more widespread use in both existing and 15 future nuclear applications. Vendors and licensees 16 are applicants who are identifying applications and 17 developing technical basis for gaining regulatory 18 acceptance.
19 NDI has developed a roadmap to understand 20 industry needs and interests, and assist with 21 regulatory acceptance. EPRI is developing techniques 22 for large components in small modular reactors, and 23 the U.S. Department of Energy is performing basic and 24 applied research and technology development to support 25 AMT implementation.
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92 1 We have conducted one public workshop and 2 five seminars. In December of 2020, NRC hosted a 3 workshop on advanced manufacturing technologies for 4 nuclear applications. The workshop brought the 5 various stakeholders together and it fostered the 6 opportunity to broadly discuss potential industry 7 plans and use of AMTs.
8 We had five seminars conducted by NIST for 9 NRC staff on AMT issues, in November and December of 10 2020, and in March and April of 2021.
11 It's worth noting that NRC has a 12 significant number of collaboration efforts ongoing.
13 We have research contracts with national laboratories 14 ANL, ORNL, PNNL.
15 We finalized the MOU addendum with EPRI 16 for AMT research. We have ongoing quarterly meetings 17 with EPRI and DOE. We have an international agency 18 agreement with NIST.
19 We have two NRC staff rotations at ORNL, 20 one ongoing and one planned. We have an information 21 exchange with U.S. government counterparts, including 22 DOE, FAA, NIST, NAVAA, and NAC.
23 NRC devotes a significant amount of effort 24 to be ready for AMT. Staff activities related to AMT 25 have been organized and planned through the NRC AMT NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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93 1 Action Plan.
2 We have project teams that meet weekly and 3 biweekly. That includes research and NRR technical 4 staff, senior level advisors, and branch chiefs that 5 make up the AMT steering committee. In addition, the 6 project team briefs the Cognizant Division director 7 monthly.
8 MEMBER BALLINGER: This is Ron Ballinger.
9 I'll give you that all this stuff is very cool and 10 useful as far as research and development goes.
11 But if somebody comes to you and says, I 12 want to use this material, it satisfies the ASME code, 13 Section 3, Section 2, and any other code that might be 14 appropriate, why do you care that it was cold-sprayed 15 or some powder metallurgic part? Why is it an issue 16 if the material satisfies the existing codes and 17 standards?
18 MR. RUFFIN: Well, I think, Ron, I think 19 we're working on those codes and standards committees 20 and we're trying to make sure that we understand any 21 gaps that are there, that may exist, in terms of 22 making sure that it satisfies our regulatory needs and 23 concerns.
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94 1 discussions, that you're referring to.
2 MEMBER BALLINGER: Okay. All right.
3 MR. RUFFIN: Okay. So, as we look to the 4 future, our efforts to continue, as we assess the 5 safety significance difference between AMTs and 6 traditional manufacturing processes from a 7 performance-based perspective.
8 For each of the five primary techniques or 9 technologies, staff has developed or will develop 10 technical reports and draft guidelines documents.
11 We prepare the NRC staff to address, as 12 appropriate, industry implementation of components 13 manufactured using AMTs, to 10 C.F.R. 5059 process.
14 We identify and address AMT 15 characteristics pertinent to safety, from risk 16 performance-based perspective, that are not managed or 17 addressed by codes, standards, regulations.
18 We provide guidance and tools for review 19 consistency, communication, and knowledge management, 20 for the efforts associated with AMT reviews. And we 21 provide transparency to stakeholders on the process 22 for AMT approvals.
23 As Jeremy mentioned earlier, we recognize 24 the need to have a more focused briefing on AMT. We 25 propose to come back and provide ACRS a dedicated NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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95 1 briefing, when the time is right, maybe in about a 2 year. Next slide, please.
3 The second focused project is harvesting.
4 Our harvesting efforts focuses on obtaining 5 information on passive components from decommissioning 6 nuclear power plants, which supports the maturation of 7 aging management programs, and provides increased 8 assurance that programs can safely mitigate materials 9 degradation to a long-term operation.
10 Harvesting is performed by removing aged 11 materials from the decommissioning reactor, and 12 sending the material to lab for testing and 13 characterization.
14 Our program covers research on the 15 degradation of metallic, concrete, and electrical 16 components, various aging mechanisms, such as 17 corrosion, irradiation cracking, and other forms of 18 physically and chemically induced damage.
19 Generally, the most valuable aspects of 20 harvesting cannot be performed remotely in the plant, 21 but require testing with specialized equipment in a 22 lab or hot cell.
23 Characterization that would be done in the 24 plant without removing materials is mostly limited to 25 NDE.
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96 1 Harvesting is significant because it 2 increases our understanding of material degradation 3 during service conditions, to support regulatory 4 decisions on long-term operation.
5 We have supported important material 6 testing priorities to harvesting, including reactor 7 internals from Zorita and neutron absorbing materials 8 from Zion.
9 As for our future direction, NRC 10 strategies are formed by harvesting priorities, based 11 on regulatory value and harvesting opportunities. We 12 look to perform harvesting when the opportunity aligns 13 with our priorities.
14 Our collaboration efforts include NEA 15 Studsvik Material Integrity Life Extension, or SMILE, 16 project, which performs research on materials 17 harvested from the reactor internals, reactor pressure 18 vessel, piping, and steam generators from shut down 19 Swedish plant.
20 NEA framework for irradiation experiments 21 (FIDES), which supports the radiation-assisted 22 degradation research on radiated stainless steel 23 wells, and creep relaxation of (Audio interference.)
24 materials.
25 In addition, we have an MOU addendum with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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97 1 EPRI for PWSCC expert panel activities, PWSCC crack 2 initiation testing, and long-term operations research.
3 Our priorities as we move forward are to 4 maintain awareness of operating experience, to 5 identify emergent degradation issues or materials 6 performance trends that could affect plant safety, to 7 pursue information sharing and cooperative research 8 with DOE and industry counterparts, to identify 9 opportunities to harvest X plant materials for 10 analysis and testing, to engage with DOE, EPRI and 11 international counterparts to identify alternatives to 12 the Halden Research Reactor Project for X plant 13 materials, and radiation and irradiation materials 14 testing.
15 MEMBER BALLINGER: This is Ron Ballinger.
16 I hate to be a gadfly here, but I'm going to be.
17 These harvesting efforts are usually extremely 18 expensive.
19 And we've just been going through, and are 20 still going through, an issue with regard to Reg 21 Guide 1.99, where a lot of work has been done to 22 extend and extrapolate out to 80 years the issue of 23 pressure vessel embrittlement, to see if there's an 24 issue, and in fact there is a deviation with the 25 current empirical correlation.
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98 1 But the NRC has decided not to change 2 anything. And so my question then is, why are we 3 caring about harvesting pressure-vessel samples when 4 we're not going to make use of them in any of the 5 analysis of pressure-vessel degradation out to 6 80 years?
7 How do we rationalize that kind of 8 harvesting when we are not going to make use of, or 9 we've elected not to make use of, the data from those 10 harvestings?
11 MR. RUFFIN: So, I can't really speak to 12 that so much as in terms of understanding or 13 appreciating our priorities for it. I think one of 14 the things that I've come to learn in the two months 15 that I've been here about harvesting, is it helps 16 inform us in terms of whether or not the aging 17 management plans, and things of that nature, are 18 sufficient for long-term operation, and for kind of 19 the decision that we've been making for these, and we 20 confirm those.
21 And the decisions or considerations or 22 priorities around harvesting will vary, depending on 23 the safety significance of the technical issue, and 24 things like that.
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99 1 range of things, but certainly from what I've gathered 2 during the last couple of months here, we find that 3 there is a great deal of value in it and for those 4 areas that we think are high-priority. And I see 5 Louise has just hopped on there.
6 MS. LUND: Thank you. And I just wanted 7 to make a comment and provide some insight too on the 8 Reg Guide 1.99.
9 The perspective that we don't plan to do 10 anything about it is not really our perspective right 11 now. Really, what we've done is we have -- the 12 interactions that we had with the subcommittee and 13 full committee previously was based on that review 14 that we did where we do with reg guides on a periodic 15 basis.
16 What we did learn from that, and also in 17 interactions with the industry, is we need to take a 18 very focused, more surgical, approach towards figuring 19 out -- and this is really what the ACRS said too, is 20 how to go about doing it.
21 So, you target the plants that really will 22 be impacted, without inadvertently costing the 23 industry a lot of money, when they may not be impacted 24 by it.
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100 1 at doing a more holistic evaluation, also looking at 2 Appendix H too. So, really, where we are now is 3 having discussions about recommendations that have 4 been put forward internally to figure out what we 5 should do next.
6 And we also did a little bit more digging 7 and analysis to figure out when we would really need 8 to move forward on doing these updates, and moving 9 forward on these things. So, that's really where 10 we're at. So, concluding that we aren't going to do 11 anything about it, that's not the perspective that we 12 have.
13 And this is just something that has been 14 subject to more analysis, more discussion, and really 15 I would say an expansion of really what we're looking 16 at and how to go about doing it, with the idea of 17 being responsive to the need to do it specifically for 18 the plants that are really going to be most affected 19 by it in the time frame that is most likely.
20 And that's a lot of what we've been doing.
21 We've been spending a lot of time -- Ann Bradford and 22 I over at NRR -- in trying to make sure that we've got 23 alignment also above us too, as to really how to go 24 about doing all this.
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101 1 communication over to the committee, is we are doing 2 that and we plan to, when we have the path sort of 3 laid out, just come back over to the committee and 4 discuss what the road ahead looks like at this point.
5 So, that's really where we are with that 6 particular item. And so, as far as with the 7 harvesting, it does help inform a lot of the work that 8 we do and sort of reality-checks a lot of the work 9 that we do.
10 And these are opportunities really to do 11 that. And we've been able to partner with others that 12 see value in this and really want to move forward too.
13 Anyway, this is another area where we 14 really would like to kind of talk more extensively 15 with the committee on as well.
16 MEMBER BALLINGER: We are working on 17 scheduling a meeting just exactly for this purpose.
18 So, I'm sure it'll happen sooner than later.
19 MR. RUFFIN: Ron, I also want to invite 20 Rob Tregoning, our senior-level advisor. His hand's 21 up. I'd like him to weigh in on this issue as well.
22 Go ahead, Rob.
23 MR. TREGONING: Yeah. Thanks, Steve.
24 This is Rob Tregoning, Senior Technical Advisor for 25 Division of Engineering. Dr. Ballinger, I just wanted NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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102 1 to clarify.
2 Harvesting RPV material is not a priority 3 for NRC harvesting efforts. As you noted, there's 4 been extensive research in this area, going back over 5 50 years. And industry currently has programs where 6 they're looking at continual radiation of surveillance 7 capital material. And we'll be getting information, 8 or they'll be sharing that information from that 9 research with us.
10 So, the SMILE program, which is an 11 international program, is doing harvesting of RPV 12 material. But in these international programs, you 13 can't tailor them specifically for your interest.
14 So, there are many international partners 15 that are very interested in harvesting RPV materials, 16 but it's not a particular interest of NRC. And it 17 just so happens that they're doing it under that SMILE 18 program, to satisfy other interests of other 19 participating organizations.
20 We're not doing any other harvesting in 21 that area in any of the programs that Steve's talking 22 about.
23 MEMBER BALLINGER: Very good. Thank you.
24 CHAIR SUNSERI: So, I guess I would 25 suggest in this area, since there is interest, why NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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103 1 don't we go ahead and look into having an informal 2 meeting for planning purposes, to set up a Skype for 3 this future meeting on this topic, because I think 4 several of us might have some ideas that -- Steve, if 5 you could just coordinate with Jose and we'll get an 6 informal setup to scope out that future meeting, much 7 like we scoped out this meeting.
8 MEMBER BALLINGER: And Chris Brown, I 9 don't know if he's in on this meeting, but he's been 10 working on this as well.
11 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay. So, Chris Brown 12 will be our staff contact.
13 MR. RUFFIN: Great. Okay, and that 14 concludes my remarks. So, the next presenter is Chris 15 Cook.
16 CHAIR SUNSERI: Thank you very much, 17 Steve. That was a good presentation, by the way. You 18 stayed right on the point. Appreciate that.
19 MR. RUFFIN: Thanks very much.
20 CHAIR SUNSERI: All right, next.
21 MR. COOK: All right, well good afternoon.
22 My name is Chris Cook and I'm Chief of the 23 Instrumentation Controls and Electrical Engineering 24 Branch. And thank you all very much for the 25 opportunity to present in the different research NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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104 1 programs in my branch. Next slide, please.
2 So, my branch of approximately 15 staff 3 have a wide range of expertise in electronics, 4 computer science, instrumentation and control, 5 software and hardware design, power engineering, and 6 electrical engineering.
7 The goal of the branch is to implement a 8 broad research program that utilizes these technical 9 skills, to support regulatory review and oversight of 10 safety- and security-related systems and components.
11 The branch has three core functional 12 areas: instrumentation and controls, cybersecurity, 13 and electrical and power engineering.
14 As part of the instrumentation and 15 controls research area, staff are involved in 16 regulatory research that enables plant modernization, 17 and facilitates safety-related review of digital 18 instrumentation and control systems.
19 Staff are also involved in developing 20 regulatory guidance that facilitates both design and 21 review of safety-related software and hardware.
22 Finally, staff in this area of the branch 23 have expertise in a wide range of wireless 24 communication technologies.
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105 1 is cybersecurity. This is an exciting and actively 2 growing research area for us. We've added several new 3 staff since the last ACRS biannual meeting, and we've 4 also recently started several new projects. And we'll 5 touch on these projects more in my focus slides.
6 But regarding the cybersecurity hiring, as 7 Louise said, it really has been an all-of-the-above 8 approach to deal with the new research requests from 9 the program offices.
10 Yes, we've hired new staff from outside 11 the agency since the last biannual meeting. I've also 12 been able to pull in staff from other offices around 13 the agency.
14 This summer I also have two college 15 student interns, one focusing specifically on 16 cybersecurity and wireless heart.
17 We also have a number of contracts with 18 several DOE national laboratories. So, I feel like 19 we've been busy, but we are getting the research work 20 done that has been requested by the program offices.
21 The third functional area is the broad 22 topic of electrical and power engineering. These 23 staff focus on regulatory guidance associated with 24 topics such as electrical equipment, qualification, 25 long-term aging of cables, onsite emergency AC and DC NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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106 1 power supplies, and onsite electrical power 2 distribution systems.
3 This third functional area is directly led 4 by Mr. Ken Miller, and he'll be briefing on this area 5 immediately after I wrap up.
6 I'd also be remiss if I didn't note some 7 of the rich collaborative relationships we have with 8 a number of external organizations in these research 9 areas.
10 At the moment, my staff has especially 11 rich collaborations ongoing with several DOE 12 laboratories: EPRI, NIST, IFE, Halden, the Office of 13 Nuclear Regulation in the UK, and several IEEE and IEC 14 standard committee working groups. Next slide, 15 please.
16 This slide highlights the diversity of 17 projects covered by the three technical focused areas 18 of my branch.
19 In the digital INC area, some examples of 20 our efforts include a recently finished project that 21 provides a technical basis for developing guidance for 22 the safe use of embedded digital devices, or EDDs, in 23 commercial nuclear power plants. And we're now 24 sunsetting that research.
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107 1 a newer report that provides observations on EDDs, 2 based on such things as their classification, 3 configurability, consequences of failure, and the 4 potential for common-cause failures.
5 This report also reviews how other 6 agencies worldwide, those nuclear and non-nuclear, 7 regulate and approve use of EDDs.
8 Other examples of research in the digital 9 INC area are continuing research to investigate 10 common-cause failure, and continue research to 11 identify and control for hazards and programmable 12 digital devices.
13 A fourth example is a project area we're 14 actively collaborating on with EPRI, to develop 15 training for NRC staff on how to assess results 16 generated by EPRI's digital engineering guide.
17 This includes training where a regulator 18 or inspector could find the information needed to 19 reach a safety conclusion, safety requirement 20 specification, downstream verifications and 21 validations, and points in the process where an 22 inspector would be able to perform the required 23 activities.
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108 1 engineers who are currently using the software to 2 execute modifications, or develop new designs.
3 In the cybersecurity area, I'd like to 4 highlight four projects. The first three bullets are 5 going to be covered in greater detail in my following 6 slides, is their focus area is the ACRS members told 7 us you wanted to hear about today. The fourth bullet, 8 however, is not covered in those slides.
9 Since the start of the calendar year, 10 Mr. Paul Rebstock has helped coordinate a series of 11 expert seminars on a range of cybersecurity topics, in 12 collaboration with our partners in NSIR.
13 These seminars were open to all NRC staff, 14 including staff in our regional offices, through 15 resident inspectors at plants.
16 Topics included meeting with counterparts 17 at the Canadian Nuclear Security Commission on 18 February 18th, and later with counterparts in the 19 Office of Nuclear Regulation in the U.K. on 20 April 23rd, to discuss a wide variety of cybersecurity 21 topics.
22 These half-day virtual meetings discussed 23 regulations and guidance, regulatory use of industry 24 standards, and lessons learned from inspections and 25 exercises.
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109 1 Another example seminar occurred on 2 April 29th, when experts from the Mitre Corporation 3 met virtually with NRC staff to describe their 4 adversarial tactics, techniques, and common knowledge, 5 or ATTACK, cybersecurity framework for industrial 6 control systems.
7 Although the first series of scheduled 8 seminars is now complete, we hope to continue the 9 seminar series in the future, and we're coordinating 10 details with NSIR.
11 These seminars could also be expanded to 12 include discussion on cybersecurity issues that can 13 arise with use of artificial intelligence and machine 14 learning, which is on our radar as we start to get 15 more engaged in this area with our sister division, in 16 the Office of Research.
17 Regarding the electrical and power 18 engineering area of the branch, we also have a number 19 of interesting, active major projects.
20 However, I don't want to steal Ken 21 Miller's thunder. So, I'll let him brief you on those 22 activities after we cover the two technical focus 23 areas that were requested by the ACRS members.
24 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Hey, Chris, this is 25 Jose March-Leuba. Are we talking about the licensee NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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110 1 network replica for cybersecurity training? Could you 2 give us a 30-second description of what it is? I'm 3 interested to know if it's a software-based 4 simulation, or do you have (Audio interference.)
5 MR. COOK: You know what? That is 6 actually coming up, I believe, in the next slide. So, 7 if you can advance to the next slide.
8 MEMBER REMPE: Before you do that though, 9 I have a question while we're on this slide.
10 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Sure, Member Remke.
11 Go on.
12 MEMBER REMPE: In the experts seminar, you 13 mentioned that you're talking to experts that are 14 knowledgeable about the cybersecurity standards.
15 Have you started going through and 16 reviewing the IEC standards, like you are with this 17 cable and equipment and offsite power standards? Or 18 are you just not far along yet to want to try and 19 review those standards and accept them, or reject 20 certain portions of them?
21 MR. COOK: So, we're getting involved with 22 them and it is going slow. But one of the things that 23 we're actually doing -- I was going to mention it with 24 the wireless technology -- is there's a NIST working 25 group, federal agency coordination group, that we're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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111 1 involved in.
2 So, we are getting involved with them. We 3 are actually growing more into them. But right now, 4 it's only the NIST workshop that my staff is actually 5 participating in.
6 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, thank you.
7 MR. COOK: You bet. All right, Slide 28, 8 please. Great, thank you. One of the ACRS-requested 9 focus areas for my branch was the topic of 10 cybersecurity, which was actually challenging for me 11 to summarize and text, given the limited amount of 12 time that I have today.
13 So, as a compromise, what I thought I'd do 14 is use graphics instead, to illustrate two ongoing 15 research projects at a very high level.
16 The first one is the Attack surface, which 17 is loosely described as the sum of vulnerabilities and 18 attack vectors for a system.
19 One of my cybersecurity staff, Dr. Onya 20 Kim, developed the top graphic to describe the attack 21 surface of human body, which we're sort of all 22 familiar with -- don't touch your eyes, don't touch 23 your nose, and mouth refrain, which is especially true 24 today with the pandemic going on.
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112 1 particle at the end of the finger, the spikes on it, 2 to make it look like a COVID virus.
3 Obviously, my branch is not researching 4 COVID. Rather, the objective of this research is to 5 characterize the potential attack surface of critical 6 digital assets, or CDAs, located at nuclear power 7 plants.
8 Typically, these CDAs are located inside 9 the protected area and behind the data diode. The 10 characterization of the attack surface will be based 11 on a definition that is appropriate for digital INC in 12 nuclear facilities, and will be technology-neutral, so 13 that it can be easily extended to new technologies as 14 they're implemented and adapted to advance reactors.
15 The knowledge gained by this research can 16 be used by NRC staff to risk-inform the cybersecurity 17 reviews, and inspectors to support upgrades, 18 modifications, in advance reactors.
19 Now, the second figure gets to the 20 licensing network replica, which there was a question 21 about. And this second figure was developed by 22 Dr. Doug Eskins, who is working in my branch on a 23 detail, but he's actually permanently located in NRC's 24 Technical Training Center in Chattanooga.
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113 1 licensees who meet cybersecurity requirements by 2 performing onsite inspections and technical 3 assessments.
4 To perform these activities, NRC staff 5 must be well and continuously trained on licensee 6 cybersecurity programs, our implementations and 7 configurations, relative to licensing networks and 8 critical digital assets -- CDAs. I should stick with 9 the acronym.
10 However, tools to train NRC staff on 11 licensee cybersecurity systems could be improved. The 12 goal of this research project is to investigate the 13 feasibility of improving cybersecurity training for 14 NRC staff using a hands-on cybersecurity training 15 platform, something we're calling a licensing network 16 replica.
17 This replica would train staff with a tool 18 that is representative of licensee systems, and it 19 would provide NRC staff with the ability to learn 20 firsthand how to verify regulatory compliance using 21 performance-based methods of both current and future 22 licensee systems.
23 The first step is to develop the set of 24 requirements and identify available resources for the 25 licensee network replica.
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114 1 This step will document the state-of-the-2 art and technology and resources for replicating 3 networks and digital systems.
4 The second step will then assess the 5 feasibility. For example, the cost, the risk and 6 technical maturity, at various replica implementa-7 tions, and then recommend options for future NRC 8 decision-making.
9 Both the attack surface and licensing 10 network project were just started within the past two 11 months. So, obviously, more details will be coming on 12 these projects in the months to come. Next slide, 13 please.
14 The second ACRS-requested focus areas on 15 the topic of advancement of wireless and enabling 16 technology. This is an active research area for us 17 too, both within the agency and external.
18 As I already mentioned, we are 19 participating in the NIST-led advance communication 20 technology working group, which is chartered under the 21 Agency Committee on Standards Policy.
22 My branch has two active research topics 23 that fall under the category of wireless technologies.
24 And both of these started just this last calendar 25 year.
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115 1 We developed this figure, or this figure 2 on this slide, in response to questions we received 3 about how these projects overlap, since both projects 4 actually had a wireless in the title. And I thought 5 this figure may be helpful for explaining both 6 projects today.
7 One project is with NRR. This project has 8 a focus on the potential safety implications of 9 wireless signals on safety-related, or important-to-10 safety, equipment.
11 Even though the safety-related equipment 12 is hard-wired, use of wireless devices in nearness of 13 equipment can cause spurious signals, or degrade data 14 fidelity, in the wire environment.
15 The outcome of this research is to examine 16 topics, such as the appropriate wireless exclusion 17 area size, electromagnetic interference in data 18 fidelity, potential impacts from wireless use during 19 plant operation, as well as during outages, when the 20 wireless environment can change.
21 The second project is with NSIR. The 22 objective of this research is to gain knowledge on 23 potential cybersecurity risks from introducing 24 wireless technology devices, the wireless technology, 25 into emergency preparedness, safety or security-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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116 1 critical networks isolated by either a hardware-based 2 data diode, or air gap.
3 The information gained from this research 4 will inform the NRC staff of security risks of using 5 wireless communication technologies from other safety-6 critical industries that have implemented wireless 7 technologies within an isolated network.
8 This research project will collect 9 information on how these non-NRC-regulated facilities 10 isolate their internal safety or security-critical 11 networks.
12 If a wireless technology is found that's 13 been implemented in an isolated network, then we'll 14 also assess the capacity to which that wireless 15 technology was used.
16 The project will also report out on 17 potential security risks considered by these 18 organizations, and what mitigation strategies they 19 used.
20 We'll also ask about the analyses and 21 security controls they used, which led the high-risk 22 facilities to determine that the secure use of 23 wireless technology within an isolated network was 24 actually appropriate.
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117 1 critical facilities that evaluated, and then decided 2 not to implement wireless technologies.
3 This research project will provide 4 recommendations in the form of best-practices, to 5 prevent the introduction of new cybersecurity attack 6 pathways, analyses best suited for addressing the 7 change in attack surface, and what wireless 8 architectures for communication are simpler and safer 9 to implement.
10 Technical research reports from both the 11 NSIR and NRR projects are expected in late-FY22.
12 Unless there are any questions, I'd like to turn the 13 floor over to Ken Miller, who will be discussing the 14 electrical team that he manages.
15 MEMBER BROWN: I have a question. This is 16 Charlie Brown, Chris.
17 MR. COOK: Oh, good afternoon. Yes.
18 MEMBER BROWN: Thank you. Yesterday, we 19 had a subcommittee meeting with a summary of the 20 cybersecurity efforts. And one of the things that was 21 discussed, obviously, was the levels of defense and 22 the figures they showed.
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118 1 systems, but they did talk about the physical part of 2 it.
3 In other words, within that protected 4 boundary is the -- for instance, all the guard 5 capabilities, the intrusion alarms, etc., etc. Do you 6 all support their capability in the physical security 7 and their use of electronics and other computer-based 8 systems?
9 MR. COOK: So, I have Dr. Onya Kim on the 10 phone, who can perhaps add more, if needed. But what 11 I'd like to do is -- I attended yesterday's seminar 12 and was listening to that meeting as well.
13 What we're doing is, we're limiting this 14 work. We are looking at all the critical data assets.
15 And in fact, the attack surface is really looking at 16 the CDAs that are there that get into it.
17 And as you know from what Jim Bearsy was 18 talking about yesterday, that's sort of the subset 19 that we're looking at are those CDAs. And as you 20 know, there are different subsets of that.
21 So, as far as which particular ones we're 22 doing, we're still in the process of putting that 23 together.
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119 1 to get out of that attack surface project. And we 2 want to get a comprehensive list of the attack surface 3 elements that are behind the data diode.
4 And the other thing we want to do is 5 really get an attack surface library. Something like, 6 we're thinking about like a living document of 7 different types of CDAs that are behind the diode.
8 So, unless I see Onya raising her hand or coming to 9 the floor, I'll stop there.
10 MEMBER BROWN: Great. Let me amplify that 11 a little bit. I mean, the way it was represented in 12 the boundary conditions, was that the physical 13 security is handled on the safety side of the data 14 diode. In other words, it's blocked.
15 So, fundamentally, you evaluate their CDAs 16 against the same metrics you would use for either what 17 I call non-reactor safety-type systems, which may have 18 different uses in how you access them.
19 Some of them may even be wireless, which 20 you talk about your wireless stuff as part of this as 21 well, and so I'm just curious as to if there was -- I 22 don't want to get into real detail and drive this 23 thing to ad infinitum.
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120 1 make sure they're covered with the best protection 2 they can relative. Because they have to communicate 3 outside.
4 (Simultaneous speaking.)
5 Is it only one way, and how do they do 6 that one way or not one way?
7 MR. COOK: Yeah. Well, my staff just kept 8 growing through the zero tax that -- the project does 9 include all the safety, security, EP devices. All the 10 CDAs that are in there.
11 MEMBER BROWN: So, you all do support them 12 then. Okay.
13 MR. COOK: Yes, we do. Yes.
14 MEMBER BROWN: That's the easy answer 15 then. Okay, thank you.
16 MR. COOK: Thank you.
17 MEMBER BROWN: Okay, Chris.
18 MR. COOK: Okay.
19 MEMBER BROWN: I'm done.
20 MR. COOK: All right. With that, I'll 21 turn it over to Ken, who is going to be handling the 22 Electrical Engineering Team.
23 MR. MILLER: Good afternoon. As Chris has 24 said earlier, my name is Ken Miller. I'm a Senior 25 Electrical Engineer and Team Lead of the Electrical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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121 1 Engineering Team. And I too appreciate the 2 opportunity to speak with and present to you ACRS 3 folks today, presenting about the Electrical 4 Engineering Team's projects. Go to Slide 31, please?
5 The Electrical Engineering Team develops 6 and implements a broad research program in the 7 discipline of electrical engineering that supports the 8 identification and resolution of safety issues in an 9 effective and efficient manner.
10 Functional areas for Electrical 11 Engineering include offsite power sources, onsite 12 electrical power distribution systems, emergency power 13 sources, electrical equipment qualification, and 14 electrical cable and equipment aging.
15 First, I'll be focusing on this slide here 16 on the electrical cable and equipment aging program.
17 For this program, we aim to assess the capability of 18 commonly used condition monitoring techniques for 19 predicting operational readiness of cables during 20 extended operations, independently assess industry 21 guidance for managing the aging of cables in submerged 22 and inaccessible environments, shorten the timeline 23 for licensing decisions, including the subsequent 24 license renewal application reviews through support of 25 enhancement of regulatory guidance, such as the goal NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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122 1 in the SRP for cable aging and condition monitoring 2 during long-term operation.
3 And then also, endorsing consensus codes 4 and standards related to the electrical cable 5 qualification and condition monitoring.
6 We have two recent accomplishments for 7 this project. First of all, as of October of 2020, we 8 completed thermal and radiation and condition 9 monitoring testing of cable samples, to simulate 50, 10 60, and 80 years of operation.
11 We've also completed a statistical 12 analysis of industry test data of EPRI's tan delta 13 approach to manage cables in submerged environments.
14 Currently, we're working on obtaining 15 state-of-the-art knowledge regarding condition 16 monitoring techniques for electrical cables, and 17 addressing knowledge gaps in the area, such as 18 sequential versus concurrent cable aging approaches, 19 assessing the viability of condition-based 20 qualification, and assessment of EPRI's tan delta 21 approach to managing aging of cables, especially those 22 restricted to submerged or otherwise inaccessible 23 environments.
24 We are also working with the program 25 office in reviewing the project results to-date to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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123 1 assess for unanswered questions from the user-needs 2 request, as well as other cable management issues to 3 be addressed in future projects.
4 For future work on this program, we're 5 engaged in the following: we're also too looking at 6 cable harvesting. Currently, the NRC, EPRI, DOE, and 7 other research organizations, are engaged in an effort 8 to harvest naturally aged materials, including cables 9 from the Ringhals Nuclear Plant in Sweden.
10 NRC is specifically interested in 11 harvesting between 200 and 300 feet of cross-link 12 polyethylene, polyolefin, and ethylene propylene 13 rubber insulated cables, to conduct research to 14 further study research gaps, such as diffusion-limited 15 oxidation, demonstrate inverse temperature effects, 16 synergistic effects, and activation energy.
17 In our Mist Condition Monitoring project, 18 Mist has submitted to the NRC all eight aging interval 19 reports, those reports covering the aging, and then 20 the subsequent testing of those samples of the various 21 eight intervals.
22 The next milestone is to submit the draft 23 final technical letter report to the NRC by August of 24 this year, August 1st. And then the NRC will review 25 and comment on that technical letter report. They'll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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124 1 incorporate the comments, and then issue the final 2 report by mid-September 2021.
3 As a follow-on to that, we are getting a 4 contract in place for LOCA testing of these aged 5 samples. We've initiated a contract to conduct this 6 LOCA testing, as well as producing the final 7 evaluation new reg of the project, and this will be 8 LOCA testing these aged cable specimens that we have.
9 The contracting officer has received 10 proposals to perform this LOCA test and to do this 11 report generation. The next step will be selection by 12 the evaluation panel of the valid proposals to meet 13 the minimum qualification requirements. Slide 32, 14 please.
15 The Electrical Engineering Team is 16 ensuring effective representation of the NRC and 17 harmonizing industry standards and development 18 activities for IEEE and IEC.
19 As part of our program, we're continuing 20 to develop new reg guides, revising reg guides, 21 including consolidation of reg guides, based on newer 22 standard versions to support the overall effort to 23 streamline and update regulatory guide infrastructure.
24 We're strategically working on the prioritization of 25 these efforts. For instance, the IEEE standards.
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125 1 Some of the reg guides that we're working 2 on currently, 1.9, which endorses IEEE standards, the 3 version of 387 and 2420, is in final review stages.
4 For that reg guide, we are going to be scheduling a 5 public meeting in the near future to meet with NEI to 6 ensure their concerns and the current resolution of 7 the reg guide are understood.
8 Another draft reg guide is for IEEE, IEC 9 Standard 323. We're supporting that effort as well.
10 That's for Reg Guide 189. That is also in its final 11 review stages.
12 And then another one that's kicking off 13 now is developing a draft guide, endorsing IEEE 741 14 for degraded voltage.
15 Another topic that we'd like to highlight 16 is our ongoing efforts on the electric power grid as 17 the preferred power supply for nuclear power plant 18 safety.
19 We're working closely with the program 20 office, observing and assessing potential changes with 21 the grid, with respect to reliability, stability, and 22 quality, as compared with the nuclear power plant 23 electrical system interface requirements.
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126 1 on November 4th. During this meeting, our commission 2 discusses various topics, including grid stability and 3 its effect on nuclear power plants.
4 As was mentioned earlier by Meraj, myself 5 and others in our branch, as well as research and the 6 other program offices, are involved with the IEEE, 7 working on consensus standards. And of course, the 8 benefit of that is providing NRC perspective as these 9 standards are developed, which supports our efforts to 10 develop guidance endorsing those standards as they are 11 produced.
12 Another thing I would mention about that, 13 I also was involved with encouraging IEEE and PEC, 14 which is the nuclear program electrical standards, to 15 get in the practice of submitting reports to the NRC 16 on which standards they feel have priority in terms of 17 NRC guidance endorsement.
18 I think one of the other members also had 19 talked about ways to find out what the standards are, 20 endorsed by the NRC. One recommendation I would make, 21 at least in terms of IEEE, is the standards developed.
22 The SDO coordinators maintain lists of all 23 of the standards and their effective reg guides that 24 we're working with, or new standards that we're 25 planning to develop reg guides for.
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127 1 So, that concludes my remarks. Unless 2 there are any questions, I will at that point then 3 turn it over to Dogan Seber. Slide 33, please.
4 Thank you. So, is Mr. Seber ready?
5 MR. SEBER: Yes, I'm ready, fully drawn.
6 Can I backtrack for a second, to the electrical? The 7 last slide?
8 You made a comment about your graph or 9 your presentation shows Reg Guide 1.9 and the support 10 for 387-2017, which that's already in place and it was 11 just recently run through the ringer for updating Reg 12 Guide 1.9. Is that not complete? Or did we miss 13 something?
14 MR. MILLER: That reg guide -- I mean, 15 yes, we have completed it. As you recall, we've done 16 our ACRS presentation on that. But we are still 17 working on, like I said, the public meeting, to go 18 back over comment resolutions with NEI.
19 MR. SEBER: Okay.
20 MR. MILLER: And hopefully in the final 21 stages of getting through that. And then soon after 22 that getting that document issued. So, I guess that's 23 kind of where we're at with this.
24 MR. SEBER: Okay, thank you.
25 MR. MILLER: Okay, Doug. Thank you.
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128 1 MR. SEBER: Okay. Thank you, Ken. Good 2 afternoon everyone. I am Dogan Seber, Chief of the 3 Structural, Geotechnical, Seismic Engineering Branch.
4 If you could have the next slide, Slide 34, please.
5 As our branch name indicates, we have 6 three functional areas that our research activities 7 fall into. Structural efforts primarily supporting 8 operating reactor safety issues and long-term 9 operation of aging nuclear fleet. In this area, we 10 also have activities supporting advanced reactors.
11 The second functional area, seismic 12 research, is to support seismic hazard assessments --
13 so both operating reactors and new reactors -- and 14 also supports the agency's POANHI process, the Process 15 of Ongoing Assessment of Natural Hazard Information.
16 And lastly, in the geotechnical functional 17 area, we have an important research activity that 18 supports the new reactor business line.
19 In the next three slides, I will provide 20 a list of key projects covering all those three 21 functional areas, and briefly describe each project.
22 If you could have Slide 35, please.
23 In the area of structural research, I will 24 highlight primarily five key projects. The first one 25 is irradiation-assisted concrete degradation project.
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129 1 This activity is one of the larger efforts our branch 2 leads in this functional area. I will have a separate 3 slide on this project next. I'll skip this one for 4 now.
5 And the second project, harvesting of 6 irradiated concrete material, from a decommissioned 7 nuclear power plant, this research focuses on 8 obtaining irradiated concrete samples primarily 9 support the overall concrete irradiation project. I 10 will have a separate slide on this as well, so I'm 11 skipping this one too.
12 The third research project I wanted to 13 highlight is the prestressed concrete containment 14 aging project.
15 This is primarily international 16 collaboration. VERCORS is an international project.
17 It is a French light effort that relies on one-third 18 scale model of a post-tensioned concrete containment 19 vessel, which is extensively instrumented.
20 We are participating in this international 21 activity, especially in the areas of creep and aging 22 effects of post-tensioned concrete.
23 This is a topic identified in the EMDA 24 report, the so-called Expanded Materials Degradation 25 Assessment Report, as in the way of low knowledge and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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130 1 potentially high significance. And our partner in 2 this project is Sandia National Labs.
3 The next project I briefly wanted to 4 highlight is the Alkali-Silica Reaction project, the 5 so-called ASR project. Actually, I'm happy to report 6 that this large activity has concluded.
7 We have four extensive reports produced 8 and provided by our contractor, NIST, and addressed 9 ASR issues from both material aspects and structural 10 safety perspectives.
11 During these research activities, our 12 staff supported extensively to program office and 13 their staff in their Seabrook licensing activities, 14 based on primarily information we gained from this 15 research.
16 The last activity I want to say in this 17 structural area I want to highlight, is the risk-18 informed, performance-based, seismic safety and 19 seismic isolation for advanced reactors. Is there a 20 question?
21 (Off-record discussion.)
22 CHAIR SUNSERI: Charlie, your mic is open.
23 MR. SEBER: Okay. I guess I can get to it 24 here. The last one in the structural area I was going 25 to mention is the risk-informed performance based NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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131 1 seismic safety and seismic isolation for advance 2 reactor research project.
3 This is yet another project I will have a 4 special slide. So for now, I'll also skip that one 5 too. Those three slides that will be our focus 6 projects that we'll be talking about. Next three 7 slides.
8 In the area of seismic we have four key 9 projects that I wanted to briefly highlight and give 10 the rationale on why we do it.
11 The first one is seismic source 12 characterization and grand motion model updates 13 project. This is a joint project with the United 14 States Geological Survey. And the project addresses 15 potential updates related to seismic sources and grand 16 motion models using seismic hazard assessments.
17 And this interagency agreement, NRC and 18 USGS Staff, we work together to address both, how both 19 agencies conduct seismic hazard calculations.
20 Especially emphasizing differences utilized by the two 21 agencies.
22 And the goal is here to jointly identify 23 and address potential discrepancies and develop agreed 24 upon solutions. Or provide a rationale for the 25 differences observed.
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132 1 This project is halfway through, and we 2 expect it to be completed by the end of Fiscal Year 3 2023.
4 The second project I wanted to highlight 5 in this seismic area is a new project we are just 6 starting. The use of 3D physic space grand motion 7 simulation project.
8 We are initiating a project this year to 9 address the lack of observation of grand motion data 10 to support grand motion model updates and development 11 efforts.
12 We are partnering with Lawrence Livermore 13 National Laboratory with this activity. They are 14 certainly a leader in this technical area. They have 15 done great work so far.
16 By utilizing their existing software and 17 super computers to simulate earthquake grand motions, 18 for a variety of earthquake scenarios. And this 19 project will aim to better understand a broad 20 variability we observe in earthquake grand motions.
21 And also address large uncertainties we 22 currently maintain in the established grand motion 23 models. And hopefully identify potential ways to 24 reduce them.
25 The other seismic project I want to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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133 1 discuss briefly is the seismic site response shack 2 Level 2 project. This project is addressing technical 3 issues that are encountered during the new reactor 4 application reviews, as well as near-term Task 4 5 reactions following the Fukushima accident and 6 reassessment of seismic hazards at the operating 7 nuclear power plant sites.
8 And seismic hazards calculations, even 9 though site response is a major component to the 10 overall seismic hazard assessment process, site 11 response calculations are conducted outside the shack 12 process that most of us quite frequently are with.
13 So this effort is a first of a kind study 14 to address the feasibility of using the shack process 15 and site response calculations as well. And I would 16 say this project has progressed very well so far and 17 we are expecting to complete the project later this 18 year.
19 Yet another project we are conducting in 20 the area of seismic is this study of paleoliquefaction 21 features in the central region and seismic zone. This 22 is a small scale but important project designed to 23 understand a little bit better, one of the key seismic 24 sources.
25 For those of you who remember the 2011 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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134 1 mineral Virginia earthquake that shook the 2 headquarters here. This earthquake was located in 3 this seismic zone.
4 So the research we are conducting here is 5 looking into whether or not any geological evidence 6 exist in the records, rocks, basically in this case, 7 for historical earthquakes in the region, with perhaps 8 even larger magnitudes. So that's the aim. That's 9 what we are trying to understand.
10 And the last one in the area of 11 geotechnical research we have the probabilistic 12 liquefaction model development project. This project 13 is addressing soil liquefaction assessments using 14 probabilistic approaches rather than the site 15 deterministic approaches, which we are currently 16 using.
17 This project, at the end, will help us 18 more align our probabilistic seismic hazard 19 assessments with the liquefaction assessments that we 20 conduct comes out of the seismic assessments.
21 Now I will like to switch to special focus 22 for our projects. And if you go to Slide, I believe 23 36, please.
24 The first one, as I mentioned earlier, is 25 the concrete and radiation project. In the area of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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135 1 radiation assisted concrete degradation project we are 2 conducted multi-threaded research activities to 3 support licensing decisions for our aging nuclear 4 power plants.
5 Our collaborators in this project are Oak 6 Ridge National Lab, Argon National Lab and University 7 of Colorado.
8 Our current research efforts in this area 9 range from documenting the state of knowledge on 10 concrete degradation due to high levels of radiation, 11 all the way to degradation of steel, concrete bond 12 strength, and its structural safety assessments.
13 Especially considering longer term operations.
14 Currently I would say we are half way 15 through to planned research activities. And so far we 16 have finalized a couple of NUREG/CRs in a RIL, as 17 shown on this slide on the left.
18 One of these NUREG/CRs listed documents 19 the state of knowledge in irradiation assisted 20 concrete degradation. The document is almost ready 21 for publication, and we expect actually to be 22 published next week on July 28th. And it will be 23 available publicly.
24 The second NUREG/CR we produced, and as 25 part of this research is also, is about computation of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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136 1 fluids near the concrete bio shield and reagent 2 through reinforced concrete structures. More 3 interesting work also.
4 Currently this document is also in press 5 awaiting with publication with our office of 6 administration. And we also expect this one to be 7 published in a couple of weeks.
8 Before the accomplishment listed here, at 9 RIL, the research information letter, it's another 10 type of document that the Office of Research uses, is 11 also the result of an extensive research activity that 12 we conducted to analyze degraded concrete physical 13 properties using modeling approaches.
14 We expect this RIL to be published within 15 a few weeks as well. Basically the technical document 16 is completed but now we are going through final 17 editorial and formatting checks.
18 All these initial activities have already 19 supported the program office and their subsequent 20 license review activities. And we are obviously very 21 quite pleased about that.
22 In the remaining portions of the research 23 activities in this area we will focus on the 24 finalization of a limited radiation experiment that we 25 initiated to study degradation of concrete bond NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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137 1 strength and its potential safety implications.
2 As part of this project we are also 3 developing computer models to assess safety 4 significance of degraded concrete on the structural 5 support systems.
6 We plan to extent the research to 7 harvesting and analyses of irradiated concrete 8 material obtained from a decommissioned nuclear power 9 plant. That will help us support, and hopefully 10 confirm our assumptions, we use in some of the 11 modeling tools that we are developing so far.
12 In the next slide I will actually discuss 13 the harvesting efforts briefly. Can we have Slide 37 14 please.
15 Actually, we've been interesting in 16 obtaining harvested concrete samples from a 17 decommissioned nuclear power plant for a while.
18 Initially, our efforts were focused on Zorita in 19 Spain. However, through initially research we have 20 quickly identifies that Zorita's concrete material was 21 not prone to irradiation assisted concrete degradation 22 and we started looking at different alternatives.
23 And through our Staff's efforts, we have 24 identified that perhaps SONGS might be a good 25 candidate for this purpose. We have engaged with the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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138 1 plant owners and SDS, SONGS decommissioning solutions 2 I believe.
3 And our efforts have proven to be 4 effective. Currently we are working with Oak Ridge 5 National Lab to obtain and test samples of 6 unirradiated bio shield concrete material to better 7 understand the concrete composition and its 8 susceptibility to radiation induced damage.
9 MEMBER BALLINGER: This is Ron Ballinger, 10 again.
11 MR. SEBER: All right. Yes.
12 MEMBER BALLINGER: Are you concerned that 13 the concrete at an individual plant is more or less 14 unique that --
15 MR. SEBER: Yes.
16 MEMBER BALLINGER: Do you think you can 17 generalize the results from, say, SONGS to some other 18 plant?
19 MR. SEBER: Yes. We are going to be using 20 SONGS as one case example, of course. Like I said, we 21 tried to use Zorita and it didn't work out, for 22 exactly the same reason that you are saying. Because 23 every plant is different.
24 So we are going to look at this one as a 25 research, as a generic concept. And then when our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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139 1 program office gets the licensing reviews, or 2 continues to SLRs, or we talked a little bit beyond 3 80. And then it's going to be based on the specific 4 type of material used for each specific plants.
5 But we are now looking for a potential bio 6 shield concrete material which will likely have 7 degraded over the years. And we want to have some 8 evidence of that. And then use those numbers in some 9 of the generical models that we do.
10 We don't solve the problem for plant-by-11 plant, but obviously our goal is to do confirmatory 12 research and attack the problem generically and have 13 sufficient details that ultimately NRC reviewers, when 14 the action comes before them, they'll be more informed 15 to take the actions.
16 MEMBER BALLINGER: But is it my impression 17 that you have determined that the radiation effect on 18 the concrete is pretty much minimal?
19 MR. SEBER: That is not the case.
20 MEMBER BALLINGER: Nope?
21 MR. SEBER: Actually, it depends on the 22 type of concrete.
23 MEMBER BALLINGER: Okay. All right.
24 Okay.
25 MR. SEBER: Yes. I mean, I can go into NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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140 1 detail but I don't want to cut too far into, you know, 2 if it's a silica --
3 MEMBER BALLINGER: No, no.
4 (Simultaneously speaking.)
5 MR. SEBER: -- it's a different thing.
6 It's a calcareous reach and it's a different story.
7 MEMBER BALLINGER: No, no.
8 MR. SEBER: And if it is BWR, PWR, all 9 different. So, first, the outlined documents that I 10 mentioned earlier, we listed those scenarios very 11 extensively and very detailed in those.
12 MEMBER BALLINGER: Great. Great.
13 MR. SEBER: So, we are hoping the, if 14 proven positive of course, this SONGS material. And 15 we plan to initiate a larger experiment.
16 And we are also working with EPRI and Oak 17 Ridge National Labs. And this activity, if get the 18 okay or if we pursue with the large effort, to study 19 the irradiated concrete samples, this will need to be 20 done at next level. So we are now in the earlier 21 stages of that.
22 I have one more slide. Next slide please.
23 Slide 38.
24 CHAIR SUNSERI: Dogan, can I --
25 MR. SEBER: Yes.
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141 1 CHAIR SUNSERI: -- I need to interrupt 2 with a point of order here. So we are coming to the 3 end of the presentations today. This is, I think, the 4 last slide.
5 In order to allow the public an 6 opportunity for comment, we're going to have to reset 7 the public phone line at this time. So I want to do 8 this in parallel with the rest of the presentation.
9 For the callers that are listening in, you 10 will soon be disconnected as we reset this line. And 11 what you need to do is to call back in.
12 So please wait until you are disconnected 13 and then immediately call back in. Once you return, 14 mute your line until you called upon for public 15 comment. Which will be just in a few minutes I 16 anticipate.
17 So okay, that's my public address 18 announcement. Please continue.
19 MR. SEBER: Thank you. As I said, this is 20 my last slide. I'm going to be talking about risk-21 informed performance based and seismic isolation 22 project that our branch is actively leading.
23 A couple of years ago we initiated a 24 research activity to address use of risk-informed 25 performance based approaches of seismic safety of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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142 1 light water reactors.
2 Recently though we switched the focus to 3 supporting advance reactors, for primarily obvious 4 reasons. And however, the methodology and research 5 results can be used for both advance and light water 6 reactors.
7 Why are we doing this? If you look at the 8 current regulatory framework for seismic design it is 9 based on what we call the safe shutdown earthquake 10 spectra. The so called SSE.
11 And the current regulatory practice, all 12 structure, systems and components important to safety 13 are designed to be fully capable of confirming their 14 safety functions at the safe shutdown grand motion 15 levels.
16 The current research, however, is looking 17 into an alternative option. That accounts for the 18 function and risk significance of each individual 19 structure, system and component.
20 In other words, the safety margins of 21 individual system, structures and components are 22 designed, or should be designed, could be designed, 23 depending on the way you want to say it, according to 24 their contribution to the system level and plant level 25 risks. We anticipate at the end this approach could NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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143 1 reduce potentially unnecessary conservatism built into 2 the current approach.
3 We have already published two RILs, 4 research information letters, in this area. And they 5 are publicly available.
6 We also sought initial public input at a 7 workshop we held in September 2020. As Jeremy said 8 earlier in his introduction, introductory section, 9 this is one research topic we'd like to bring before 10 the Committee, or maybe cognizant members, based on 11 what we learned earlier today.
12 And to discuss technical details more in-13 depth. And we anticipate the timing could be first 14 half of next year.
15 And separately, and lastly, we also 16 conduct research on the use of seismic isolators in 17 advance reactor designs. Our research here, which is 18 also adopted from our previous work that we did for 19 new reactors a few years back, we published three 20 NUREG/CRs, will support agency licensing decisions on 21 the use of seismic isolators and advance reactor 22 designs.
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144 1 on the use of seismic isolators in advance reactor 2 designs.
3 Our efforts are complimentary to the 4 Industry's efforts. And we are addressing the staff 5 needs in the review and analyses of any future 6 licensing activities they might have in this area.
7 With that, I conclude my presentation.
8 And I guess I will turn over the mic to our division 9 director, Louise Lund.
10 MS. LUND: Okay. And thank you in 11 bringing it home. I'd like to thank you for the 12 opportunity to brief you today.
13 And we really have appreciated your active 14 engagement and all your questions. We are always open 15 to feedback and suggestions and these interactions 16 with you help us when it comes to producing relevant 17 high quality research products and activities.
18 In response to the question about whether 19 there is a list of standards that are endorsed by 20 regulation or regulatory guide, we've put the web link 21 for a page on the NRC's site that provides that 22 information in the Team's chat for this meeting.
23 And I also wanted to add to what Ken 24 Miller said about Reg Guide 1.9, is that we will be 25 addressing the comments coming over in the letter from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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145 1 the ACRS by making some revisions as well to the 2 document. And we'll be engaging the Committee about 3 the changes.
4 And lastly, I want to acknowledge the help 5 from my Staff, Matt Homiac and Marcus Estevedo 6 (phonetic) for their incredible work to help the 7 slides tell the DE story. And, Mark, you, for helping 8 in every way possible, including turning the slides 9 for us today.
10 And for everyone that has helped us in any 11 way to get ready for today, thank you. And that 12 concludes my remarks.
13 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay, thank you, Louise.
14 Very good. So we're going to wrap-up this meeting 15 now.
16 The sequence of events is I'm going to 17 call for public comments and then we're going to do a 18 roundtable or a call for Committee comments. And I 19 have some summary comments to make, and then we will 20 adjourn the meeting.
21 So, at this time, I call on the public 22 line. Any members of the public that wish to make a 23 statement, please state your name and do so. Thomas, 24 you may need to open the line.
25 THE OPERATOR: The public line is open.
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146 1 CHAIR SUNSERI: Okay. So members of the 2 public, if you wish to make a public comment, please 3 state your name and provide your comment.
4 All right, Thomas, you can close the 5 public line. And I'll just ask for the participants 6 that are on the Team chat, if anybody has any comments 7 that you want to make before we turn to the Members?
8 All right. Well, thank you all. It has 9 been a very thorough discussion today. I appreciate 10 the time that Staff put in to making this informative 11 presentation. It was very thoughtfully done and 12 consistently presented. We appreciate that.
13 Members, we will have an opportunity to 14 discuss this in greater detail at a future committee 15 briefing where we get together at the results of all 16 three of these division briefings together. And we 17 will discuss what we want to put into our letter 18 report.
19 But I took a lot of notes today, and let 20 me just kind of summarize some of the things I saw and 21 then we'll ask for your comments. But anyway, we had 22 a good discussion on capabilities and maintaining 23 technical capabilities. Particularly in light of the 24 competition for limited resources in many areas. So 25 that was good to see what's going on there.
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147 1 We had a long discussion today about codes 2 and standards and regulatory guide and the process for 3 maintaining those. And I'm thinking that we're going 4 to have some, probably recommendation or some language 5 about the opportunity for improvement.
6 At least the interaction between Staff and 7 the ACRS on the review of the Reg Guides. Don't know, 8 but at least we had a lot of discussion about that.
9 A good discussion on cybersecurity and the 10 things that are going there. And the new aspect of 11 this is the wireless. So we'll be interested in 12 continuing with all that.
13 And there are a number of topics that are 14 proposed as future topics, so we can do a deep dive 15 on. And that's the advance manufacturing technology, 16 material harvesting at which I strongly suggest that 17 we have some kind of informal meeting so that we get 18 the scope of that future meeting right.
19 Very interesting topic on the risk-20 informed, performance based seismic design. And a lot 21 of interest in digital twinning. And that digital 22 twinning may be another opportunity for us to have an 23 informal so that we make sure that we get the right 24 scope of any future discussion on that.
25 Okay, Members, that's, I'm sure I'm NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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148 1 skipping over something here. I've got four or five 2 pages of notes, but let me just go around and see, 3 I'll offer to the floor anybody who wants to make a 4 comment.
5 MEMBER HALNON: Matt, this is Greg. I 6 have a quick question, probably for Louise.
7 I didn't hear anything, and maybe I joined 8 down at the wrong time, but about the meteorology and 9 weather and climate change and how that's effecting.
10 Do you guys just rely on the Army Corps of Engineers 11 for that or do you have some experts in-house?
12 MS. LUND: The external hazards work there 13 is, it's sort of a shared responsibility between us 14 and DRA. So, that, it depends on really what specific 15 interests you have.
16 MEMBER HALNON: Okay. It was mainly about 17 the flooding and the --
18 MS. LUND: The flooding is DRA.
19 MEMBER HALNON: DRA, okay.
20 MS. LUND: Yes. So you will be hearing 21 from them soon, so sort of hang on to that question.
22 MEMBER HALNON: Yes. Thank you.
23 MS. LUND: Yes.
24 CHAIR SUNSERI: Any other Members?
25 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Hey, Matt?
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149 1 MEMBER REMPE: So this is Joy.
2 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Okay.
3 MEMBER REMPE: Go ahead whoever else was 4 speaking, I think you were first.
5 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Thank you, Joy. This is 6 Walt, Matt. I would be, in the area of material 7 harvesting, whether it's reactor, vessel, components 8 or concrete, I would be interested to see to what 9 extent, that can be used to expand databases and, if 10 you will, confirmatory check on life expectancy of 11 components and service, et cetera.
12 But I would be interested to hear more 13 about any predictive modeling capability that's 14 developed as a result of that, those extensive 15 efforts. And the distinction I would make is, you can 16 take the data and make empirical curves and models and 17 then you have a simplistic model for that empirical 18 set of curves. Or you can actually try a more physics 19 based approach to developing predictive modeling based 20 on the harvesting work.
21 So I would be interested to know what 22 research is doing in that area. And it applies both 23 to materials over in the reactor engineering division 24 as well as the structural.
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150 1 topic. Anyone else want to make a comment?
2 MEMBER REMPE: Yes, this is Joy. Yes. I 3 think in addition to the very good topics that were 4 suggested for future briefings that, and this really 5 goes more to the initial overview we had for my first 6 now, but I think we should be briefed on the progress 7 of the future focused research projects at some point 8 in the sharing.
9 And so I just wanted to add, I'm trying to 10 remember if, I'm sure we brought this up at Ray's 11 meeting, but anyway, just continuing to think about 12 that, that it is a new thing, which I think is great 13 that research has some control over their projects, 14 but I think it's something that we want to make sure 15 that we continue to follow so we're knowledgeable 16 about the progress that's being made with them.
17 CHAIR SUNSERI: Good. I wrote that down.
18 And just remind me, Joy, I think it's, I think we're 19 going to have our get together, Full Committee review 20 of this in the October time frame. Is that right?
21 MEMBER REMPE: That's the way it's 22 currently scheduled. Again, I'd like to keep to that 23 schedule, but there is some flexibility if we feel 24 that it's not possible or there is other higher 25 priorities. But that's the plan right now.
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151 1 CHAIR SUNSERI: Yes. No, I, it wasn't a 2 challenge, just a question. I don't have my notes in 3 front of me, so thank you.
4 All right, anybody else? Okay, well, just 5 to close then I will probably be redundant and 6 reiterate here.
7 Thank you, Louise, to you and your team 8 for a very good briefing. I think we clearly, at 9 least this met my expectations on what we were looking 10 for an will help us inform a letter report as we 11 deliberate the evaluation of the safety research, the 12 agency safety research programs.
13 So thank you all, to, Lee, your staff.
14 And thank you to our staff for putting together the 15 Team's meeting and all the support we got in 16 preparation for this. And thank you to the Members 17 for the good interaction during the presentations 18 today.
19 So with nothing else to say, I will just 20 close by, I wish everyone a good weekend, have a 21 happy, safe and relaxing weekend. The meeting is 22 adjourned.
23 MS. LUND: Thank you.
24 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 25 off the record at 5:47 p.m.)
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Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Biennial Review Louise Lund Director, Division of Engineering Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
Key Messages Our Vision Be the technology and engineering hub to help enable the agency to become a modern, risk-informed regulator Our Objectives Be ready for future technologies Advance regulatory technical knowledge Build and enhance staff capacity and competencies in emergent technical areas 2
Division of Engineering Regulatory Guide and Programs Management Branch (RGPMB)
Reactor Engineering Branch (REB)
Materials Engineering Branch (MEB)
Instrumentation, Controls, and Electrical Engineering Branch (ICEEB)
Structural, Geotechnical, and Seismic Engineering Branch (SGSEB) 3
Progress DE drives to complete research activities that have fulfilled their 14 19 Endorsed regulatory purpose Codes & Standards NUREGs 3 Generic Issues Closed P u b l i s h e d 11 34 REGULATORY GUIDES Research 12 future Information Letters Published ISSUED focused 26 Regulatory Guide 67 Technical projects Letter Periodic Reviews Seminars Reports and launched research Workshops 24 4
Collaborations Global Outreach 5
Programs Overview and Future ACRS Engagement Jeremy Bowen Deputy Director, Division of Engineering Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
Programs Overview 23 million FY22 FTE and contracts 49%
Materials Performance 14%
Instrumentation & Controls 12%
Structural & Geotechnical 9%
External Hazards 9%
Guidance & Infrastructure 7%
Electrical 7
Future ACRS Engagement Advanced Manufacturing Digital Twins Technologies Material Harvesting Risk-Informed Performance-Based Seismic Design 8
Regulatory Guide and Programs Management Branch Meraj Rahimi
Regulatory Guide and Programs Management Branch About RGPMB RGPMB manages regulatory guides, NRC participation in the endorsement of voluntary consensus codes and standards, Generic Issues and Future Focused Research programs Functional Areas FUTURE FOCUSED REGULATORY GUIDES GENERIC ISSUES CODES & STANDARDS RESEARCH Manage NRCs Coordinate activities in Facilitate the NRC The FFR program regulatory guide (RG) support of the NRCs staffs participation in provides a vehicle to process, including Generic Issues Program the development and position the NRC to be review and issuance of mandated under use of codes and ready for future, state-RGs for public comment Energy Reorganization standards of-the-art technologies to final publication Act of 1974 and 10 CFR and their potential 1.45 regulatory impacts 10
Regulatory Guide and Programs Management Branch Regulatory Guides Provide up-to-date guidance to licensees and applicants for more effective and efficient licensing reviews and decisions Accomplishments Future Direction Improved Process Continuous Process (6 - 11 months to issue final RG) Improvement 34 24 13 RGs Periodic ACRS Issued Reviews Presentations 11
Regulatory Guide and Programs Management Branch Generic Issues Identify significant generic technical issues requiring NRC response Accomplishments Future Direction 3 2 Complete Assessment of HEAF Involving Aluminum Generic Issues Revised MD 6.4 Closed and TEC-002 Update NUREG-0933 Evaluate Further Process Streamlining 12
Regulatory Guide and Programs Management Branch Codes and Standards Enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the regulatory process by leveraging external resources, experience, and consensus Accomplishments Roles and Responsibilities 19 NRC Standards NRC Executive Representatives Endorsed Standards 16 Steering Program SDO Committees Manager Coordinators Endorsements In Progress 13
Regulatory Guide and Programs Management Branch Future Focused Research Provide actionable insights into technical or regulatory issues that relate to NRCs mission and open new areas of foundational knowledge on key topics Accomplishments Future Direction 12 New Projects Consider Far-Initiated in Reaching Research FY20 and FY21 To p i c s Build Repository for the Latest Information o n R e s e a r c h e d To p i c s 14
Reactor Engineering Branch Raj Iyengar
Reactor Engineering Branch About REB REB plans and executes programs for analytic and experimental research to develop the technical bases, methods, and tools for advanced technology applications, influencing safety of operating and advanced reactors and other facilities regulated by the NRC Functional Areas ADVANCED MODELING & ADVANCED LICENSING &
REACTORS SIMULATION TECHNOLOGY REGULATORY SUPPORT High temperature Tools for component Digital twins ASME BPV Code &
materials & component performance - Advanced sensors standards performance probabilistic, finite Machine learning 10 CFR 50.55a Molten salt reactor element analyses applications regulatory guide code fuel-cycle ANLWR environments case rulemaking Design-specific Data-driven modeling Licensing support considerations 16
Reactor Engineering Branch Major Projects ADVANCED REACTORS Code Endorsements - ASME Section Creep-Fatigue Assessment Tool III, Div. 5, & Section XI, Reliability Molten Salt Reactors - Performance and Integrity Management Graphite Research MODELING & SIMULATION Extremely Low Probability of Rupture Code Fracture Analysis of Vessels - Probabilistic Code (FAVPRO)
High Energy Line Break Methodology Spent Fuel Canister Performance and Risk Assessment ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY Digital Twins Advanced Sensors RESbot LICENSING & ASME Codes and Standards Participation (Section III & XI)
REGULATORY SUPPORT Regulatory Guide and Rulemaking Support for Endorsing ASME Code Cases Probabilistic Fracture Mechanics - Regulatory Guide & Technical Basis Radiation Embrittlement Archive Project (REAP) Database 17
Reactor Engineering Branch Molten Salt Reactors Identify technical issues and regulatory needs for materials compatibility, electrochemistry, fuel cycle (transportation and waste storage), salt processing, and purity Accomplishments Future Direction 10 Te c h n i c a l Molten Salt Reports Chemistry 2 Public Reliability &
Workshops Risk Reduction 2 Code Endorsements MSR Fuel Cycle 18
Reactor Engineering Branch Digital Twins Develop regulatory infrastructure to enable safe operation of digital twins and potential use of digital twins to enhance regulatory processes Accomplishments Future Direction 1 Te c h n i c a l Report Project Plan 5 Seminars Wo r ks h o ps /Tra i n i n g 2 Workshops State of Te c h n o l o g y 19
Materials Engineering Branch Steve Ruffin
Materials Engineering Branch About MEB MEB plans, coordinates, and manages the development and deterministic analysis of data to characterize the causes and effects of corrosion and environmentally-assisted cracking on the structures and components of nuclear plant systems Functional Areas MATERIALS NONDESTRUCTIVE ADVANCED LICENSING &
DEGRADATION EXAMINATION MANUFACTURING REGULATORY SUPPORT Characterize the causes Evaluate the reliability Evaluate advanced Provide technical and effects of materials of nondestructive manufacturing support for licensing degradation in nuclear examination methods technologies actions, oversight plant systems for long- support, and ASME term operation codes and standards 21
Materials Engineering Branch Major Projects MATERIALS DEGRADATION Irradiation-Assisted Degradation of Reactor Pressure Vessel Internals Harvesting PWSCC Materials Testing NONDESTRUCTIVE Steam Generator Tube Inspection and Integrity Issues EXAMINATION Reliability of Nondestructive Examinations ADVANCED Advanced Manufacturing Techniques MANUFACTURING LICENSING & ASME Codes and Standards Support REGULATORY SUPPORT Regulatory Guide and Rulemaking Support Licensing Activities and Oversight Support 22
Materials Engineering Branch Advanced Manufacturing Technologies Develop technology-specific guidance to prepare the NRC staff for future reviews of advanced manufacturing applications for nuclear power plants Accomplishments Future Direction 5
Primary Te c h n i c a l Te c h n o l o g i e s Preparedness 1 Public Regulatory Workshop Preparedness 5 Seminars Communications
& Knowledge Management 23
Materials Engineering Branch Materials Harvesting Harvest metals, concrete, and electrical components to inform NRC decisions for assessment and aging management to support long term operation Accomplishments Future Direction E x p e r i m e n t a l Te s t i n g E x p e r i m e n t a l Te s t i n g
> Cooperative > NEA SMILE
> Independent > NEA FIDES Te c h n i c a l R e p o r t s Cooperative Research Informed by Harvesting Priorities 24
Instrumentation, Controls, and Electrical Engineering Branch Christopher Cook
Instrumentation, Controls, and Electrical Engineering Branch About ICEEB ICEEB develops and implements a broad research program in the areas of DI&C, cybersecurity, cables &
electrical aging, and offsite & onsite power that supports regulatory review and oversight of safety- and security-related systems and components Functional Areas Instrumentation & Cybersecurity Cables & Equipment and Controls Offsite & Onsite Power Enabling modernization & Growing skills to evaluate Electrical equipment safety-related review of DI&C current and future security- qualification and aging, offsite systems and components, related review and oversite of power sources, onsite electrical integrated circuits, safety- critical digital assets. Includes power distribution systems, and related design & application of evaluating the security-related emergency power supplies software & hardware, and review of data transfer and safety-related communication communication technologies, technologies including wireless 26
Instrumentation, Controls, and Electrical Engineering Branch Major Projects Instrumentation Embedded Digital Devices and Emerging Technologies: NUREG/CR-7273
& Controls Common-Cause Failure in DI&C Systems: Technical Basis and Recommendations Guidance Associated with Identification and Control of Hazards for Programmable Digital Devices Training on EPRIs Digital Engineering Framework (DEG, HAZCADS, etc.)
Cybersecurity Attack Surface for Cybersecurity Monitoring and Oversight Licensee Network Replica for Cybersecurity Training Wireless Communication Technologies (Safety & Security)
Cybersecurity Expert Seminars Cables & Equipment Long-Term Operation: Electrical Cable Condition-Monitoring Methods and Offsite & Onsite Regulatory Guidance using IEEE and IEC Consensus Codes and Standards Power 27
Instrumentation, Controls, and Electrical Engineering Branch Cybersecurity Attack Surface:
Characterization & Tools for Cybersecurity Monitoring and Oversight Feasibility of a Licensee Network Replica Cybersecurity for Training 28
Instrumentation, Controls, and Electrical Engineering Branch Advancement of Wireless as an Enabling Technology Signal Quality Unanticipated Fidelity Action/
Interaction NRR Safety Focus >
Impacts to Safety-Related
& Important-to-Safety Systems Security Focus >
Cybersecurity Impacts to Critical Digital Attack Surface Assets Changes NSIR Data Integrity Availability 29
Electrical Engineering Team Kenneth Miller
Electrical Engineering Team Electrical Cable Condition-Monitoring Methods Enhance guidance for assessment and aging management of cables to support long-term operations and facilitate the review of industry guidance for managing aging of cables in submerged environments Accomplishments Future Direction Thermal and Radiation Harvest Naturally Aging and Condition Aged Materials from M o n i t o r i n g Te s t i n g o f Ringhals Plant Cable Samples Report on the NIST Condition Monitoring Statistical Analysis of Project Ta n D e l t a A p p r o a c h t o Manage Cables in P e r f o r m L O C A Te s t o n Submerged Environments NIST Aged Cable 31
Electrical Engineering Team Regulatory Guidance Using IEEE and IEC Consensus Codes and Standards Update guidance based on current standards from IEEE and IEC IEEE 387-2017 IEC/IEEE 60780-323 IEEE 741-2017 Regulatory Regulatory Guide 1.89 Draft Guide Guide 1.9 Revision Revision 32
Structural, Geotechnical, and Seismic Engineering Branch Dogan Seber
Structural, Geotechnical, and Seismic Engineering Branch About SGSEB SGSEB assesses the structural performance of SSCs; collects and analyzes data related to seismic hazard and seismic performance of structures; develops and applies seismic design analysis methods and guidance for geotechnical and structural design elements; develops the technical bases to resolve structural engineering issues associated with safety and security assessments Functional Areas STRUCTURES SEISMIC GEOTECHNICAL Research on nuclear Research on seismic Research on soil and power plant structural hazard analyses for foundation conditions integrity, potential operating and new degradation reactor applications mechanisms, and design and construction issues 34
Structural, Geotechnical, and Seismic Engineering Branch Major Projects STRUCTURES Irradiation-Assisted Concrete Degradation Harvesting of irradiated concrete material Prestressed Concrete Containment Aging / VERCORS Alkali Silica Reaction Research (Closed)
Risk-Informed, Performance-Based Seismic Safety and Seismic Isolation for Advanced Reactors SEISMIC Seismic Source Characterization and GMM Updates Use of 3D physics-based ground motion simulations to support GMM development efforts Seismic Site Response - SSHAC Level 2 Paleoliquefaction Studies in the Central Virginia Seismic Zone GEOTECHNICAL Probabilistic Liquefaction Model Development 35
Structural, Geotechnical, and Seismic Engineering Branch Irradiation-Assisted Concrete Degradation Study the current state of knowledge in irradiation-assisted concrete degradation and augment the knowledge through both limited experiments and computer-based simulations to support the development of technical bases for future licensing decisions Accomplishments Future Direction 2
NUREG/CRs Develop Models Based on Irradiation Te s t R e s u l t s 1
Research Assess Structural Information Integrity Using Letter Generic Plant Models Harvest Irradiated Concrete Samples From Decommissioned Plants 36
Structural, Geotechnical, and Seismic Engineering Branch Harvesting Irradiated Concrete Material Identify a suitable decommissioned plant to collect irradiated concrete samples Accomplishments Future Direction Pilot Effort to Analyze Establish Larger Unirradiated Samples Collaborative Research from SONGS Primary Effort to Gather Bioshield Concrete and Irradiated Concrete Its Susceptibility to Samples and Analyze Irradiation-Assisted Level of Degradation Degradation 37
Structural, Geotechnical, and Seismic Engineering Branch Risk Informed Performance Based Seismic Safety and Seismic Isolation for Advanced Reactors Develop technology-inclusive guidance on RIPB seismic design approach and adopting seismic isolation technologies to supporting applications for advanced non-light water reactors Accomplishments Future Direction 2
Research Develop Readily Information Implemented Letter Regulatory Positions for Application of the 1
Public Workshop RIPB Seismic Design Approach Support for 10 CFR Part 53 Language Development 38
Researching Tomorrow s Engineering Technologies, Today.
39
QUESTIONS?
40
BACK-UP SLIDES Regulatory Guide and Programs Management Branch Future Focused Research Projects
- 1. Digital Twins - Regulatory Viability
- 2. Apply the Licensing Modernization Project Methodology on an Operating Reactor
- 3. Dynamic Probabilistic Risk Assessment Study
- 4. Investigate Use of STAMP (Systems Theoretic Accident Model and Processes) for Nuclear Safety System Design and Regulation
- 5. Automation Tool Mapping
- 6. TRACE Modernization
- 7. Can I Pet My Pets??? - A Dosimetry Risk Analysis for Veterinary Use of Radiopharmaceuticals
- 8. Drones and Virtual Reality Tools to Analyze Radiological Surveys in Decommissioning
- 9. Pilot: Assessment of Model Based Software Engineering Processes in a Regulatory Review Context for Digital Instrumentation and Control of Existing Nuclear Power Plants
- 10. Key Attributes for Remote Operation of Nuclear Power Plants
- 11. RESbot - A Web-based Bot to Aid NRC Researchers
- 12. High Entropy Alloys 42
LIST OF ACRONYMS ACRS Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards NEA Nuclear Energy Agency ANLWR Advanced Non-light Water Reactor NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology ASME American Society of Mechanical Engineers NPP Nuclear Power Plant BPVC Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission CFR Code of Federal Regulations NRR Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation DE Division of Engineering NSIR Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response DEG Double-Ended Guillotine PWSCC Primary Water Stress Corrosion Cracking DI&C Digital Instrumentation and Control REAP Radiation Embrittlement Archive Project EPRI Electric Power Research Institute REB Reactor Engineering Branch FFR Future Focused Research RES Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research FIDES Framework for Irradiation Experiments RG Regulatory Guide GMM Ground Motion Model RGPMB Regulatory Guide and Programs Management Branch HAZCADS Hazards and Consequences Analysis for Digital Systems RIL Research Information Letter HEAF High Energy Arc Fault RIPB Risk-Informed and Performance-Based ICEEB Instrumentation, Controls, and Electrical Engineering Branch SDO Standards Development Organizations IEC International Electrotechnical Commission SGSEB Structural, Geotechnical, and Seismic Engineering Branch IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers SMILE Studsvik Material Integrity Life Extension LOCA Loss-of-Coolant Accident SONGS San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station MD Management Directive SSCs Structures, Systems, and Components MEB Materials Engineering Branch SSHAC Senior Seismic Hazard Analysis Committee MSR Molten Salt Reactor VERCORS VErification Réaliste du COnfinement des RéacteurS 43