Regulatory Guide 2.3

Quality Verification for Plant-Type Uranium-Aluminum Fuel Elements for Use in Research Reactors

ML13350A249
Person / Time
Issue date:	09/30/1975
From:	Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
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RG-2.003
Download: ML13350A249 (2)

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION September 1975 REGULATORY GUIDE

OFFICE OF STANDARDS DEVELOPMENT

REGULATORY GUIDE 2.3 QUALITY VERIFICATION FOR PLATE-TYPE URANIUM-ALUMINUM

FUEL ELEMENTS FOR USE IN RESEARCH REACTORS

C. REGULATORY POSITION

Paragraph (aX7) of Section 50.34, "Contents of The guidance contained in ANSI N398-1974. "Quality Applications; Technical Information," of 10 CFR Part Verification for Plate-Type Uranium-Aluminum Fuel

50, "Licensing of Production and Utilization Facilities," Elements."' is generally acceptable to Up NRC staff and requires that each applicant for a construction permit to provides an adequate basis fo rnplying with build a production or utilization facility include in its §50.34(a)(7) of 10 CFR Part ',-50 " h respect to preliminary safety analysis report a description of the establishing and executing a qiality ass ice program quality assurance program to be applied to the design, for verifying the quaUt- Iof SSNate-type uranium- fabrication, construction, and testing of the structures, aluminum fuel elements ffu6'!,Vi irescarch reactors, systems, and components of the facility. This guide subject to the fullo1*0:.

describes a method acceptable to the NRC staff for establishing and executing a quality assurance program Instead of,-t. deAr"ptitOiven in Section i.4.9 of for verifying the quality of plate-type uraniuni- the standard , '*-4,arck*' actor should be defined as a aluminum fuel elements used in research reactors, nuclear tor a used for scientific, engineering, or

. DISCUSSIONi nd is designed to operate at a thermal a.DISCUSeve Np megawatt or less or a level of 10

Work Group ANS-I 5.2 of Subcommittee ANS-1.5 c .. or less if it does not contain a circulating loop

.Research Reactors, of the American Nuclear Society . r core in which fuel experiments are conduc- Standards Committee has revised the American Na liquid fuel loading, or an experimental facility in Standards Institute (ANSI) Standard NS. 96 core in excess of 16 square inches in cross section.

"Quality Control for Plate-Type Uranium-Al ,num

D. IMPLEMENTATION

Fuel Elements." The revised standard pro ui for the- establishment and execution f a gram The purpose of this section is to provide information designed to verify the quality of plat e nium- to applicants and licensees regarding the NRC staff's aluminum fuel elements for use in researcih rs. The plans for utilizing this regulatory guide.

revised standard was approved by the American National Standards Committee N search Reactors, Reactor Except in those -cases in which the applicant Physics and Radiation el* and its Secretariat. It proposes an acceptable alternative method for

• was subsequently a )p designated ANSI complying, with the specified portions of the N398-1974 by; oI ber 19, 1974. Commission's regulations, the method described herein will be used by the NRC staff in the It sl'ou e ogni that ANSI N398-1974 covers, evaluation of submittals for construction permit or only on i f quality assurance. ANSI N402, operating license applications for research reactors dock-

"Quality rance Program. Guidelines for Research oted after May 15, 1976.

Reactors," ch is currently being developed under Subcommitte ANS-15, is expected to provide overall guidance for establishing quality assurance programs for 1

('opies may be obtaineid rroni the American Nuclear research reactors. Society. 244 Fast O+/-Cidcn Avenue. Ilindale. Illinois 60521.

t USNRC REGULATORY GUIDES Comments should be sent to the Secretary o the Commission. U.S. Nuclear Regutatory Guides are issued to describe and mnake available to the public Regulatory Commission. Washington. D.C. 20566. Attention. Docketing and methods acceptable to the NRC staff of Implementing specific parts Service Section.

Conmnmlssion's regulations. to delineate techniques used by the stalt in evslu The guides are issued in the following ten broad divisions

"tOng specific problems or postulated accidents, or to provide guidance to appli cents. Regulatory Guides are not substitutes fot regulations. and compliance 1. Power Reactors 6 Products with them Is not required Methods and solutions difletent from those set out In 2. Research end Teot Reactors 7. Transportation the guides will be acceptable if they provide a basis for the findings requisite to 3. Fuels and Materials Factlities B. Occupational Health the issuance Or conttnuanc.e of a permit or license by the Commission. 4, Envirortmental and Siting 9. Antitrust Review Comments and suggestions tor impa~vements in these guides are encouraged S. Materials and Plant Protection t0. General atill limes, and guides will tie revised. as appropriate. to accommodate corn mnits and to reflect new information or taperience. However. comments on Copies of published guides may be obtllned by written request indiclting the this guide. it received within about two monthi, after its issuance, will be pap divisions desired to the U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Washington. D.C.

Ilculaily uselul in evaluating the need for dn early evaision. 20r%5. Attention: Director. Office of Standards Development.

I

referred tothe input ror 4 usee peaking tinmcs (the noise: a stable pulser should. not shift by more. than. one

.lel .,afies iti'erselV with ..tle peukinig time). The main channel over a 24.hou* periodfor a line voltage of 1!5V

. ni.plil .htild be. a standard NIM' nmodule. - 10%, 50-65 Hz, and at constant room temperature.

(Note: The .ADC drift and linearity specifications are At Loliting ratesgreater thanr" l 0" cps. problems .closely ..re!ted to the overall . system%stability and

.':.i' i als degraid* tion o1 t he energy resolution resulting in lirearity operating Spec-fications described in Section

.a loss of.counts in the. spectrum peaks begin to occur. C.S.)

These.effecisare due to.the overlar' of portions of two ormnore pulses in. time and to bas.Žline fhuctuatio*s. The The .ADC should be capable of being DC coupled to

. .agiiitudeof ihese effects can be minimized by the the main amplifier in order that BLR circuits can be inclusion of.th1e. folluwing features in the amplifier's used. A digital = offset capability in the ADC is des-111-. (: a baseline restorer. (BLR) circuit at. the recommended.. (Note: In some systems the ADC is an

-ampli*iir :outp.iu and _(2) pole-zero. cancelled ýcoupling integral -part of a multichannel analyzer, a unit which

"networks The. BLR circuit should be adjustable f.r.both also performs the .functions .of data storage, display, and i a d Inlig counting rateconditions.'

I-ow sometimes rrudimentary analysis.. These latter functions'

are taken up in Part 2 of this serie

s. In multichannel

.5. Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) analyzer systems, however, the. ADC function is usually specified separately.and canbe compared with the above (Systems I. 11.II!) The ADC should be capable of recommendations.)

digitizing pulse :,mplitudes from the amplifier in the range of 0 to 10 volts in at least 4096 channels. The (Sysiemn I) For certain applications where energy fre.quency of the internal clock should be at least 50 resolution is definitely not critical, all the ADC

"megidahcz to handle high. counting rates with nominal specifications above arc applicable with the exception ADC dead time losses. The integral nonlinearity should that a 1024 channel capacity with a 1024 digital offset be tle: than 0. 15% over the top 95% of full scale and the may be adequate to provide a sufficiently small energy differential nonlinearity should be less than I.Wff over interval per channel (keV/channel) to cover a limited the top 95% of full scale for semi-Gaussian pulses with energy range of interest. It should be emphasized,

"peaking times of I to usec.-These linearity specifications however, that this choice may restrict the effective use are' n6t 'siringent. but arec adequate to enable of the system for other applications.

"identificatiin.of unknown peaks which .may appear in a spectrum.. 6. Power Supplies The short-term zero channel arid gain drifts should (Systems 1,, II, .111) The system power supplies be < .01%/ 0 C and < .02%/0 C, respectively (the (detector high voltage, preamplifier, and NIM bin)

percentage refers to full scale), in the temperature range should be capable of operating the system within the from 0°. to 50'C. For long term stability, the peak from operating specifications listed in Section C.A when supplied with 115 volts (+/- 10%) at. 50 to 65 hertz (at

' NIM-Nuclear Instrument Module, see USAEC -Technical constant room temperature), The detector bias power Information Document. Standard Nuclear Instrument Modules,

• supply should have an adjustable output that is short Revision 3. TID-20893 (1969). .circuait protected with automatic power restoration after

.'.*'r more details on BLR circuits see V. Radeka, "Effect removal of the short. The maximum output voltage is

-.of 'aseline Retoration' on Signal-to-Noise. Ratio in Pulse determined by detector requirements; 5 kilovolts is Amplitude Mcasuremernts,7 Rev. Sci. lnsir. 3 8.1 397 (1967). sufficient for most. applications.

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