ML19241B930
| ML19241B930 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Rancho Seco |
| Issue date: | 07/19/1979 |
| From: | Mattimoe J SACRAMENTO MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT |
| To: | Reid R Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7907250391 | |
| Download: ML19241B930 (12) | |
Text
4 esuun SACRAMENTO MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT C 6201 S Street, Box 15330, Sacramento, Califernia 95'13; (916) 452-3211 July 19, 1979 Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation ATTN:
Mr. Robert W.
Reid, Chief Operating Reactors, Branch 4 U.S. Nuclear Regulatcry Commission Washington, D.
C.
20555
Dear Mr. Reid:
Docket No. 50-312 Rancho Seco Nuclear Generatin_g Station DurLig a telephone conversation on July 9, 1979, Mr. Ron Clary of the NRC staff requested a transcript of Item 2 on the agenda of the D: trict's Board of Director's meeting held on Februar.
1979.
The agenda item was " Staff report on allegeu design deficiencies of Rancho Seco cooling towers."
In compliance with this request, the tape recordings of the meeting have been transcribed and enclosed for your use.
Please forward this information to the proper individuals.
Sincerely, f
'{/
John J.
Mattimoe Assistant General Manager and Chief Engineer
)\\
Enci.
$7 \\
\\
U 'VfQ S ngez o
43l U, L l
- t : 4:
.3 m
m ; 3:
i, at sou nur: 2,
ITEM 2 Item 2 is a staff report on the alleged design deficiencies of the Rancho Seco cooling towers.
Ma ttimoe:
I'm sorry that : ssn't at the last Board meeting where this subject was brought up wne.e I think I could have answered all the questions that the Board had. aince the last Board meeting, the Board has been furnished a complete copy of the report regarding the allegations of the design deficiency at Rancho Seco. What I'd like to do is just cover a few impor-tant points that I think should be brought out and then we'll answer any questions that the Board has. First of all, I would like to poin* out that the results of the investigation, as stated in your document there, is,
neither of the allegations could be substantiated nor was there any evidence of any design deficiencies in the structures which wer the subjects of the allegations.
Briefly, there was an allegation by an NRC employee who had formerly been employed by Bechtel Corporation that we had made... not only had rnact a design error but had covered up a aesign error in the design of the spent fuel pond and also with regard to the cooling towers.
I'd like to take these one at a time. First of all, the allegations with the regard to the spent fuel pit.
I believe the document will show that the man wco made the allegations was not even involved in the design of the spent fuei pit. The spent fuel pit was designed prior to the time that this man was assigned to this job with Sechtel Corporation.
He had previous!< been employed in a different position.
In addition to the investigation that was carried on by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, we did some additional work in which we had an independent analysis made of the spent fuel pool design and found that it was utterly safe.
The second allegation had to do with the cooling towers. To begin with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, of course, has no real concern with regard to the cooling towers because they are not safety related. However, because the allegation was made that we did not take a look at the design of the cnoling towers after the San Fernando earthquake they did make some investi-gation with regard to this.
I'd like to point out several things with regard to the cooling towers. First of all, they are not a Class I struc-ture which means they're not designed to the NRC criteria. The cooling towers were originally designed in accordance with c.'iteria specified by SMUD. The seismic criteria for the cooling design was.1 G.
This was the problem that the allegers said that should have been corrected. When you design any structure there are many things that you have to take into consideration for the loading on that structure. The controlling design of the cooling towers was not the seismic loading. The controlling design of the cooling 'wers was the wind loading.
The design of the cooling towers was designed in accordance with the uniform building code require-ments tnat called for design of ninety niles an hour... ninety miles per hour wind loading on the cooling towers. When we designed the towers for ninety mile an hour wind loading we found that they would actually sustain an earthquake with a G force of.13, whereas the requirenents were only
.l.
In addition to finding that there was absolutely no truth to the allegations, SMUD, particularly under my direction did some additional investigation, both at the time of this allegation cnd prior to the time of that allegation.
nn1 d ;,
Um u w
The allegations with regard to the cooling towers was basically that we had not considered what effect the San Fernando earthquake would have on the design of the cooling towers.
The information that we obtained from both the Bechtel engineers, the design engineers that had looked at the results of the San Fernando earthquake indicated that it had no effect on the design at Rancho Seco. No effect on any part of the design of Rancho Seco.
In addition, I personally asked our consultant, Dr. Byerly from the University of California, who is our seismic consultant to also review on the basis of the fact that the San Fernando earthquake had occurred if he would change a ny of his recommendations with regard to the seismic design of Rancho Seco.
In the packet you will find a letter from Pe. ry Byerly that answers my request.
The letter is dated May 3,1971 which is some four months after the San Fernando earthquake.
Dr. Byerly was contra... we contracted with Dr. Byerly... SMUD contracted with Dr. Byerly since the beginning of R'ancho Seco for our seismic consultant.
Dr. Byerly comes with rather extensive credentials and just to briefly reiterate I will tell you what his creden-tials are:
he is a director of of the University of California Seismographic Stations, he is a past president and P arary member of the Seismilogical Society of America, the past president of the International Association of Seismology, the past chairman of the section of Geo-Physics of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellew of the Washington Academy of Science and a founding member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.
I will quote from Dr. Byerly's letter with a little background.
Dr. Byerly did not agree with the seismic criteria that was behg imposed upon us at Rancho Seco. His analysis indicated tha*.
05 was absolutely safe for the design of Rancho Seco. He reiterated that after the San Fernando earth-quake. With regard to the Class I structures of the nuclear facilities at Rancho Seco I will again quote from his letter.
"I feel that.1 G for the operating accident and.2 G for the design accident are utterly safe."
Whicn he means... what he means by that is that we were being ultraconserva-ti ve.
Those are the only remarks I have to make but I would be glad to answer any questions with regard to this.
I might note that all the investigation witn regard to the San Fernando earthquake was made after the San Fernando earth-quake and not as a result of the allegations from the NRC engineer who said we had made an error.
Any questions from the Board?
Director Castro:
I have a question.
You said that the analysis on Rancho Seco was... on the croling towers rather was made after the San Fernando earth-quake.
Tir. John Mattimoe:
No, I did not say that.
C:
Could you ex... I I guess I missed that. What kind of analysis was done to the cooling towers after the San Fernando earthquake? Was there any?
M:
I can't hear your...
,,Q h.i '
d'#
A I
)
C:
Oh, isn't this on?
Speak into it (third voice)
C:
Excuse me.
Um, I I guess my question was what kind of analysis was done on the cooling towers af ter the San Fernando earthquake?
M:
None, it was recomm?nded by Professor Byerly and also by two independent engineers that no additional analysis be made. The San Fernando earth-quake to put it in a short sentence had no effect on the seismic criteria for Sacramento.
C:
So the...
M:
There was no reason to re-analyze.
C:
And that's what these sworn statements attest to the fact that there was none done.
Is that right?
M:
They also attest to the fact that there was none required because there was no change in the seismic criteria that should have been employed at Rancho $eco because of tha results of the San Fernando earthquake.
C:
And that was based on their best judgment I guess because they looked...
did they at least look at the standard... did Bechtel look at '9e standards for design of the cooling towers and then decide not to do an ; vestigation, I I... who made the decision not to look at it I I'm a little unclear on that, um Jonn.
M:
SMUD made the decision.
I made the decision based on the information obtained from Dr. Byerly and the information obtained from Bechtel.
C:
So what happened was Dr. Byerly is familiar with the San Fernando earth-quake...
M:
Absolutely...
C:
... a*.d also having been familair with the cooling tower design made a recommendation that we didn't need to investigate it.
That was you two...
M:
The fact was his recommendation was that we were over designed in the first place.
C:
You said that... didn't you sa... you said that the spent fuel pit that you did an independent analysis and found that it was utterly safe. Was that done after San Fernando earthquake?
M:
No, it was done after the allegations.
C:
And...
M:
But, let me add something. After the San Fernando earthquake we investigated as to whether that would have any effect on any of the seismic criteria used at Rancho Seco and the answer at that time was no.
'T UJ i
kjl
-4 C:
You said...
M:
There was no reason to re-analyze anything at Rancho Seco.
C:
And who did the independent analysis of the spent fuel pit at the time?
Can you tell us who that was?
M:
It's in the document, I have to look it up right now...
C:
mk M:
It's,... boy I wish you'd askeo me an easier question.
It's spelled A-S-A-D-0-U-R, which I assume is Asadour H-Hadjain H-A-D-J-I-A-N.
C:
And where is he... I asked you because I couldn't pronounce his name...
M:
That's what I thought.
C:
... Where is he from?
M:
Parden?
C:
Who is he with?
M:
He works for Bechtel, but he was not employed on the Rancho Seco original analysis.
C:
He was not employed on the Rancho Seco original analysis but when he did the analysis he was employed by Bechtel?
M:
That is correct.
C:
Which was done... which did the... which was involved in the original design of Rancho Seco?
M:
Yes, but he made an independent analysis.
C:
How did he do that as an employee of Bechtel? I guess that's what I'm looking at.
M:
How did he do i t as an indep...
C:
I mean, you didn't hire Bechtel, you hired him as a consulting firm or something?
M:
I didn't hire him at all.
Eechtel did this additional analysis by an independent independent from anyone who was involved with the original analysis.
C:
Oh, I see, I didn't understand what independent analysis meant.
So Bechtel went along and they had,
nnel who were not involved in the original analysis that did the analys,_, and that's the independent analysis?
n
^i O)\\
si\\ ) l M:
That's correct.
C:
Ok, and w3s that Jons af ter the t'RC investigation?
M:
Yes.
C:
And did the NRC investigation look at the spent fuel pit design?
M:
Yes, and they also looked at the independent analysis as referred to in the report.
C:
Was the independent analysis done after the NRC analysis?
M:
Was the independent analysis done... No, it was dora prior to the NRC '
analysis.
C:
But NRC also did a separate analysis? There were two analyses...
M:
On the spent fuel pit.
NRC did the origina; analysis of the spent fuel pit when we applied for our license.
C:
I guess what I'm trying to get a feel for, John, is if NRC did an analysis why did Su htel also do an analysis? Is it because Bechtel didn't trust the NRC analysis or NRC didn't trust the Bechtel analysis?
M:
No, but we wanted to make sure that there was absolutely no validity to the allegations.
C:
And when there are allegations made are you... do you always do redundant investigations? When it's concerned with the safety at Rar.cho Seco?
Because you told me in this case that it was important tc do.
Is that standard procedure?
M:
It would be standard procedure, it would be certainly my standard pro-cedure to my knowledge this is the first allegation that was ever made that there was a design error at Rancho Seco.
C:
Ok, on the cooling tower design is a Class I, a, I saw in here there was a.28 G is that what the Class I standard is? And that's what the nuclear plant itself meets.
M:
No, the Class I standard for Rancho Seco is.25 G.
You'll find in there that when we made the analysis it actually would take.28 which is an additional factor of safety above the.25 which was a regulatory require-ment which I might add was 2-1/2 times what Professor Byerly recommended.
C:
Ok,... was Professor Byerly involved in the design or the independent analysis or ary way of the spent fuel pit? Those are two questions.
M:
No, Professor Byerly's complete assignment was to determine what seismic criteria we should use for the design of Rancho Seco.
C:
M:
Everything at Rancho Secc. He established tne seismic criteria for that site.
g,--,
C:
But NRC...
M:
But NRC doubled it.
C:
Ok, and NRC so he made certain standards for all of Rancho Seco, NRC doubled it on the compliments that they have regulatory control over it as the spent fuel pit and reactor itself but they don't have,... is it true that they don't have control over the cooling towers?
M:
Well, you've asked about three ouestions. Can we go back one at a time?
C:
I'm just trying to get a feel for the spearation between the cooling towers which supposedly aren't under NRC design... seismic standards.
M:
Tha t's correct. The cooling towers are not subject to NRC regulation.
They are not a part of the nuclear plant frca a standpoint of safety to the public.
C:
And I'm trying to get a feel if Dr. Byerly was a seismic specialist and consultant to SMUD and he developed design standards for Rancho Seco and M:
He developed...
C:
Excuse me...
M:
... the seismic criteria, not the design standards.
C:
Ok, he developed the seismic criteria for Rancho Seco.
M:
That's correct.
C:
And all the complimc t' including the cooling towers, excuse me, I'd just like to continue her. And in that design his standards were doubled in those areas that NRC had overview but in the one area on the cooling towers where there was no NRC overview the standards were kept the same as Dr. Byerly recommended.
M:
No.
They were doubled.
Dr. Byerly represented... recommended.05 we designed the cooling tower to.1 which was doubled.
C:
But not because of seismic standards but because so it wouldn't blow over.
Because you said that af ter you did the wind design for ninety miles per hour tha t in fact...
M:
No, no, you're confusing.
I said that when you design a structure there are many things you have to consider.
You have to consider dead load, wind load, ice ana snow load if its in an area, you have to consider seismic loading.
All of these loads create a certain stress with the structure. Some of them much less 'han others. The controlling criteria for the cooling towers was not the seismic design. We ran the calculations for a seismic design on the cooling towers double of what Professor Byerly recommended.
Then we ran the design on the cooling towers... design calculations on
.a cooling towers for the wind loading. We found that the wi'd loading was the controlling factor. That's what controlled the desi of the cooling towers.
If'you took the design that you came the I
)
)
results of the design because of tne wind loading and you back that up found out which... what seismic criteria it would withstand, the seismic criteria then became.13, which is 2.2 times what Professor Byerly had rec urended.
C:
I'd like to let someone else talk now.
Mr. Wm. Walbridge:
Rick, I think these poirts that John's been making have been quite clearly in the report that you received and the findings of the NRC on page 5 quite clearly state : hat the seismic design criteria of such structures is based on a.10 G horizontal ground acceleration.
The following paragraph points out that the earthquake which produced a
.13 horizontal ground acceleration as far as wind design is spelled out quite clearly in the report.
C:
Right, I read the report and I saw that, I just wanted to be able to clarify that what I re3d was correct.
Director Carr: John, I'd like to ask you a question if I could pleast.
Since there was obviously no merit to their claim, allegation, do you know the conditions under whici. the employee terminated from Bechtel?
M:
I can't remember 2xactly Paul so I'd rather not way.
He was not fired.
As I remember, he left of nis own free will to take another position.
But the allegations came some four or five years af ter he lef t Bechtel so it would have no effect upon Bechtel's action toward that employee because the allegations came in 1978.
I believe he left Bechtel in 1973 some four or five years prior to that.
Carr:
Ya but, a disgruntied employee could be looking back...
M:
I guess I would prefer not to go into details there.
I do know some more information but I don't know that I'm not invading upon the privacy of an individual. Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would not disclose his name to us or to Bechtel, it was quite apparent who he was, everyone knew who the individual was. And I have no personal feelings against the individual and I'd rather not answer that question.
?
John, just to recap this thing a little bit, this document gets a little bit confusing... but it seems to me like he had a disputa witn his imr.ediate superior with regard to the criteria on one small section of that cooling tower, a decimal point error of the magnitude of ten times I gather...
Mr That's correct.
?
The supervisor didn't feel that it was it is his concern was justified and overruled him is that about the way it worked?
- 1:
Not really, the calculations that were made as a result of us expanding the spent fuel pit were nade on a very conservative basis.
There were some additional calculations made in order to assure that our conserva-tive basis was in fact conservative.
Inese are what we refer to as supplemental calculations.
This man did make some of those supplemental calculations and there was a decimal point error in it.
His supervisor N7 gh,
.g_
told him that it didn't make any difference.
That if he'd corrected the decimal point error it would still give a value that was less than the design used. This supplemental calculation was just to prove that our conservatism was as we thought it was. We took that point where wa found, we actually did find where there was a decimal point error. We corrected the decimal point error, ran the calculations again and it still had no effe't on the final design of the spent fuel pit because the original design had teen made with more conservative fioures.
Its similar to the fact that we looked at the design from a seismic standpoint and from a wind loading standpoint and the one had a greater effect than the other. Our original design had a greater effect than the supplemental calculation that he had made.
?
Well, I'm really confused now because it was ny understanding that he had not worked on the spent fuel calculatier.s thR he's worked on the cal-culations with regard to the cooling towc's.
M:
No, he had nothing to do with the coolicy towers.
In fact, I apologize if I confuse you, in fact, he had nothing to do with the spent fuel pit.
The calculations where there was a decimal point error had to do with the plant vent, but the plant vent which is the stack that gc's up alongside the reactor building does tie structurally to the wall of the spent fuel pit. And this design calculation could be construed as art of the spent fuel pit but it really wasn't.
So this man was never involved in the calculations for the spent fuel pit. He was involved in the calcula-tions for the plant vent.
Castro:
Umm, I see. And '.ae wind factor is what determined that even though there was an error in the seismic loading that because they'd designed it for wind loading that there was no problem.
f1-ihat only refers to the cooling towers not to the spent i'l pit. Spent fuel pits... the controlling criteria is seismic.
C:
And is the controlling criteria for the plant vent structure wind loading?
Is that right?
ft:
No, the controlling criteria for the plant vent was seismic.
C:
Well, what does it mean here then it says "since wind loading was more than a factor of ten greater than seismic loading"? The question of whether to use 0.036 G or.36 G was
? Doesn't that indicate that...
M:
Will you tell me where you're reading?
C:
Its in the document on page 7.
It's this one John.
Isn't this memo different from some other ones.
ft:
You're right, I stand corrected. The plant vent also the controlling factor was the wind loading.
?
Did you say, Jonn, that the spent fuel pit vent would not be a concern to the Nucime Regulatory Conmission?
r --
[
J
-9 M:
No.,the spent fuel pit is absolutely in the plant vent is absolutely a concern of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Only the cooling towers is not of concern to the...
?
Ya well, then apparently af ter their investigation they didn't feel that there was much of a case here I gather from reading all this material.
M:
There was no case whatsoever.
C:
Is it that there was in terms of this investigation with SMUD there was no allegation to the charge that there was any inappropriate actions taken by SMUD.
Is that correct?
M:
There were no inappropriate actions taken by SMUD?
Is that what you said?
C:
SMUD was clear or whatever.
M:
Yes, there was no action to take by SMUD. The allegations were proven false.
C:
I quess I'm wondering where they've proven false in terms of their allegations against Bechtel and also against SMUD or are we just looking at the allegations against SMUD?
W:
Rick, I think the report is quite clear in that if you take a look at the TdC i tig pagC of u..e ICC report, it talks 3 bout the soecial investigation and the resul t, I don't think anything could be much more succinct.
Results say neither of the allegations could be substantiated nor was there any evidence of design deficiencies in the structures which were the suoject of the allegations.
That's about as plain english as the NRC ever uses.
??
I'd like to add... I'd like to follow up a question on that, um I don't know whether it should be to you Bill or to you John but uh this report from the NRC, as I gathered from reading through the material has been on file now for, as a public Jocument, for some six months or so.
M:
That's correct.
Its been in the public document room since June of 1978.
?
The full document, including what Bill just read?
M:
Yes.
Eve ry th i ng.
Yes, the complete document and its the only thing that I'm referring to, the only thing that I've added to this document that isn't in the public document room is tne qualifications of Dr. Byerly.
7 Ok, the thing that confuses me then aDout this is that this whole issue had been brought up just recently and if reading a recent news article it indicates that this information has been known and suppressed for apparently fomr some period of time.
I don't understand why the full content of the report wasn't brought aut at the time of the last meeting.
'?
At this point, obviously I'm confused as to the purpose...
I ~J u 036 T
. : guo, the full content of the... ' can Ansv.er N first part of your
'ue>tions, the full content of the report misn' t brought out at the last
'tating becluse i aasn't nere and ! ; u e s ', ' ' n t h e c.o s t faniliar Oerson with it.
ifter all, /o1'11 find that it is addressed to re.
I'm re. lily talking ar :ut the individual who decided to bring it up at that tire.10 obviously haj been s e ry on ir:re,,ed Ina involved with thin pletiCular study.
get to be conjecture.
I've got another question here at the end John, we keep talking acout the... I I want to keep this a little longer... c.e <eep talking about the fact that the design criteria was
!de ra to inc in fact i'
.a s 0 designed fur whlt cas required.ind yet at the end of the end of tnis luclear Regulatory last docr:ent that's in this group.
It says, at the conclusion of the visit
'o Eecntel ';orwalk the inwector stated the finding regarding the revisod calcuiations not teing cnr ned incicated a sof t spot in QA practices at tha t time.
Sech tel s ta ted that practices in this regard had been tightened during the past eignt years.
50, acparently there wasn't total satisfaction with the idea of some one being concerned about an error of some magnitude an1 having it pass over by his superior, at least tha t's what I would pick up frc ' this.
M:
- ha t tha t really ~eins, is that according to their quality assurance ornc W r.s that.neci snould have W n nade and noted in the Orace w ro>
- na it was not.
T h a t, is the only thing tha t ne found wrong, is tha t that
,u rticula r proceduro had not been follnw.rd and that it had been written and signeu of' t;y the engineer.
50, what o're talking about is that an ir; roper proceduro in the earl /
narkinas tha t didn' t have a
.. didn't have an effect on the final product that was harnful, I gather
't:
Right, the fact thn they violated that oracedure did have had no ef fect on t 1e final Droje t.
hs there an in' es tiga tion as to netne' similar, other similar sof t spots in qu ili ty assurance had been
.. aid ' hey look for ether sof t spots when they did that analysis? Did they go over and check al1 the figures ~'
M-All the figures for ana t?
r:
- 'm just acndering if fui
_ce earth @ lke design, the earthauake standards if Becntel
.. ads.NRC's inves tigation just on this one issue?
'1:
JRC, as well as 5"UD has the responsibility for audi ting ar approving the conolete design calculations of Eechtei with regard to Rancho Seco and this is clso audited by our own CA departcent and we have found no places that have been."here they have viola ted their 0A procedures..here they haven' t rade corrections or i f they < ere viola ted tna t i t had any t fect an tno design.
/
. L:
50 jou, since you daunie phrased it at you did iit.c some tnat are you saying that they didn't have an e'fect on the design other that you did fi nd sc:: o co-tnis one'.
ft-30, I'm not saying that.
We found no places where it hau ef fect on the design.
C:
Did yo-find no errors, I guess that was...
P-Well, we found errors in Quality T-ssurance procedures that were corrected.
C:
Did you find this o;e?
M-fio, we did not find shat one.
A.
Alright, cre tnere any otner questions f rom the Enard witn regard to this?
Inasmuch as it was brought up at c public.reeting and has haa some coverage in the press I think it might t)e appropriate to hear and it's also atsout 7:30 time for statements f rom visitors and anyone who would like to co" nent on this frem the audience may do so at this time.
'..'o u l d y o u g i v e yo u r na me please.... Certainly, yes that would be fine, i
6
/
[s s, if ~f
- -- M
()sD