Revitalizing Nuclear Safety Research (1986)

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

1 Introduction Nuclear power generation is a complex process encompassing both high technology and conventional engineering activities. It is replete with all the promises and problems that such activities typically entail. Ordinarily, some of the problems of a complex technology are uncovered and resolved during the period of matu- ration. Forty years after the beginning of the nuclear age, nuclear technology is still going through a period of development; for ex- ample, none of the larger power reactors has reached the end of its design life. This underscores the importance of research and the continuing need for better understanding of reactor behav- ior under varying conditions, from normal operations, through off-normal conditions, to accidents. Effective research in nuclear safety—research that is capable of asking as well as answering the right questions—requires not only scientific and engineering credentials, but also an intimate knowledge of a large number of specific scientific and engineering issues pertaining to nuclear power plant operations. These are for the most part not available in textbooks; they are acquired through personal involvement with nuclear technology, reactor safety, power plant operations, regulatory matters, and research over a long period of time. The primary benefits of research and of achieving a better understanding of reactor behavior are improved designs, improved modes of operation and maintenance, and improved regulation of nuclear power plants. One of the intermediate goals of safety re- search is to establish margins of safety as new issues arise and to refine the quantitative margins in existing regulations that

are thought either to be overly conservative or not conservative enough. The committee would like to point out, however, that even an excellently managed, well-funded, and appropriately fo- cused program of nuclear safety research cannot transform the regulation of nuclear power plants into a process in which de- cisions flow exclusively from scientific and technical knowledge. Like all environmental, health, and safety regulation—indeed all decisionmaking on highly technical subjects—nuclear regulation will always remain a complex blend of applying knowledge and exercising policy discretion. Many of the current regulations have been in force for the entire history of nuclear regulation; they are likely to require re- view and change in light of new knowledge. As new events occur, there are new lessons for safe power plant design, construction, and operation that need to be reflected in industry practices and in regulation. Regulators need to develop new tools—both ana- lytical and experimental—with which to analyze emerging safety issues. For all these reasons, safety research is absolutely essential. And it can only be expected to remain so because the range and complexity of physical phenomena affecting the operational safety of nuclear power plants are likely to increase as nuclear reactors age, as plant operating conditions change to accommodate aging, and as the performance of plant personnel varies in response to changing conditions. During committee discussions it became clear that the activ- ities being thought of whenever the term "research" was used— indeed those historically considered to be research by the DOE, the NRC, and the nuclear industry—included a much broader range of activities than are ordinarily thought of as "research." It was evident, however, that all parts of the broad range of ac- tivities being considered are so closely connected that they must be considered together in planning and executing a program of nuclear safety research. Accordingly, the committee elected to use a broader meaning for "research" than is customary. In this report, the term "research" is used as a shorthand expression for a variety of activities commonly referred to as "re- search," "development," "test," "evaluation," "audit," "analysis," and "investigation." It is meant to encompass both safety research and safety engineering, activities that aim either at applying ex- isting knowledge or creating new knowledge in the field of nuclear

9 TABLE 1 Nuclear Safety Research Activities Experimental investigation o fundamental physical constants and properties o component behavior o system response o verification Theoretical investigation o component, system modeling and validation o development of safety technology o development of conceptual component and system designs Design analysis o failure modes and effects o prevention/mitigation strategies o human performance predictions Operational analysis o review of operating data o performance testing o potential for systems improvements safety. A categorization of these kinds of activities is presented in Table 1. The safety research activities outlined in Table 1 may be fi- nanced, funded, and executed by individuals or organizations, public or private. In the United States, the institutional context within which nuclear safety research takes place is extraordinarily complex in both the number and the kind of participating organi- zations. Table 2 provides a list of some of the major participants, and Appendix A discusses the roles of the leading sponsors of commercial nuclear safety research.

10 TABLE 2 Participants in the Nuclear Safety Research Enterprise Government o Nuclear Regulatory Commission o Department of Energy (including the national laboratories) o Geological Survey o National Bureau of Standards o National Science Foundation Industry o Electric Utility Industry (a) individual firms (b) ad hoc utility projects (e.g., IDCOR) (c) Electric Power Research Institute (d) Institute of Nuclear Power Operations o Nuclear Reactor Vendors o Utility-Vendor Consortia (so-called Owners Groups) o Architect/Engineers o Component and Equipment Suppliers o Engineering Consultants Universities and other contract research organizations (e.g., Science Applications International Corp.) Professional and technical societies Foreign participants in international cooperative arrangements involving the U.S. government or U.S. firms The public (through the licensing and rulemaking processes)