A Methodology for Analyzing Precursors to Earthquake-Initiated and Fire-Initiated Accident Sequences (NUREG/CR-6544)

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Publication Information

Manuscript Completed: March 1998
Date Published: April 1998

Prepared by:
R.J. Budnitz, H.E. Lambert
Future Resources Associates, Inc.
2039 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 402
Berkeley, California 94704-1150

G.Apostolakis, J.K. Salas
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139-4307

J-S. Wu
Advanced System Concepts Associates
Rolling Hills Estates, California 90274

M.K. Ravindra
EQE International, Inc.
Newport Beach, California 92660-2037

H.J. VanderMolen, NRC Project Manager

Prepared for:
Division of Systems Technology
Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001

NRC Job Code W6555

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Abstract

This report covers work to develop a methodology for analyzing precursors to both earthquake-initiated and internal fire-initiated accidents at commercial nuclear power plants. Currently, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission sponsors a large ongoing project, the Accident Sequence Precursor project, to analyze the safety significance of other types of accident precursors, such as those arising from internally-initiated transients and pipe breaks, but earthquakes and fires are not within the current scope. The results of this project are that (i) an overall step-by-step methodology has been developed for precursors to both fire-initiated and seismic-initiated potential accidents; (ii) some stylized case-study examples are provided to demonstrate how the fully-developed methodology works in practice, and (iii) a generic seismic-fragility data base for equipment is provided for use in seismic-precursor analyses.