Implementation of Severe Accident Guidance

The vendor owner’s groups have developed severe accident management guidance (SAMG) to provide a generic road map to assist utilities in the development of a plant-specific severe accident management plan.

How the generic information is patterned to fit your plant is the task of the individual utility. Plant-specific aspects such as containment design, available mitigation alternatives, and potential severe accident challenges must be factored into the implementation of the generic guidelines for a specific plant. To perform this task requires a team with knowledge of the plant design, existing procedures, IPE results, severe accidents, and severe accident phenomena.

Risk Management Associates, Inc. (RMA), has experience in all aspects of severe accident evaluation including probabilistic risk assessment, accident progression, and phenomena evaluation. RMA personnel are also familiar with the PWR and BWR designs and procedures through the performance of risk assessments.

This knowledge base provides RMA with the tools necessary to develop a plant-specific implementation of the generic guidance. RMA has the knowledge necessary to identify an approach for implementation or to implement the plant-specific aspects of the SAMG. Possible support areas include, but are not limited to any or all of the following:

  • Development of Implementation Recommendations

    RMA can develop a set of recommendations for your plant that identifies where the generic guidance should be augmented to address plant-specific severe accident characteristics.

  • Generation of Calculational Aids and Selection of Plant Parameters

    RMA can generate any graphical or tabular aids necessary to support the SAMG. RMA can also provide support to the utility to assist in their production.

    RMA has developed and automated several important calculational and graphical aids required for the Westinghouse SAMGs. EXCEL - based worksheets and macros produce the graphs needed and allow for easy documentation and updates.

    A limited number of plant parameters are important in severe accident management. Many of these parameters may be beyond the plant licensing basis and are not easily identified within the plant licensing documentation.

    RMA can develop and document these parameters or provide recommendations for the development and value selection of these parameters.

  • Generation of SAMG Guidelines

    RMA can utilize the information provided in the IPE and other sources to generate a plant-specific version of the generic guidance.

    This can include an identification of any plant-specific issues that need to be addressed within the SAMG structure, development of the plant parameters, generation of the graphical or tabular aids, or the creation of the required guidance documents.