During 1989 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) initiated an extensive program to carefully examine the potential risks during low power and shutdown operations. Two plants, Surry (a pressurized water reactor) and Grand Gulf (a boiling water reactor), were selected for study by Brookhaven National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, respectively.The program objectives included assessing the risks of severe accidents initiated during plant operational states other than full power and comparing estimated core damage frequencies, important accident sequences, and other qualitative and quantitative results with full power accidents as assessed in NUREG-1 150. The scope included a Level 3 probabilistic risk assessment VRA) for traditional internal events and a Level 1 PRA on fire, flooding, and seismically induced core damage sequences. Level 1 and Level 2/3 results from both the Surry and Grand Gulf analyses are presented.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.