The current method of determining component failure rates
for probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) in the nuclear
industry is to take the total number of failures divided by
the time over which the failures occurred. The method
proposed in this study is the reliability growth method and
involves taking into account the fact that the amount of
failures per additional year of operation generally decreases
yearly because the operational staff becomes familiar with the
equipment. The reliability growth method will result in lower
component failure rates which when used in PRA studies could
result in a lower core melt frequency value. The component
failure rate would be expected to be higher in the early
stages and should gradually decrease as time goes on. This
study will compare the final core melt frequency of the Trojan
Nuclear Power Plant using both methods. The Nuclear Power
Reactor Data System (NPRDS) data base from the Institute of
Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) was used in this study. The
components which were examined for the reliability growth
method are motor operated valves, service water pump/motors
and emergency diesel generator air chargers. These data were
screened to ensure that only true failures were reported.
A comparison was made of the overall core melt frequency
between the conventional failure rate method and reliability
growth method for the motor operated valves. The overall core
melt frequency was decreased by 1.8 % when using the
reliability growth method compared to the conventional method. / Graduation date: 1993
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/37030 |
| Date | 18 December 1992 |
| Creators | Ahn, Hyunsuk |
| Contributors | Higginbotham, Jack F. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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