An Approach for Estimating the Frequencies of Various Containment Failure Modes and Bypass Events (NUREG/CR-6595, BNL-NUREG-52539, Revision 1)

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Publication Information

Manuscript Completed: September 2004
Date Published: October 2004

Prepared by:
W.T. Pratt, V. Mubayi, T.L. Chu, G. Martinez-Guridi, and J. Lehner
Energy Science and Technology Department
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Upton, New York 11973-5000

D.M. O'Neal, NRC Project Manager

Prepared for:
Division of Risk Analysis and Applications
Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001

NRC Job Code Y6103

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Abstract

This report is Revision 1 of NUREG/CR-6595, "An Approach for Estimating the Frequencies of Various Containment Failure Modes and Bypass Events," which the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) published in January 1999. The focus of the report is to provide a simplified approach for using a probabilistic risk assessment to estimate the frequency of containment failure and bypass events that result in radioactive releases to the environment with the potential for causing early fatalities. The approach uses the large, early release frequency (LERF) as a measure of the risk of early fatality.

This revision of NUREG/CR-6595 updates the guidance for full-power operation and provides additional guidance for estimating LERF under low power and shutdown conditions. The NRC staff issued a draft of this report for comment in August 2003, and has appropriately addressed comments received in preparing the final report. The full power analyses in this revision reflect information gained from recent containment studies and the individual plant examination studies. The guidance provided in this revision is intended to encompass the likelihood of containment failure for most nuclear power plants.