Fault Tree Analysis of Loss of Cooling to a HALW Storage Tank

Abstract

Results of a scenario identification, a fault tree construction and an analysis for a loss of cooling accident in a High Activity Liquid Waste (HALW) tank of a typical model of reprocessing facility, is rendered together with considerations of the system reliability improvement by changing the model design.

Model plant data, basic failure frequency data and a fault tree analysis code named FTL have been introduced from NUKEM Gmbh, Germany. They are throughly reviewed and reevaluated at JAERI, and improved to apply to Japanese facilities.

A general systematic method for constructing fault trees is used to avoid missing scenarios, thus all of the 10 conceivable accident scenarios for “HALW storage tank without cooling, HALW boiling” are identified, and a total failure frequency are calculated to be in the 90% confidence interval of (1.1–5.8)×10″⁻⁶/yr for the German model plant.

KEYWORDS:

• probabilistic safety assessment
• loss of cooling accident
• accident scenarios
• storage tank
• high activity liquid wastes
• fault tree analysis
• reliability
• failures
• occurrence frequency