Methods and Strategies for Future Reactor Safety Goals
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2010
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ndltd-OhioLink-oai-etd.ohiolink.edu-osu12754007782021-08-03T05:59:47Z Methods and Strategies for Future Reactor Safety Goals Arndt, Steven Andrew Mechanical Engineering Reactor Safety Safety Goals <p>The NRC, in its safety goals policy statement, has provided general qualitative safety goals and basic quantitative health objectives (QHOs) for nuclear reactors in the United States. Risk metrics such as core damage frequency (CDF) and large early release frequency (LERF) have been used as surrogates for the QHOs. A number of issues have been raised including how risk from multiple reactors at a site should be combined for evaluation, how the combination of a new and old reactor at the same site should be evaluated, what the criteria for evaluating new reactors should be, and whether new reactors should be required to be safer than current generation reactors. </p><p> As part of the development and application of the NRC safety goal policy statement the Commissioners laid out the expectations for the safety of a nuclear power plant but did not address the risk associated with current multi-unit sites, potential modular reactor sites, and hybrid sites that could contain current generation reactors, new passive reactors, and/or modular reactors. </p><p> This dissertation examines potential approaches to updating the safety goals that include the establishment of new quantitative safety goal associated with the comparative risk of generating electricity by viable competing technologies and modifications of the goals to account for multi-plant reactor sites, and issues associated with the use of safety goals in both initial licensing and operational decision making. This research develops a new quantitative health objective that uses a comparable benefit risk metric based on the life-cycle risk of the construction, operation and decommissioning of comparable non-nuclear electric generation facility, as well as the risks associated with the mining, transportation. This dissertation also evaluates the effects of using various methods for aggregating site risk as a safety metric. Additionally, a number of important assumptions inherent in the current safety goals, including the effect of other potential negative societal effects such as the generation of greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide) have on the risk of electric power production and their effects on the setting of safety goals is explored. Finally the role risk perception should play in establishing safety goals, has been explored. </p><p> To complete this evaluation a new method to analytically compare alternative technologies of generating electricity was developed, including development of a new way to evaluate risk perception and a new method was developed for evaluating the risk at multiple units on a single site. To test these modifications to the safety goals a number of possible reactor designs and configurations were evaluated using these new proposed safety goals to determine the goals’ usefulness and utility. The results of the analysis showed that the modifications provide measures that more closely evaluate the potential risk to the public from the operation of nuclear power plants that the current safety goals, while still providing a straight forward process for assessment of reactor design and operation.</p> 2010-09-03 English text The Ohio State University / OhioLINK http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1275400778 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1275400778 unrestricted This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws. |
| collection |
NDLTD |
| language |
English |
| sources |
NDLTD |
| topic |
Mechanical Engineering Reactor Safety Safety Goals |
| spellingShingle |
Mechanical Engineering Reactor Safety Safety Goals Arndt, Steven Andrew Methods and Strategies for Future Reactor Safety Goals |
| author |
Arndt, Steven Andrew |
| author_facet |
Arndt, Steven Andrew |
| author_sort |
Arndt, Steven Andrew |
| title |
Methods and Strategies for Future Reactor Safety Goals |
| title_short |
Methods and Strategies for Future Reactor Safety Goals |
| title_full |
Methods and Strategies for Future Reactor Safety Goals |
| title_fullStr |
Methods and Strategies for Future Reactor Safety Goals |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Methods and Strategies for Future Reactor Safety Goals |
| title_sort |
methods and strategies for future reactor safety goals |
| publisher |
The Ohio State University / OhioLINK |
| publishDate |
2010 |
| url |
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1275400778 |
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AT arndtstevenandrew methodsandstrategiesforfuturereactorsafetygoals |
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