Open AccessA methodology for analyzing precursors to earthquake-initiated and fire-initiated accident sequences
Author(s) -
Robert J. Budnitz,
H.E. Lambert,
G. Apostolakis,
Jaime K Salas,
J.-S. Wu,
M.K. Ravindra
Publication year - 1998
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
DOI - 10.2172/595605
Subject(s) - scope (computer science) , fragility , forensic engineering , accident (philosophy) , work (physics) , engineering , nuclear power , nuclear power plant , stylized fact , computer science , physics , philosophy , epistemology , macroeconomics , economics , mechanical engineering , nuclear physics , thermodynamics , programming language
This report covers work to develop a methodology for analyzing precursors to both earthquake-initiated and fire-initiated accidents at commercial nuclear power plants. Currently, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission sponsors a large ongoing project, the Accident Sequence Precursor project, to analyze the safety significance of other types of accident precursors, such as those arising from internally-initiated transients and pipe breaks, but earthquakes and fires are not within the current scope. The results of this project are that: (1) an overall step-by-step methodology has been developed for precursors to both fire-initiated and seismic-initiated potential accidents; (2) some stylized case-study examples are provided to demonstrate how the fully-developed methodology works in practice, and (3) a generic seismic-fragility date base for equipment is provided for use in seismic-precursors analyses. 44 refs., 23 figs., 16 tabs