Development of a Technology-Inclusive Methodology
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Development of a Technology-Inclusive Methodology to Analyze the Environmental, Safety, and Health Risks Associated with Advanced Nuclear Reactor Designs as Demonstrated on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment By Brandon M. Chisholm Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSPHY in Environmental Engineering May 8, 2020 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Steven L. Krahn, D.P.A. David S. Kosson, Ph.D. Mark D. Abkowitz, Ph.D. James H. Clarke, Ph.D. Askin Guler Yigitoglu, Ph.D. Copyright © 2020 by Brandon M. Chisholm All Rights Reserved ii To Mom, Nick, and Dad, for making me who I am today and To Lauren, for inspiring me to never give up iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Honestly, there are so many people without whom I would have never been able to achieve what I have so far; I don’t even know where to begin to express my gratitude. First of all, I’d like to thank my family for setting me up for success. Mom, words cannot describe how much your relentless care and hard work means to me. Nick, you’ve been the best right-hand man that anyone could ever ask for. Dad, thank you for sending me down the path to be an engineer and for giving me the motivation to always do better. GramHoney and Pa, your love and support has allowed me to follow my passion. To the rest of the Chizners, thank you for always being there when I need you and for always making me laugh and laughing with me (sometimes at me). I also want to thank all the friends who have been a part of my life so long that you’re a part of my family too: Mr. Lloyd and Miss Rita, Zach, Conner, Stroudly, the rest of the Rhodes family, Erik, Charles, Aaron, and so many others. You’ll never know how much you have helped me along the way, and how thankful I am. Dr. Krahn, thank you for all of your guidance during my graduate studies and for the opportunities and doors that you have opened up for me. I sincerely appreciate the foundation that you have helped develop for me as I begin my professional career. Thank you to everyone else at Vanderbilt who has helped me out since I got to Nashville. To my committee members, your feedback and encouragement has been instrumental in making this dissertation a success. Allen, Paul, Megan, Carole, Bethany, and Tim, this work wouldn’t have been possible without your guidance and technical assistance. Jack, Bowen, Yanqing, Peng, Chris, and Chelsea, thank you for always helping to put a smile on my face. Charity, Bev, Karen Fuller, Karen Page, and Jackie, I owe you each quite a few favors for always helping me figure out how to get things done. Thank you to all of the organizations (and the people in the organizations) that made this project possible and helped shape both this research and my future. Thank you to the US Department of Energy and the Nuclear Energy University Programs. Your fellowship support has permitted me to dream big and tackle some important problems that I may have not had the opportunity to address otherwise. I would especially like to thank George, Gary, Askin, David, Zack, Tommy, and Anita at ORNL; Lauren, Irvin, Amir, Smith, and Lance at Southern; Andrew and Cristian at EPRI; and the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences at UCLA. Karl and Joe, thank you also for your help over the past 4 years. iv Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to thank the two beautiful souls that dealt with me pretty much every day and got me through the toughest moments of the work for this dissertation. Hattie, thank you for napping next to me while I stared at a computer screen for hours on end, all the while never forgetting to remind me when it was time for your dinner. Lauren, thank you for constantly putting up with my nonsense and making all the hard work worthwhile. I’m so excited for the next chapter of our lives together as a family. Disclaimers This material is based upon work partially supported under a Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, Integrated University Program Graduate Fellowship. As such, this report was prepared in part as an account of work sponsored by an Agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The research in this dissertation was also partially supported by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) Agreement #10007945, “Vanderbilt University Support for Developing Best Practices for Integrating Safety Assessment in the Advanced Reactor Design (PHA to PRA).” As such, this report was prepared in part as an account of work sponsored by EPRI. Neither EPRI nor any of their employees makes any warranty, expressly or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of the information contained herein. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................................... xi LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................................... xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................................... xv DEFINITIONS ....................................................................................................................................... xvii GLOSSARY OF RELEVANT NUCLEAR ENGINEERING TERMS ................................................ xix Chapter 1. Introduction and Motivation ................................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Background ...................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Research Objectives ........................................................................................................................ 5 1.3. Key Questions and Dissertation Structure .................................................................................. 6 1.4. Dissertation Scope ........................................................................................................................... 8 2. Literature Review of Relevant Risk Assessment and Safety-in-Design Approaches and Prior Efforts ......................................................................................................................................................... 11 2.1. Industry-Standard Approaches for Quantitative Risk Assessment ....................................... 11 2.2. PHA and Early Stage Safety Analysis ........................................................................................ 15 2.3. Safety-in-Design and Risk-Informed Frameworks for Safety Assessment ........................... 18 2.4. Prior Safety and Risk Assessments of Liquid-Fueled Molten Salt Reactors ......................... 21 2.4.1. Original Safety Basis for the MSRE ..................................................................................... 21 2.4.2. Recent LF-MSR Safety Assessment Efforts ......................................................................... 25 2.5. Summary ........................................................................................................................................ 34 3. Overview of a Technology-Inclusive Methodology to Analyze ES&H Risks associated with Advanced Reactor Designs ..................................................................................................................... 38 3.1. Overall Methodology Structure .................................................................................................. 38 3.2. Analysis Tools and Interfaces between Methods ..................................................................... 41 3.2.1. Hazard Identification ............................................................................................................. 41 3.2.2. Operating Experience and Stylized Accidents ................................................................... 42 3.2.3. Hazards and Operability (HAZOP) Study Method .......................................................... 42 3.2.4. Key Phenomena Identification and Ranking ..................................................................... 47 vi 3.2.5. Exhaustive Identification of Initiators ................................................................................. 47 3.2.6. Event Sequence Development .............................................................................................. 48 3.2.7. Quantitative Consequence Analysis ................................................................................... 49 3.2.8. Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) ..................................................................... 50 3.2.9. Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) ....................................................................................................