e YE i<D- *' . INTERIM REPORT Accession No. ORNL/FTR-678 Contract Program or Project Title: Nuclear Safety Information Center Subject of this Document: Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology Type of Document: Trip Report Author (s): Wm. B. Cottrell Date of Document: September 6, 1979 Responsible NRC Individual and NRC Office or Division: Dr. G. L. Bennett Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research Division of Reactor Safety Research This document was prepared primarily for preliminary or internal use. It has not received full review and approval. Since there may be substantive changes, this document should not be consid- ered final. Prepared for U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C. 20555 Under Interagency Agreements DOE 40-551-75 and 40-552-75 NRC FIN No. B0126 Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830 operated by Union Carbide Corporation for the Department of Energy INTERIM REPORT HC lesearcl anc "ec1nica IU33 i x Assistance Repor: ) y f u, yg . OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY OPERATED SV UNION CARBIDE CORPORATION NUCLEe AR Dm510N _ = = ,.. ORNL FOREIGN TMP REPORT ORNL/FTR-678 DATE: September 6, 1979 SUBJECT: Report of Foreign Travel of Wm. B. Cottrell, Manager, Safety Information Section, Engineering Technology Division To: Herman Postma F R OM: Wm. B. Cottrell PURPOSE: To attend the 5th Int ( national Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology, August 13-17, 1979, and the following seminar on " Assuring Structural Integrity of Steel Reactor Pressure Vessels, August 20-21, 1979; to visit Dr. H. Steel of the GDR State Office for Atomic Safety and Radiation Protection. SITE VISITED: The above conference and seminar were held at the Inter- national Congress Center in West Berlin; the Wednesday, August 15th, meeting was at the GDR State Office for Atomic Safety ..nd Radiation Protection in East Berlin. ABSTRACT: Thomas A. Jaeger of the German (FRG) Bundesanstalt fGr Materialprtifung (BAM) originated and promoted the concept of an Internal Conference on Structural Mechanics in Re- actor Tect.nology which now has the support of over twenty companies, technical societies, and government organiza- tions in Europe, the United States, and Canada. The meet- ing in Berlin, August 13-17, was the 5th such biannual meeting and attracted some 1400 participants who could hear some 800 presentations in up to 15 parallel sessions. The main conference was preceded by one and followed by nine other seminars which were intended to provide a forum for in-depth discussions on topics of special in- terest. In addition to attending much of the conference and one post conference seminar, the traveler was invited by Dr. Jaeger to participate in the concluding press con- ference, and also had the opportunity to visit the GDR State Office for Atomic Safety and Radiation Protection. UC Research ant Technical w. Assistance Report . 'n f my I U ) ') . ] . 1 Introduction The traveler, Wm. B. Cottrell, wae invited (on July 25th) by the Chairman (Dr. T. A. Jaeger) of the 4;n International Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology to attend that conference and one of the following seminars at their expense (for plane fare and registration only). Inasmuch as the conference is both implicitly and explicitly concerned with reactor safety, I was pleased to be able to attend. In addition to the lain conference, August l}-17, I attended the following seminar on Assuring Structural Integrity of Steel Re- actor Pressure Vessels on August 20-21. I also had the opportunity on August 15 to visit Dr. H. Scheel of the GDR State Office for Atomic Safety and Radiation Protection. This memorandum is my report on these meetings and is divided into three sections (1) the 5th SMIRT Confer- ence, (2) the Seminar on Reactor Pressure Vessels, and (3) the visit to the GDR State Office followed by a summary statement concerning the SMIRT Conference. The 5th SMIRT Conference The first International Conference on Structural Mechanics in Re- actor Technology (SMIRT) was held in Berlin in 1971 and they have been held biannually since. The chief protagonist for this meeting was and is Dr. Thomas S. Jaeger of the FRG Bundesanstalt fur Fbterialsprufung (BAM) located in Berlin. However, the meeting has apparently filled such a need in the scientific community that over twenty companies, technical societies, and/or government agencies from Europe, the United States, and Canada participated in the organization and sponsorship of the 5th SMIRT Conference which was held in Berlin, August 13-17, 1979, (see Appendix 1). The SMIRT conferences are also unique in that each conference is preceded and/or followed by a number of seminar.c te rermit the in- depth discussion of special topics within the ss of SMIRT. The 5th SMIRT included ten such conferences; one of which Ts held on Thurs- day and Friday of the preceding week and the remai . der of which were held on Monday and Tuesday of the following week. The traveler attended the SMIRT Conference and cae of the follow- ing seminars at the special invitation of Dr. Jaeger who also arranged for the conference to provide the airplane fare and registration fees. Although I thus had no function at the meeting itself - although I was subsequently invited by Dr. Jaeger to participate in the concluding press conference on Friday, August 17th - the subject matter of the meeting was both directly and indirectly concerned with reactor safety As such, the meeting was directly concerned with my responsibilities both as Editor of Auclear Safety and as Director of the Nuclear Safety Information Center. In fact, it would appear that my invitation was prompted in the expectation that my presence would enhance the dis- sem nation of the meeting contents throughout the nuclear community. ' T . 2 - In order to provide some idea of the scope and contents of the meeting, the titles of all technical sessions are listed on Appendix 2 (total - 114 sessions). Each session averaged %7 papers (result- ing in something approaching 800 papers) and in view of this bulk, no attempt will be made to list all the papers here. However, a com- plete set of the proceedings is being mailed to the author and inter- ested persons may arrange to see my copy (when it arrives). The meeting was not unlike many others I have attended. In atten- dance (reportedly %1400) it was somewhat larger than the annual ANS meeting, but there were three times as many papers presented in some 10 tc 15 parallel sessions throughout the week, except for the plenary session on Monday morning, and this is the only session 1 will comment upon here. In addition to the customary formalities which involved R. K. Appleyard (Cammission of the European Communities), T. A. Jaeger (Conference General Chairman), W. LUder (Mayor of Berlin) and B. A. Boley (Deputy General Chairman), the plenary session consisted of three formal presentations as follows: 1. Guido Brunner (Member of the Commission of the European Communities) " Situation and Perspectives of the Energy Policy in the European Community" 2. Mike McCormack (Member of Congress of the United States of America) " Energy Policy of the United States in the International Community" 3. Peter For'escue (Technical Director, General Atomic Company, San Diego, California "Long Term Nuclear Energy Strategies: The Role of Fission and Fusion" All three are nuclear advocates, however, Brunner's talk was more historically oriented, expressed the need for environmental protection as well as meeting the energy needs of society in which both coal and nuclear are needed. McCormack's talk constituted a solid endorsement of nuclear power based upon his assessment of the energy situation and the available alternatives. Fortescue's talk was another in his con- tinuing attempts to gain support for gas-cooled reactors and/or the thorium fuel cycle. (I have a copy of the complete text of each of these three papers.) Assuring the Structural Integrity of Steel Reactor Pressure Vessels The two-day seminar on this topic was one of ten such reminars that were held during the week either preceding or following the SMIRT Conference itself. The list of all such conferences is pre- sented in Appendix 3. The agenda for the Pressure Vessel seminar is shown in Appendix 4. All of these seminars are on topics within the technical scope of the SMIRT Conference in which the program sponsors o,, ' . 3 felt that there was a need for additional meetings on specific topics. Each such seminar is conducted in a " workshop" atmosphere for the pur- pose of providing a forum for extensive in-depth discussions. For persons interested in more detail on this seminar, I have a copy of the preprints which includes many but not all of the papers presented. The session was " enlivened" by a review of the Three Mile Island Accident by Dudley Thompson, Deputy Director of the NRC Division of Inspection and Enforcement (substituting for Vic Stetto). This presentation was not included in the preprints, but was based upon the NRC report (NUREG-0600) " Investigation Into the March 28, 1979, Three Mile Island Accident by Office of Inspection and Enforcement" which had been released a few weeks earlier. GDR Office for Atomic Safety and Radiation Protaction On August 15th this traveler, together with Betty Maskewitz (Director of the Radiation Shielding Information Center, ORNL), visited Dr. H. Scheel of the GDR State Office for Atomic Safety and Radiation Protection in East Berlin. The visit was an experience which provided little, if anything, of technical value to me pertaining to nuclear safety, but which did provide me with a wealth of insight as to the role and status of East German science. In addition to Scheel, Maskewitz and myself, we were joined in midmorning by Dr.