ASSESSING THE CREDIBILITY OF DIVERTING THROUGH CONTAINMENT PENETRATIONS

Year
1980
Author(s)
J.N. Cooley - Oak Ridge National Laboratory
D.W. Swindle, Jr. - Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Abstract
A viable approach has been developed for identifying those containment penetrations in a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant which are credible diversion routes. The approach is based upon systematic engineering and design analyses and is applied to each type of penetration to determine which penetrations could be utilized to divert nuclear material from a reprocessing facility. The approach is described and the results of an application are discussed. In addition, the concept of credibility is developed and discussed. For a typical reprocessing plant design, the number of penetrations determined to be credible without process or piping modifications was ^ 16% of the penetrations originally identified.