Nuclear Supervision Research Articles

Принципы формирования, разделения и описания требований надежности и безопасности в электроэнергетике

The principles for shaping, separating and describing the reliability and safety requirements in the electric power industry of Russia are presented, and recommendations on setting up a reliability and safety assurance system in the industry are worked out. The opinions of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation (Minenergo of Russia) and of various electric power industry entities regarding the description of these requirements are outlined. A conflict of interests between the liberal nature of the electricity market and the mandatory requirements for managing the production, transmission, distribution, and consumption of electric energy arose after the electric power industry of Russia had been reformed. In this connection, the Minenergo of Russia was charged with the task to elaborate principles for shaping, separating and describing the reliability and safety requirements in the electric power industry. The article outlines different viewpoints on this problem. According to the standpoints of the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology and the System Operator in regard of this problem, those who are going to develop legal regulatory acts stipulating mandatory requirements for reliability and safety in the electric power industry shall use references to the relevant national standards. In the opinion of the Russian Hydro Power Generating Company (RusGidro), the reliability requirements are inseparable from the safety requirements. The Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service of Russia (Rostekhnadzor) should supervise safety in the electric power industry, and the Minenergo of Russia should regulate the reliability of electric power industry operation through elaborating the relevant industry-branch legal regulatory acts with establishing mandatory reliability requirements for the electric power industry. The standpoint maintained by electric power producers (generating companies) rests on the idea that the reliability should be estimated in quantitative terms, and that the consumers shall pay for it. The relevant payment mechanisms are already available, for example, in the Market of System Services.According to the standpoint of the Russian Electrical Network Company (Rosseti), it is inexpedient to separate the reliability and safety requirements posed to the electric power facilities and consumers. Otherwise, a need would arise to set out the same requirements twice in legal regulatory documents. In addition, the reliability and safety requirements shall not be categorized into normative and optional ones, because the optional requirements will not be complied with. The reliability and safety requirements posed to different entities of electric power industry should be different depending on the kind of activities performed by the entities. The consumers shall maintain the quality of electrical energy and bear responsibility for degrading it. The manufacturers of high-voltage electrical equipment shall design it in compliance with the requirements of relevant national standards. Nothing has changed for them even though the national standards had become optional. The designers of electric power systems are guided by the Methodical recommendations for elaborating power system development projects. These guidelines should now be brought to the level of a national standard.

ANALYSIS OF NATIONAL ACTIVITY FOR EXECUTING THE JOINT CONVENTION ON THE SAFETY OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT

Analysis of the results of the activity of the State Atomic Energy Corporation "Rosatom" and the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision for preparing the Russian Federation reports at meetings of the contracting parties to fulfil the obligations arising from the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management was performed.The main content of the report refers to the fourth national report of the Russian Federation submitted to the IAEA in May 2015. The main results of the activity for the formation of a unified state system for RW management were considered. Analysis of the questions of the Member States of the Joint Convention to the content of the national report was performed. A review of the activities of the FSUE "RosRAO" in terms of solving the basic problems for the safe management of radioactive waste was presented.

О разработке планов мероприятий по локализации и ликвидации последствий аварий для обеспечения промышленной безопасности

The article studies the procedure of development of Activity Plan on localization and liquidation of accidents consequences
 on hazardous industrial facilities. It notes ambiguousness of requirements to Plans introduced by Decrees of the Government
 of the Russian Federation and Recommendations of the Federal Environmental, Engineering & Nuclear Supervision Agency
 (Rostehnadzor). To provide industrial safety it is recommended to create a single regulatory document in accordance with
 which all other documentation on localization and liquidation of accidents consequences on hazardous industrial facilities
 must be developed.

FEATURES OF THE “ACCIDENT” AND THE “INCIDENT” CONCEPTS AT THE HAZARDOUS PRODUCTION FACILITIES ON THE MODEL OF THE MAIN PIPELINES

At the present time among the subjects of the business activities and the developers of the state policy in the sphere of the industrial safety and also in the modern scientific life the main problems of the existing Legislation in the sphere of the industrial safety of the hazardous industrial objects are widely discussed. These problems specified the necessity of the qualitative changes of the government control in the industrial branches aimed at the improvement and regulation control of the industrial objects’ safety. The fulfillment of the constant monitoring of the industrial safety level promotes the increase of the effective management of the industrial safety in the organizations operating at the dangerous production objects. The purpose of this monitoring is an operative reaction to the change of factors influencing the condition of the dangerous industrial objects’ protection and performing preventive measures aimed at the prevention of “accidents” and “incidents”. Therefore, for the effective fulfillment of the monitoring it is advisable to keep records of accidents’ indices under the control of the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision. But it should be noted that the definitions of the basic concepts of an “incident” and “accident” on which the practical implementation of Art. 116-FL “About the industrial safety at the dangerous production objects” is based, don’t provide a sufficient base for the prevention of accidents and incidents and also the consequences of their impact on a human being, the surrounding environment and means of production. In addition the practical statistics shows that about 80% of operational injuries and Illnesses aren’t consequences of the accidents. These are the consequences of the incidents (the violation of the technological mode, operation instructions, non-utilization of the individual protection means and others). Therefore, it is necessary to improve the protective measures directed not only to the accidents’ prevention but also to the incidents’ prevention and the prevention of their transformation into the accidents.

Remote monitoring of nuclear power plants in Baden-Wuerttemberg

As part of its responsibilities as nuclear supervisory authority, the Ministry of the Environment, Climate Protection and the Energy Sector Baden-Wuerttemberg (UM) operates a computer-based system for remote monitoring of nuclear power plants (NPPs) (KFUe, Kernreaktor-Fernüberwachung). In addition to the Baden-Wuerttemberg NPPs located at Philippsburg, Neckarwestheim and the disused Obrigheim, those in foreign locations close to the border area, i.e. Fessenheim in France, and Leibstadt and Beznau in Switzerland, are monitored. The KFUe system provides several methods to evaluate and present the measured data as well as to ensure compliance of threshold limits and safety objectives. For the UM, it serves as an instrument of the nuclear supervision. In case of a radioactive release, the authorities responsible for civil protection can use dispersion calculations in order to identify potentially affected areas and to initiate protective measures for the population. Beyond the data collected at the plant sites, various international radiation and meteorological measuring networks are integrated in the KFUe. The State Institute for Environment, Measurements and Nature Protection (LUBW), the technical operator of the KFUe, runs its own special monitoring network for ambient gamma dose rate and nuclide specific activity concentration measurements in the vicinity of each NPP. This article gives an overview of the solution to combine data of different sources on a single screen: dose rate networks, dose rate traces measured by car, airborne gamma spectra of helicopters, mobile dose rate probes, grid data of weather forecasts, dispersion calculations, etc.

Remote monitoring of nuclear power plants in Baden-Wuerttemberg – From measurement to emergency protection

The nuclear reactor remote monitoring system of the federal state of Baden- Wuerttemberg (KFUe BW) is realized according to the renewed “recommendations for remote monitoring of nuclear power plants” (BMU, 2005a). The spectrum of the system covers both, pursuit of operational procedures, and incidents or accidents. The KFUe BW provides a measurement network and information system for operational parameters at the plant sites as well as radiological and meteorological measurements in their vicinity. For the Ministry, it preferentially serves as an instrument of nuclear supervision. This paper gives a brief survey of the system architecture and concentrates on the role of the KFUe with respect to the determination and evaluation of the radiological situation in the range of off-site emergency management.

Oil Development and Environmental Problems in the Eastern Part of Russia

Environmental problems accompanying oil development in Russia has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years especially in the field of construction of oil and gas pipeline. These problems have a considerable impact on the advance of oil and gas projects, a good example of which is the issue of Trans Sakhalin Pipeline in 2006, bringing, as a result, an essential change to the structure of the operator company. This paper focuses on the essence and the solution of environmental problems with oil and gas development in Russia, analyzing the construction of the ESPO pipeline.In Russia, a series of laws have been issued and many administrative agencies have been set up to cope with environmental problems. The Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service (Rostehnadzor) and the Federal Supervisory Natural Resources Management Service (Rosprirodnadzor) are taking charge of the environmental expertise of oil and gas projects including the construction of the ESPO pipeline as representatives of the federal government.The construction of the ESPO pipeline is planned to be carried out by two phases. ESPO-1 is under construction and divided into four sections, while ESPO-2 is in designing process. Environmental problems occurred in both ESPO-1 and ESPO-2, including the construction method past Lena River and the design of the route passing Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krai. There are four groups of actors participating in resolving these problems: environmental administrative agencies, pipeline operator company, local governments and social environmental organizations.Four conclusions are derived from the analysis on the environmental problems of the construction of the ESPO pipeline. Firstly, because oil and gas development and pipeline construction is going on in underdeveloped areas under the harsh natural conditions, many environmental problems do and will occur in the construction of the ESPO pipeline Secondly, the social consensus on environmental problems has not been achieved yet and the resolution of these problems, therefore, are still depending upon confrontation of political powers of different actor groups. Thirdly, a distribution of authority between environmental administrative agencies has not been explicitly defined. Fourthly, attracting international interest to the ESPO construction is a promising method to promote adequate resolution of environmental problems.

An Experimental Study of Assessment of Weld Quality on Fatigue Reliability Analysis of a Nuclear Pressure Vessel

The steam generator in a PWR primary coolant system is one of the pieces of equipment made in China for the Qinshan nuclear power plant, Zhejiang. It is a crucial unit belonging to the category of nuclear pressure vessel. The purpose of this research work is to carry out an examination of the weld quality of the steam generator under fatigue loading and to assess its reliability by using experimental results of a fatigue test of the nuclear pressure vessel steel S-271 (Chinese Standard) and of qualified tests of welded seams of a simulated prototype of the bottom closure head of the steam generator. A guarantee of weld quality is proposed as the quality assurance of safety for the China National Nuclear Safety Supervision Bureau. The results of the reliability analysis reported in this work can be taken as supplementary material for a Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) of the Qinshan nuclear power plant [1, 2]. According to the requirement of Provision II-1500 CYCLIC TESTING, ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, Section III, Rules for Construction of Nuclear Power Plant Components [13], a simulated prototype of the bottom closure head of the steam generator was made in this work for the qualified tests. Qualified tests with small sample size present a problem which is difficult to solve in reliability analysis, and are therefore of interest. Here, we offer proposals attempting to solve this problem.