Nuclear Criticality Safety Application Guide PDF Download

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Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc. (MMES) is committed to performing and documenting safety analyses for facilities it manages for the Department of Energy (DOE). Safety analyses are performed to identify hazards and potential accidents; to analyze the adequacy of measures taken to eliminate, control, or mitigate hazards; and to evaluate potential accidents and determine associated risks. Safety Analysis Reports (SARs) are prepared to document the safety analysis to ensure facilities can be operated safely and in accordance with regulations. Many of the facilities requiring a SAR process fissionable material creating the potential for a nuclear criticality accident. MMES has long had a nuclear criticality safety program that provides the technical support to fissionable material operations to ensure the safe processing and storage of fissionable materials. The guiding philosophy of the program has always been the application of the double-contingency principle, which states: {open_quotes}process designs shall incorporate sufficient factors of safety to require at least two unlikely, independent, and concurrent changes in process conditions before a criticality accident is possible.{close_quotes} At Energy Systems analyses have generally been maintained to document that no single normal or abnormal operating conditions that could reasonably be expected to occur can cause a nuclear criticality accident. This application guide provides a summary description of the MMES Nuclear Criticality Safety Program and the MMES Criticality Accident Alarm System requirements for inclusion in facility SARs. The guide also suggests a way to incorporate the analyses conducted pursuant to the double-contingency principle into the SAR. The prime objective is to minimize duplicative effort between the NCSA process and the SAR process and yet adequately describe the methodology utilized to prevent a nuclear criticality accident.