Nuclear Reactor Safety

Course Number: 
NE 167
Course Units: 
3
Course Instructor: 
Peterson

Catalog Description

  • Principles and methods used in the safety evaluation of nuclear power plants. Safety philosophies, design criteria, and regulations. Deterministic and probabilistic models, reliability analysis, nuclear and thermal-hydraulic transients, radiological  consequences, and risk assessment. Design-basis and severe accident analysis, role of engineered safety systems, siting, and licensing.

Course Prerequisites

  • NE 150, NE 161, or consent of instructor.

Prerequisite knowledge or skills

  • The course uses the following knowledge and skills from prerequisite and lower-division courses:
  • Solve linear, first and second order differential equations.
  • Evaluate the mean, median and standard deviation given a probability distribution function.
  • Calculate neutron fluxes, criticality and reactivity coefficients from the one- dimensional, 2-group diffusion equations.
  • Calculate thermal-hydraulic properties of reactor systems.

Textbook(s) and/or other required materials

  • A course reader is available prior to each offering.

Course Objectives

  • Introduce students to the safety principles and methods utilized in designing, constructing and operating a safe nuclear power plant.
  • Introduce students to the regulatory requirements for designing, constructing and operating a nuclear power plant.
  • Provide students with experiential knowledge in the preparation and evaluation of a Safety Analysis Report for meeting regulatory requirements and the experience of presenting the analysis to a regulatory review board.
  • Introduce students to the methods and models for accident analysis, risk assessment and management and for dealing with external events.
  • Show the students how these principles and methods can be utilized for advanced nuclear energy systems.

Course outcomes

  • Perform safety calculations in support of the preparation of an abbreviated Safety Analysis Report for an advanced reactor.
  • Develop and quantify simplified fault and event trees for an advanced reactor.
  • Prepare a seismic analysis for a nuclear power reactor.
  • Prepare an abbreviated Safety Analysis Report for an advanced reactor.
  • Interpret the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s requirements and policy statements for an advanced reactor system.
  • Make a formal presentation on the results of their analyses to a “mock” safety review board.
  • Demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses in an advanced reactor design.

Topics covered

  • Safety philosophy, general design criteria, licensing and operations
  • The regulatory process.
  • Design aspects: reactivity coefficients, redundancy and diversity and engineered safety features.
  • Safety analysis, design basis events, beyond design basis events, severe accident management.
  • Risk assessment, risk management, and risk-informed decision-making.
  • Reactor systems, reactor dynamics and reactor control.
  • External events: earthquakes, fires and tornadoes.
  • Radiological consequences of accidents.
  • Fast reactor safety.
  • Implications for advanced reactors: Generation III and Generation IV.
  • Case studies.

Class schedule

  • This is a lecture course and meets two times a week for 90 minutes
    (with a 10 minute break after the first 50 minutes).

Contribution of the course to meeting the professional component

  • This course helps the student to understand the steps necessary to obtain a construction permit and operating license for a nuclear power plant in the United States by:
  • Understanding the safety analyses necessary for Chapter 15 of a Safety Analysis Report, 10 CFR 50 (including the General Design Criteria) and 10 CFR 52.
  • Analyzing a reactor with respect to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Policy Statements on Severe Accidents, Safety Goals, Advanced Reactors and 10 CFR 100 Site Criteria.
  • Determining the seismic hazard for a nuclear power plant Preparation of a presentation for a mock hearing before an “Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards.”

Relationship of course to undergraduate degree program objectives

  • This contributes to the NE program objectives by providing education in an area fundamental to the nuclear engineering profession (nuclear reactor safety), as well as partially meeting the ABET requirement for ethics ( a practical application of the engineer’s code of ethics, whose fundamental cannon is to “to protect the
    health and safety of the public and the environment”).
  • Although it does not provide direct design experience, it provides the student with the opportunity to evaluate a design, and where appropriate, to modify an existing design.
  • The course provides the student with an experience of analyzing and evaluating a total integrated system (mechanical, electrical, structural and nuclear)and its interaction with its environment.
  • It provides the student the opportunity to develop their oral skills in making presentations in class an at a mock hearing.

Assessment of student progress toward course objectives

  • Homework in preparation for class presentations, and some homework problem sets: 25%
  • Term project: 50%
  • Final exam: 25%