Containment Pressure Fragility
ANATECH combines cutting-edge methodologies with extensive experience to assess the fragility of nuclear containment structures. Many of the next-generation nuclear plant designs, such as the ESBWR developed by General Electric, contain emergency cooling systems that are far more passive than conventional plant designs. Therefore, during an accident the primary containment system can be exposed to elevated temperatures for significantly longer durations, even in the event of a design-basis accident.
As part of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) licensing procedure, an extensive Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) must be conducted to determine the overall safety of the containment. An integral part of this process involves the study of the probability of failure as a function of internal pressure, also known as a fragility analysis, for the primary containment system. ANATECH has developed the methodology to carry out this custom-tailored type of analysis to provide design validation to the USNRC during plant licensing.
