Development of criticality safety validation guidance for nrc-regulated activities

W. J. Marshall; D. E. Mueller; J. B. Clarity; S. M. Bowman

Development of criticality safety validation guidance for nrc-regulated activities

W. J. Marshall, D. E. Mueller, J. B. Clarity, S. M. Bowman

Nuclear Criticality Safety

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

Abstract

Some guidance documents support validation of criticality safety evaluations for many system types, and some accommodate different regulators or regulatory requirements. While these reports address specific applications, no single document applies to all systems and incorporates both traditional and sensitivity/uncertainty-based validation techniques. Oak Ridge National Laboratory will develop a single reference report for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that provides modern examples and suggested recommendations for a uniform approach for performing and documenting keff calculation validations applicable to any system containing fissile material. The project will include a literature review and development of a new, comprehensive NUREG/CR document on nuclear criticality safety validation. The NUREG will address the following experiences from recent reviews: 1. Inappropriate critical experiment selection 2. Insufficient trending analysis 3. Incorrectly calculated 95/95 uncertainties 4. Failure to address how validation applies to safety analysis 5. Lack of goodness-of-fit testing in trending analyses 6. Incorrect use of commercial reactor critical data 7. Failure to meet bias determination methodology prerequisites 8. Inappropriate extrapolation of bias and uncertainty 9. Failure to identify validation analysis gaps and weaknesses 10. Inadequate validation analysis documentation The final report will provide guidance on use of trending analysis results, acceptable confidence levels for normality testing and trending analysis, management of validation analysis gaps and weaknesses, use of sensitivity and uncertainty analysis in validation analysis, and potential impact of correlations among critical experiments used in validation. It will also consolidate existing guidance documents using both traditional and sensitivity/uncertainty-based approaches. This document will support NRC-regulated activities, as well as validation used in criticality safety within other regulatory frameworks.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	ANS NCSD - 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting
Subtitle of host publication	Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations
Publisher	American Nuclear Society
ISBN (Electronic)	9780894487408
State	Published - 2017
Event	2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations, NCSD 2017 - Carlsbad, United States Duration: Sep 10 2017 → Sep 15 2017

Publication series

Name	ANS NCSD - 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations
Volume	2017-September

Conference

Conference	2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations, NCSD 2017
Country/Territory	United States
City	Carlsbad
Period	09/10/17 → 09/15/17

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the sponsorship of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research for funding this work. * This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).

Keywords

Critical experiments
Guidance
Validation

Cite this

Marshall, W. J., Mueller, D. E., Clarity, J. B., & Bowman, S. M. (2017). Development of criticality safety validation guidance for nrc-regulated activities. In ANS NCSD - 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations (ANS NCSD - 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations; Vol. 2017-September). American Nuclear Society.

Marshall, W. J. ; Mueller, D. E. ; Clarity, J. B. et al. / Development of criticality safety validation guidance for nrc-regulated activities. ANS NCSD - 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations. American Nuclear Society, 2017. (ANS NCSD - 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations).

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title = "Development of criticality safety validation guidance for nrc-regulated activities",

abstract = "Some guidance documents support validation of criticality safety evaluations for many system types, and some accommodate different regulators or regulatory requirements. While these reports address specific applications, no single document applies to all systems and incorporates both traditional and sensitivity/uncertainty-based validation techniques. Oak Ridge National Laboratory will develop a single reference report for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that provides modern examples and suggested recommendations for a uniform approach for performing and documenting keff calculation validations applicable to any system containing fissile material. The project will include a literature review and development of a new, comprehensive NUREG/CR document on nuclear criticality safety validation. The NUREG will address the following experiences from recent reviews: 1. Inappropriate critical experiment selection 2. Insufficient trending analysis 3. Incorrectly calculated 95/95 uncertainties 4. Failure to address how validation applies to safety analysis 5. Lack of goodness-of-fit testing in trending analyses 6. Incorrect use of commercial reactor critical data 7. Failure to meet bias determination methodology prerequisites 8. Inappropriate extrapolation of bias and uncertainty 9. Failure to identify validation analysis gaps and weaknesses 10. Inadequate validation analysis documentation The final report will provide guidance on use of trending analysis results, acceptable confidence levels for normality testing and trending analysis, management of validation analysis gaps and weaknesses, use of sensitivity and uncertainty analysis in validation analysis, and potential impact of correlations among critical experiments used in validation. It will also consolidate existing guidance documents using both traditional and sensitivity/uncertainty-based approaches. This document will support NRC-regulated activities, as well as validation used in criticality safety within other regulatory frameworks.",

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author = "Marshall, {W. J.} and Mueller, {D. E.} and Clarity, {J. B.} and Bowman, {S. M.}",

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Marshall, WJ, Mueller, DE, Clarity, JB & Bowman, SM 2017, Development of criticality safety validation guidance for nrc-regulated activities. in ANS NCSD - 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations. ANS NCSD - 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations, vol. 2017-September, American Nuclear Society, 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations, NCSD 2017, Carlsbad, United States, 09/10/17.

Development of criticality safety validation guidance for nrc-regulated activities. / Marshall, W. J.; Mueller, D. E.; Clarity, J. B. et al.
ANS NCSD - 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations. American Nuclear Society, 2017. (ANS NCSD - 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations; Vol. 2017-September).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

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KW - Critical experiments

KW - Guidance

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PB - American Nuclear Society

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Marshall WJ, Mueller DE, Clarity JB, Bowman SM. Development of criticality safety validation guidance for nrc-regulated activities. In ANS NCSD - 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations. American Nuclear Society. 2017. (ANS NCSD - 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting: Criticality Safety - Pushing Boundaries by Modernizing and Integrating Data, Methods, and Regulations).

Development of criticality safety validation guidance for nrc-regulated activities

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Keywords

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