Reliability of Nuclear Power Plants - Methods, Data and Applications

Since the 1970s, the field of industrial reliability has evolved significantly, in part due to the design and early operation of the first generation nuclear power plants. Indeed, the needs of this sector have led to the development of specific and innovative reliability methods, which have since been taken up and adapted by other industrial sectors, leading to the development of the management of uncertainties and Health and Usage Monitoring Systems. In this industry, reliability assessment approaches have matured. There are now methods, data and tools available that can be used with confidence for many industrial applications. The purpose of this book is to present and illustrate them with real study cases.
 
The book addresses the evolution of reliability methods, experience feedback and expertise (as data is essential for estimating reliability), the reliability of socio-technical systems and probabilistic safety assessments, the structural reliability and probabilistic models in mechanics, the reliability of equipment and the impact of maintenance on their behavior, human and organizational factors and the impact of big data on reliability. Finally, some R&D perspectives that can be developed in the future are presented. Written by several engineers, statisticians and human and organizational factors specialists in the nuclear sector, this book is intended for all those who are faced with a reliability assessment of their installations or equipment: decision-makers, engineers, designers, operation or maintenance engineers, project managers, human and organizational factors specialists, experts and regulatory authority inspectors, teachers, researchers and doctoral students.

List of contents

Foreword by Philippe Le Poac xi
 
Foreword by Antoine Grall xvii
 
Preface xxi
 
André Lannoy
 
Acknowledgments xxiii
 
André Lannoy
 
Author Biographies xxv
 
Chapter 1 Aims and Introduction 1
 
André Lannoy
 
1.1 The aims of this work 1
 
1.2 Reliability, an application of probability theory 2
 
1.2.1 What is reliability? 2
 
1.2.2 The early days of reliability 3
 
1.2.3 The birth of modern reliability 5
 
1.2.4 The development of modern reliability 1948-1960 5
 
1.2.5 The advent of reliability specialists 1960-1974 6
 
1.2.6 The "safety culture decade" 1975-1990 7
 
1.2.7 Maximizing efficiency, performances and profits 1990-2007 8
 
1.2.8 The return to safety, risk aversion 2007-2020 9
 
1.3 Generating nuclear power 10
 
1.4 Presentation of the book's content 15
 
1.5 References 17
 
Chapter 2 Input Data: Operation Feedback and Expertise 21
 
André Lannoy and Emmanuel Remy
 
2.1 The purposes of operation feedback 21
 
2.2 What is operation feedback? 23
 
2.3 The operation feedback approach 25
 
2.4 "Event" operation feedback 28
 
2.5 "Equipment" operation feedback 29
 
2.5.1 The maintenance model: an approach according to function 29
 
2.5.2 Failure analysis 31
 
2.5.3 Failure criteria 33
 
2.5.4 Data quality 33
 
2.6 Reliability analysis 35
 
2.6.1 The components studied 35
 
2.6.2 Data characteristics 36
 
2.6.3 Principles of simple reliability data estimation for PSAs 38
 
2.7 Conclusion 39
 
2.8 References 41
 
Chapter 3 The Principles of Calculating Reliability in Level 1 PSAs 43
 
Marc Bouissou
 
3.1 Introduction 43
 
3.2 The basis of all calculations: an exponential approximation 45
 
3.2.1 The principle of exponential approximations 45
 
3.2.2 NRI exponential approximation 46
 
3.3 The models used 48
 
3.3.1 Event trees 48
 
3.3.2 Fault trees 51
 
3.4 Quantification of PSAs 54
 
3.4.1 Calculating the probability of UCs that are conditional on an initiator 55
 
3.4.2 Calculating importance factors 57
 
3.4.3 The uncertainty calculation 59
 
3.5 The question of the level of detail 60
 
3.6 Practical problems: model size, high probabilities 62
 
3.6.1 Model size and combinatorial explosion 63
 
3.6.2 Fire, flood and earthquake PSAs: the problem of high probabilities 64
 
3.7 "Cousin" models of PSA models 65
 
3.7.1 Event sequence diagrams 65
 
3.7.2 Bow tie diagram 66
 
3.7.3 Boolean logic-driven Markov processes 66
 
3.8 How can we improve the precision of classic PSAs? 70
 
3.8.1 Principles of the I&AB method 70
 
3.8.2 What gains does I&AB allow? 71
 
3.8.3 Numerical application of I&AB 72
 
3.9 A line of research: "dynamic PSAs" 75
 
3.10 Software for carrying out PSAs 76
 
3.11 References 78
 
Chapter 4 Structural Reliability: General Presentation, Applications for Nuclear Power Plants 83
 
Emmanuel Ardillon
 
4.1 General presentation of SRA 83
 
4.1.1 Why SRA? 83
 
4.1.2 What does SRA consist of? 86
 
4.1.3 Old foundations but a recent history 87
 
4.1.4 SRA: from the R-S elementary case (resistance-stress method) to the general case 88
 
4.1.5 A brief overview of calculation methods 90
 
4.1.6 OpenTURNS: the processing tool for uncertainty quantifications co-developed and used at EDF 95
 
4.2

About the author

Andre Lannoy is an engineer-researcher, doctor in detonics, former scientific advisor at EDF R&D and author or co-author of many books, articles and communications. He also chairs the IMdR (Institut pour la Maîtrise des Risques) product commission, France, and is an honorary member of the European Safety, Reliability & Data Association.

Summary

Since the 1970s, the field of industrial reliability has evolved significantly, in part due to the design and early operation of the first generation nuclear power plants. Indeed, the needs of this sector have led to the development of specific and innovative reliability methods, which have since been taken up and adapted by other industrial sectors, leading to the development of the management of uncertainties and Health and Usage Monitoring Systems. In this industry, reliability assessment approaches have matured. There are now methods, data and tools available that can be used with confidence for many industrial applications. The purpose of this book is to present and illustrate them with real study cases.

The book addresses the evolution of reliability methods, experience feedback and expertise (as data is essential for estimating reliability), the reliability of socio-technical systems and probabilistic safety assessments, the structural reliability and probabilistic models in mechanics, the reliability of equipment and the impact of maintenance on their behavior, human and organizational factors and the impact of big data on reliability. Finally, some R&D perspectives that can be developed in the future are presented. Written by several engineers, statisticians and human and organizational factors specialists in the nuclear sector, this book is intended for all those who are faced with a reliability assessment of their installations or equipment: decision-makers, engineers, designers, operation or maintenance engineers, project managers, human and organizational factors specialists, experts and regulatory authority inspectors, teachers, researchers and doctoral students.

Product details

• Authors: LANNOY, A Lannoy, Andre Lannoy
• Assisted by: LANNOY (Editor), Andre Lannoy (Editor)
• Publisher: Wiley & Sons
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 10.11.2022
• EAN: 9781786307613
• ISBN: 978-1-78630-761-3
• No. of pages: 304
• Dimensions: 156 mm x 235 mm x 18 mm
• Weight: 536 g
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Pre and early history; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Technology > Heat, energy and power station engineering; Energie, Energieeffizienz, ENERGY, Kernkraftwerk, kernenergie, Nuclear Energy, Energy Efficiency, Energie allg., Reaktorsicherheit