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POLICY ISSUE
(Notation Vote)

SECY-05-0156

August 29, 2005

• PURPOSE
• SUMMARY
• BACKGROUND
• DISCUSSION
• OTHER RELATED HALDEN WORK
• RESOURCES
• COORDINATION
• RECOMMENDNATION

PURPOSE:

The purposes are (1) to inform the Commission of the results of the agency's past participation in the Halden Reactor Project (HRP) sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); (2) to inform the Commission of the staff's plans to continue participating in the project during 2006�08; and (3) to provide the Commission recommendation for the approval of continued funding of the HRP.

SUMMARY:

The OECD Halden Reactor Project (HRP) is a cooperatively funded international research and development project that operates under the auspices of the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) with the sponsorship of 19 countries, including the United States (Attachment 1 ). The international organizations actively participating in the Halden project represent a cross-section of the nuclear community: licensing and regulatory interests, national research organizations, reactor and fuel vendors, and utilities. The research programs at the HRP address five areas of interest to the NRC including: (1) nuclear fuels; (2) nuclear reactor materials; performance; (3) the testing, development, and analysis of digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems; (4) human factors research; and (5) human reliability analysis (HRA). Participation in HRP facilitates cooperation and information exchange with the participating countries. Additionally, participation provides an opportunity to effectively and efficiently use NRC research funds, by combining these funds with those of the other signatories and associate parties. The HRP budget is approximately $45 million (M) over the 3-year period of 2006�08 or approximately $15M per year. The NRC's contribution remains at $1.0M per year, which is the same level of contribution since 2001.

BACKGROUND:

The NRC and its predecessor have participated in the HRP since its inception in 1958. During this period, the NRC has received the benefit of numerous research products from this internationally funded cooperative effort. Attachment 2 provides a listing of Halden reports for the 2003-2004 time period. The Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research (RES) has copies of these reports, which can also be accessed through the NRC's Technical Library. The staff plans to continue to participate in the project for the 2006�08 agreement period because of the benefits received and the ability to effectively and efficiently use agency resources.

The NRC uses products and information generated by the HRP to develop and extend the applicability of analytical tools and as the technical basis for regulatory positions. For example, the staff last year entered an exhibit in the Catawba mixed-oxide (MOX) hearing that showed hundreds of MOX data points from Halden, thus effectively refuting the contention that the data base for MOX fuel was inadequate. The HRP also has provided irradiation of specimens that were subsequently tested under NRC contract at Argonne National Laboratory in support of user need requests (e.g., environmentally-assisted cracking of boiling water reactor (BWR) vessel internal components) by the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR). The HRP has expanded its research effort in digital systems safety and analysis, providing a technical basis for realistic safety decisions in the instrumentation and controls arena. HRP products have contributed to developing regulatory review guidance for evaluating staffing of advanced reactors, which serves as a basis for a user need request from NRR.

The HRP includes the Halden Boiling Water Reactor (HBWR), which currently operates at 18 to 20 Megawatts (MW) and is contained within a mountain in Halden, Norway. Norwegian authorities have licensed the reactor for operation until 2008. The reactor is fully dedicated to instrumented in-reactor testing of fuel and reactor materials. It also delivers steam to a nearby paper factory. Since its initial startup, the reactor facility has been progressively updated and has now become one of the most versatile test reactors in the world. In the course of this development, more than 300 in-reactor experiments have been performed. The joint program focuses on fuel performance and materials safety considerations using the large number of experimental channels in the core that are capable of handling many test rigs simultaneously.

The HRP includes a reconfigurable simulator control room that facilitates I&C, human factors and human reliability research. This simulator is one of only two Western style light water reactor reconfigurable simulators that are available to the NRC for human factors research. The other simulator is a 1000-MW CE-PWR simulator in South Korea. The HRP facilities include the Halden Man-Machine Laboratory (HAMMLAB), which contains a pressurized water reactor (PWR) simulator based on the Fessenheim Plant in France, and a BWR simulator based on the 1160-MW Forsmark-3 Plant in Sweden. The HRP has access to qualified operators who are familiar with these plant designs and can serve as test subjects. The HAMMLAB has a prototype advanced control room with an integrated surveillance and control system, which is used as a test bed for exploring human-machine issues regarding the role of the operator and interactions with advanced automated controls. The control room simulator is easily reconfigured to include various display and control systems as well as automated features and computer operated support systems (COSS). The HAMMLAB also has extensive data collection capabilities. In addition, the HRP has become an international leader in the application of virtual environments in the nuclear arena in the areas of training, work planning and control room design, as well as use of virtual environments for research purposes. This technology has been used as a cost-efficient way to design control rooms for nuclear and other process control applications. These facilities are augmented by the largest human factors research staff in the international nuclear community.

TThe Halden Board of Management has presented its views on the long-term direction of the OECD Reactor Project¹. The Board structured its review and recommendations with respect to the 10-year plan for the Halden Project. The plan discusses the technical and organizational infrastructure, boundary conditions and needs, fuel and materials program, and Man-Technology-Organization (MTO) program.

As part of this 10-year vision, experimental in-reactor capabilities will continue to be performed using the HBWR. The HBWR is licensed through 2008 and has a projected lifetime beyond 2030. A new building hosting the simulator-based HAMMLAB and an upgraded Virtual Reality (VR) Center was built in 2003. HAMMLAB is the main vehicle for the MTO research which examines human factors issues.

DISCUSSION:

The research programs at the HRP address five areas of specific interest to the NRC, including: (1) nuclear fuels; (2) nuclear reactor materials performance; (3) the testing, development, and analysis of digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems; (4) human factors research; and (5) human reliability analysis (HRA). These programs are structured to respond to the needs of all member organizations within the international nuclear community. The following subsections briefly describe the benefits derived by the NRC from past and continued participation in the HRP for each area of work. Attachment 3 provides a more detailed discussion of these areas along with examples of regulatory products.

Nuclear Fuels

Fuel damage criteria and computer codes that describe fuel rod behavior are used in reactor safety analyses. Criteria and codes are used to ensure fuel integrity during normal operation, including anticipated transients, and to ensure that postulated accidents do not evolve into core melt scenarios. These criteria and computer codes were originally developed from a database of mostly low-burnup fuel with Zircaloy cladding. The HRP fuel program is addressing the effects on this database of longer fuel burnup times, new materials that are being used to achieve high burnups, and MOX fuel that will be used for plutonium disposition in the United States. Data from the HRP fuel program have been employed directly in recent reviews of industry fuel behavior codes. These data are also essential for updating the NRC's fuel codes and materials properties library, which are used to audit industry analyses. The fuel properties and codes are also used in assessment of spent fuel storage and transportation.

Nuclear Reactor Materials Performance

The HRP has done neutron irradiation of test specimens for NRC research programs, notably research program on the environmentally assisted cracking of light-water reactors (LWRs) program that is ongoing at Argonne National Laboratory. The crack initiation, fracture toughness, and crack growth rate data from this program are being generated specifically in response to NRR user need requests about environmentally assisted degradation of PWR (NRR-2003-001) and BWR (NRR-2002-026) internals, components and piping. Results are applied, for example, in evaluating stress-corrosion cracking events of core components and aging management of reactor internals. In addition, the test results and analyses reported by the HRP continue to be of great use in validating the NRC's program results and extending the agency's overall understanding of irradiation-assisted stress corrosion cracking mechanisms and mitigation. For example, HRP tests will attempt to verify the stress corrosion cracking mitigation effectiveness of BWR hydrogen water chemistry. Participation in the Halden Programme Group has enabled the NRC to reduce the high cost of irradiation and testing through the sharing of costs with other signatories.

Instrumentation and Controls

Historically, HRP's I&C research has focused on the front end of the software development cycle, primarily in the areas of formal methods for review of requirements, and integration of diagnostics into plant control systems. As a result of activities to develop operational support systems for the Halden reactor, commercial reactor applications, and the HAMMLAB, HRP has acquired the skills and knowledge to develop and test digital systems. Over the past 3 years, HRP has expanded its research efforts in the area of digital system safety. The Project's next three-year research program focuses on software systems dependability issues related to the engineering and architecture of digital safety systems. Some of the metrics of dependability are reliability, safety, and security, and the HRP program will investigate the importance of these parameters at various points in a system's life cycle. Specific areas of research are Requirements Engineering, Fault Tolerance, Pre-Developed Software, and Integrated Tool Environments. Also, HRP will establish a software engineering laboratory - the SElab - which will be an organizational unit that provides the systems and resources needed to support research, development, assessment, consultancy, and training related to safety-oriented software engineering. The staff has interacted with HRP on the development of the next three-year program, which has resulted in HRP aligning its work with the recently revised NRC Digital System Research Plan, FY2005 - FY2009, particularly with regard to outputs. With renewed focus on measurable products (e.g., software tools, review guidance, and objective acceptance criteria), the staff believes that the research products generated from the HRP research over the next few years will aid the NRC in establishing the technical bases for realistic safety decisions regarding current and new digital system designs and technologies for safety-related applications. The agency's continued cooperation with HRP will allow access to technical information on these systems, as well as access to operational experience from European reactor operators and vendors, thereby leveraging the agency's digital I&C resources as it establishes a technical basis for reviewing these advanced systems.

Human Factors

Experiments related to human error, human performance, teamwork and the effects of computer-driven interfaces are conducted in the HAMMLAB using both the control room simulators and the virtual environment capability. The HAMMLAB facilities, which are unlike anything found in the United States, include a simulator that can be driven by either a PWR or BWR model, a prototype reconfigurable advanced control room with an integrated surveillance and control system, data collection facilities, and capabilities in virtual and augmented environments. The results of HRP research have served as a part of the technical basis for regulatory guidance in areas such as alarm systems, hybrid control rooms, display navigation, and development of measures of human performance. This research was done in response to user needs from NRR. The results of HRP human factors research have been integrated into the basis of a current revision to Chapter 18, "Human Factors Engineering," of the Standard Review Plan (NUREG-0800); NUREG-0700, Rev.2., "Human-System Interface Design Review Guidelines;" NUREG-0711, Rev.2., "Human Engineering Program Review Model;" and most recently, NUREG-1791, "Guidance for Assessing Exemption Requests from the Nuclear Power Plant Licensed Operator Staffing Requirements of 10 CFR 50.54(m)." These guidance documents are for use in reviewing changes to control stations at current reactors, for licensing reviews of new reactors, license amendment requests, and plant inspections. Future Halden human factors research will continue to contribute to the technical basis for human factors guidance especially for new reactor designs, as well as the NRC's HRA efforts, as described below.

Human Reliability Analysis

During the current 3-year agreement period the HRP has greatly enhanced its capability in the area of HRA. The HRP offers a strong capability in terms of the facilities, experience, and expertise to conduct simulator experiments. This capability supports HRA model development and testing through collection of human failure event data. This work will be used to provide insights into future revisions of NUREG-1792, "Good Pratices for Implementing Human Reliability Analysis (HRA)" and its companion document (in development) on HRA methods evaluation. These documents will be used by regulatory reviewers to assess HRAs that are submitted in support of risk-informed licensing actions. In particular, the HRP experimental studies have been designed to develop objective measures of performance-shaping factors used in HRAs to account for factors that influence human performance under accident conditions. Furthermore, the HRP experiments will address issues related to specific accident sequences that are of regulatory importance, such as steam generator tube rupture. The data from HRP experiments will be incorporated into Human Event Repository and Analysis (HERA), which the NRC is developing at the Idaho National Laboratory. The NRC staff is working closely with the HRP staff to ensure that research conducted in the HAMMLAB will be risk-informed and will result in data and information that the NRC can use to improve HRA development and quantification.

OTHER RELATED HALDEN WORK:

In the past the HRP has worked with the NRC Technical Training Center (TTC) to enhance the NRC training simulators and build on the TTC's graphical user interfaces using the Halden-developed Picasso system. The TTC has recently asked the HRP to assist in the replacement of the NRC's BWR/4 Simulator display system with a system running on Windows-based PCs using the latest version of Picasso. The TTC's Nuclear Engineering Workstation Simulator (NEWS), a classroom training tool originally developed with HRP assistance, continues to be utilized during training and is upgraded by NRC personnel using the latest version of Picasso.

On the industry side Halden is working with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the Callaway Plant, and the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University of Illinois on a case study involving the application of CREATE to develop a Callaway Plant virtual control room model as part of the modernization of the Callaway main control room. Halden is also collaborating with EPRI to support an EPRI virtual reality effort by providing a virtual reality (VR) demonstration on a compact disc (CD) to be distributed as part of an EPRI report. The CD demonstration will help utilities identify applications for which VR technology may be beneficial in the near term. The NRC may need to consider the acceptability of VR as a basis for design changes at current reactors and for new design reactors.

RESOURCES:

The cost of the NRC's participation in the HRP during the 2006�08 agreement period will be $1.0M per year. Funds are budgeted in the proposed FY 2006 and FY 2007 budget. Funding for FY 2008 will be addressed during the FY 2008 PBPM process.

Approximately 1 FTE per year is budgeted in RES to work on HRP-related efforts in the FY 2006 and FY 2007 budgets, and will be addressed for FY 2008 in the PBPM process. This ensures that experimental results obtained from the HRP experiments are appropriately incorporated into regulatory activities. Additionally, this enhances interaction among NRC, HRP, and other contractors' staff.

COORDINATION:

The Office of the Chief Financial Officer has reviewed this paper for resource implications and has no objections. The Office of the General Counsel has no legal objection to this paper. The Office of International Programs has no objections to this paper.

RECOMMENDATION:

The work done at the HRP helps to meet the NRC's goals of maintaining safety and regulatory effectiveness. The experiments and analyses at Halden are used to develop technical bases for realistic safety decisions. In addition, HRP's work helps to prepare the agency for the future by evaluating safety issues involving current and new designs and technologies. Sharing the costs of the program with other signatories is an efficient use of NRC research resources. The staff recommends continued participation in the HRP and requests approval for continued funding.

¹ Halden Board of Management, "Views on the Long-Term Direction of the OECD Halden Reactor Project," Nuclear Energy Agency, December 2004.

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