Nuclear Safety
Work in the Risk, Reliability and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Programs Department at INL involves providing advanced risk and reliability analytical capabilities to support complex engineered facilities and processes. The department's main focus is nuclear engineering and regulatory analysis support for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Significant work is also performed for the Department of Energy Headquarters and NASA.
One of the programs within nuclear safety is the Systems Analysis Programs for Hands-on Integrated Reliability Evaluations (SAPHIRE). This program provides models to estimate reliability or risk, determine frequencies of accident scenarios and identify vulnerability in design/operations. NASA has used this program for the Galileo and Cassini space missions to evaluate the risk from nuclear payloads. They also studied the Probabilistic Risk Assessment for the International Space Station and Space Shuttle flights. The program was also used for the space shuttle Columbia accident investigation.
