A framework for a quality assurance programme for PSA

IAEA-TECDOC-1101

XA9952137

A framework for a quality assurance programme for PSA

30-38

August 1999

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A FRAMEWORK FOR A QUALITY ASSURANCE PROGRAMME FOR PSA IAEA, VIENNA, 1999 IAEA-TECDOC-1101 ISSN 1011-4289 ?IAEA, 1999

Printed by the IAEA in Austria August 1999

IAEA SAFETY RELATED PUBLICATIONS

IAEA SAFETY STANDARDS Under the terms of Article III of its Statute, the IAEA is authorized to establish standards of safety for protection against ionizing radiation and to provide for the application of these standards to peaceful nuclear activities.

The regulatory related publications by means of which the IAEA establishes safety standards and measures are issued in the IAEA Safety Standards Series. This series covers nuclear safety, radiation safety, transport safety and waste safety, and also general safety (that is, of relevance in two or more of the four areas), and the categories within it are Safety Fundamentals, Safety Requirements and Safety Guides.

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? Safety Guides (green lettering) recommend actions, conditions or procedures for meeting safety requirements. Recommendations in Safety Guides are expressed as 'should' statements, with the implication that it is necessary to take the measures recommended or equivalent alternative measures to comply with the requirements.

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OTHER SAFETY RELATED PUBLICATIONS Under the terms of Articles III and VIII.C of its Statute, the IAEA makes available and fosters the exchange of information relating to peaceful nuclear activities and serves as an intermediary among its members for this purpose.

Reports on safety and protection in nuclear activities are issued in other series, in particular the IAEA Safety Reports Series, as informational publications. Safety Reports may describe good practices and give practical examples and detailed methods that can be used to meet safety requirements. They do not establish requirements or make recommendations.

Other IAEA series that include safety related sales publications are the Technical Reports Series, the Radiological Assessment Reports Series and the INSAG Series. The IAEA also issues reports on radiological accidents and other special sales publications. Unpriced safety related publications are issued in the TECDOC Series, the Provisional Safety Standards Series, the Training Course Series, the IAEA Services Series and the Computer Manual Series, and as Practical Radiation Safety and Protection Manuals.

FOREWORD

Reviews organized by the IAEA of probabilistic safety assessments (PSAs) of nuclear facilities have, in the past years, shown significant progress in the technical methods and data used for these studies. The IAEA has made a considerable effort to support the development of technical capabilities for PSA in Member States and in writing technical procedures for carrying out PSAs. However, the reviews have also shown significant deficiencies in quality assurance (QA) for PSAs, ranging from no QA at all to inappropriate, inefficient or unbalanced QA. As a PSA represents a very complex model which describes the risk associated with a nuclear facility, an appropriate and efficient QA programme is crucial to obtain a quality PSA.

Historically, in the first integral PSAs, many of the PSA elements were handled by independent groups. These elements were finally integrated and put together in the overall model. Many of the interfaces between the elements or tasks were handled as appropriate by exchanging information in oral or written form. Since WASH-1400, the first integral PSA,the process of constructing the PSA model has been further developed. PSA elements previously considered separately can now be handled together with the capable software developed in recent years. Software has made interface control and data transfer easier to perform, but also permits the development of more detailed and complex models. Previously, QA for PSA projects was organized in an ad hoc manner and was sometimes very limited. In recent years, increasingly comprehensive QA programmes have been developed and implemented for PSA projects. Today, a comprehensive, effective and performance-oriented QA is considered to be essential for a reliable and credible PSA.

This report describes the framework for developing an adequate QA programme for PSA studies. The framework is based on and is in accordance with the related QA guidelines of the IAEA for safety in nuclear power plants and other nuclear installations. The report identifies the key areas that are recommended to be addressed by a QA programme. For detailed technical descriptions of PSA methods, the reader should refer to the related IAEA PSA procedures.

This report was reviewed during a Technical Committee Meeting on PSA Applications to Improve NPP Safety held in Madrid, Spain, in February 1998.

The IAEA officer responsible for this report was R. Gubler of the Division of Nuclear Installation Safety.

EDITORIAL NOTE

In preparing this publication for press, staff of the IAEA have made up the pages from the original manuscripts). The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the IAEA, the governments of the nominating Member States or the nominating organizations.

Throughout the text names of Member States are retained as they were when the text was compiled.

The use of particular designations of countries or territories does not imply any judgement by the publisher, the IAEA, as to the legal status of such countries or territories, of their authorities and institutions or of the delimitation of their boundaries.

The mention of names of specific companies or products (whether or not indicated as registered) does not imply any intention to infringe proprietary rights, nor should it be construed as an endorsement or recommendation on the part of the IAEA.

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