“Living PRA” Concept for Risk Management of Nuclear and Chemical Processing Plants

Abstract

The “Living PRA” is based on placing a PRA plant model on an interactive personal computer such as an IBM-XT. This model consists of fault tree analyses for plant systems, event tree analyses for abnormal events and site specific consequence analysis for public and/or financial risks, for a given nuclear or chemical process plant. A living PRA allows updates and sensitivity analyses by the plant owner throughout the lifetime of a plant. Thus it enhances the risk management of the plant both in personnel and public safety and also in economic risk tm the plant owner. In addition, it can be used to track and improve the plant availability and system reliabilities.

The above concept is well established for the Nuclear Power Plant evaluation. It has also been used for the evaluation of process facilities. Presently both the tools and the experience exists to set up useful and viable living PRA models for nuclear and chemical processing plants to enhance risk management by the plant owners through the in-house use of micro computer based models.