A computational risk assessment approach to the integration of seismic and flooding hazards with internal hazards

Abstract

Probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) of nuclear power plants historically focuses on internal events at the plant, rather than external hazards. Although the importance of external hazards risk analysis is now well recognized, the methods for assessing the risk associated with low probability external hazards rely heavily on subjective judgment of specialists, often using conservative elements in the analysis, as is the case with the Conservative Deterministic Failure Margin approach commonly used for seismic PRA. The U.S. Department of Energy Light Water Reactor Sustainability program has been investigating the use of first principles analyses to provide a more realistic assessment of the risk of external hazards, in a process called computational risk assessment (CRA). Efforts undertaken are described in the development of CRA methods to integrate the risk associated with seismic and flooding events into traditional PRA. The results of four case studies are presented.