Recent Insights from the International Common Cause Failure Data Exchange (ICDE) Project

Abstract

CCF events can significantly impact the availability of safety systems of nuclear power plants. For this reason, the ICDE Project was initiated by several countries in 1994. Since 1997 it has been operated within the OECD NEA framework and the project has successfully operated over seven consecutive terms (the current term being 2019-2022). The ICDE Project allows multiple countries to collaborate and exchange common-cause failure (CCF) data to enhance the quality of risk analyses, which include CCF modelling. Because CCF events are typically rare, most countries do not experience enough CCF events to perform meaningful analyses. Data combined from several countries, however, have yielded sufficient data for more rigorous analyses. The ICDE project has meanwhile published eleven reports on collection and analysis of CCF events of specific component types (centrifugal pumps, emergency diesel generators, motor operated valves, safety and relief valves, check valves, circuit breakers, level measurement, control rod drive assemblies, heat exchangers), five topical reports and three under preparation for a number of topics. This paper presents recent activities and lessons learnt from the data collection and the results of topical analyses on Plant Modifications and Intersystem dependencies. In addition, the objectives and scopes of the ongoing analyses are presented.