Optimization Approach for Evaluation of Allowed Outage Times in Nuclear-Safety Systems

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to develop and demonstrate an approach for determining allowed outage times (AOTs) of nuclear systems based on linear programming techniques. Presently nuclear power plants are operated within the constraints of technical specifications defined by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. These specifications, among other things, define the time a safety system component may be allowed to be serviced for repair without bringing the plant to hot shutdown condition. The time the component is allowed to be serviced is commonly known as the allowed outage time and the determination of such times is presently based on engineering judgements. Over the last few years, efforts were made to develop allowed outage times for safety system components based on probabilistic considerations. The method given here is based on linear programming and it provides a tool for simultaneous consideration and evaluation of any number of linear constraints imposed on the problem. (ERA citation 08:051248)