Discussion of nuclear explosive operation process changes generated by a preliminary hazard assessment

摘要

Hazard assessments (HAs) are being used to support the US Department of Energy (DOE) Integrated Safety Process (SS-21), Nuclear Explosive Safety Study Group (NESSG), and Environmental Safety and Health (ES and H) initiatives. The HAs are used to identify hazards associated with nuclear explosive operations involving tooling and procedural processes. In general, a HA is a formal, systematic, in-depth method for evaluating a set of possible accident scenarios associated with a process. Two assessments of a nuclear explosive surveillance process have been performed or are in progress: (1) a preliminary HA of current operations to focus efforts on maximizing safety improvements during subsequent process redesign and track overall improvement following process redesign (completed) and (2) a rolling assessment of hazards present in conceptual solutions and solutions to improve safety (in progress). The preliminary HA was used to focus the process design teams on problem areas. The rolling assessment is evaluating how well problem areas were eliminated or mitigated. This paper summarizes the preliminary HA, how it focused the design teams on problem areas found by the assessment, and the rolling assessment of solutions generated by the process design team.