Risk, Hazard, and Safety Analysis of Nuclear and Chemical Facilities
Project Description and Significance
The Nuclear Safety and Systems Analysis Department at Sandia performs risk, hazard, and safety analysis. Our expertise has evolved as a result of our need to evaluate and document both the safety of our reactors and other nuclear and chemical facilities and the variety of experiments performed at those facilities. Safety analysis reports (SARs) and other formal safety documentation are mandated by the Department of Energy (DOE) Orders for reactors and other nuclear facilities. Similar analysis and documentation are required for many of the complex experiments performed at the facilities. Often the experiments require the use of stored energy, high temperatures, and radioactive and hazardous chemical materials. Adverse safety consequences could occur if the experiments are not properly contained. Our risk, hazard, and safety analysis methods and experience have proved beneficial in planning, designing, gaining safety approvals for, and operating complex and hazardous facilities and conducting major experimental programs. (See also the fact sheet "Risk Assessment for Nuclear Reactors," which emphasizes our work on nuclear reactors.)
Sandia's Contribution
As an organization we have performed safety analysis for reactors, other nuclear facilities, chemical processing facilities, and experiments both at Sandia and at other DOE installations. This work ranges from qualitative hazard analyses to detailed quantitative probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specific talents involved in this work include frequency, reliability analysis, source-term modeling, and consequence (health effects) modeling of fires, spills, explosions, and other accidents involving radioactive and chemical materials. Our hazard and risk analysis software and data libraries are extensive.
The Nuclear Safety and Systems Analysis Department has conducted numerous risk, hazard, and safety analyses for Sandia's and other DOE nuclear and chemical processing facilities and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department of Defense, and Strategic Defense Initiative Office nuclear research experiments conducted at Sandia facilities. An abridged listing of the types of projects conducted by the Nuclear Safety and Systems Analysis Department in the area of risk, hazard, and safety analysis follows:
Safety analysis reports (and technical safety requirements) for Sandia nuclear facilities, including the Annular Core Research Reactor, Sandia Pulse Reactor, Hot Cell Facility, Gamma Irradiation Facility, and Manzano Waste Storage Facility.
Safety and environmental analysis of the Sandia Microelectronics Development Laboratory
Risk analysis of pit packaging and transport activities at the DOE Pantex Plant
Confirmatory accident analyses for safety analyses conducted at DOE Rocky Flats, Device Assembly Facility (Nevada Test Site), Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Idaho National Engineering Laboratory
Risk analysis of chemical weapon transportation
State-of-the-art radiological and chemical consequence modeling software development (Sandia MARCUS code)
Sandia's Capabilities
The fundamental elements of risk, hazard, and safety analysis are applicable to several other technical, social, and political problems. Risk analysis is one basis by which priorities can be rationally established, informed decisions can be made, and scarce resources can be optimally allocated. Specific expertise of the Nuclear Safety and Systems Analysis Department extends into the following areas:
Identification of risk-sensitive natural resources (e.g., ecosystems, energy reserves)
Risk management and reduction
Decision analysis
Optimization of complex manufacturing systems
For example, the departmental staff has recently been tasked with investigating the manufacturing scheduling activities at the DOE Pantex Plant to identify the dominant barriers to improved production efficiency. In addition, the staff has been involved in modeling the nuclear weapon production network of both the United States and the former Soviet Union (FSU).
For further information, contact:
LeAnn Adams Miller
Sandia National Laboratories, MS-1175
Albuquerque, NM 87185-1175
Phone: (505) 844-3722
e-mail: lamille@sandia.gov
Submitted October 1996 Layout design by Wanda Mar.
Submitted October 1996