Degrade core accident analysis in the Shoreham PRA: Chapter 14

The goal of the accident analysis in the Shoreham PRA is to define the parameters to be used for analysis of offsite consequences and ultimately, public risk. Limits on computational resources require that the entire spectrum of possible radionuclide releases be summarized by only a few representative scenarios that consider both high frequency/mild consequence and low frequency/severe consequence events. To accomplish this task, the Shoreham accident analysis uses a procedure in which there is a series of five intermediate binning operations that serve to prevent the propagation of an unmanageable number of accident sequences while at the same time preserve the important differences between them. This procedure includes several refinements of the approach used in the Reactor Safety Study (WASH-1400). The most important aspect of this modeling technique is that it presents a realistic assessment of the impact of secondary systems and human interaction on the frequency of core meltdown. The final results are presented in a format which allows iterative development of the consequence analysis