Safety reassessment of the Hungarian NPP (the Agnes project)

The results summarized in this paper are taken from the report of the first phase of the AGNES project, assessing the safety of the Paks nuclear power plant. The principal conclusions are as follows. The single failure analysis has not pointed out any dramatic or unknown deficiencies. The medium and large break loss of coolant accident (LOCA) scenarios do not lead to environmental doses beyond the limits. The pressurized thermal shock (PTS) analysis does not endanger the pressure vessel. In severe accidents the water inventories are large, which makes it possible to apply efficient accident management strategies. The largest contributions to probability of core melting come from interface LOCA scenarios, loss of feedwater, and small break LOCA. A significant decrease in the core melt probability will result from improving emergency operating procedures and elaborating and introducing accident management procedures, as well as from technical measures. 18 refs