Ageing model considering effects of maintenance and working conditions

Nowadays, there is some doubt about building new Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). Instead, there is a growing interest in analyzing the possibility to extend current NPP operation where life management programs play an important role. The evolution of the NPP safety depends on the evolution of the reliability of its safety components as a function of their age along the NPP operational life. In this paper, a new age-dependent reliability model is presented, which includes parameters related to surveillance and maintenance effectiveness and working conditions, both environmental and operational, of the equipment. This model may be used to support NPP life management and life extension programs by improving or optimizing surveillance and maintenance tasks using risk and cost models based on such an age-dependent reliability model. The results of the sensitivity study in the application show that the selection of the most appropriate maintenance strategy would directly depend on the previous parameters and very important differences are expected to appear under certain circumstance. (Author) 7 refs