A new method for safety classification of structures, systems and components by reflecting nuclear reactor operating history into importance measures

Risk-informed safety classification of structures, systems and components (SSCs) is very important for ensuring the safety and economic efficiency of nuclear power plants (NPPs). However, previous methods for safety classification of SSCs do not take the plant operating modes or the operational process of SSCs into consideration, thus cannot concentrate on the safety and economic efficiency accurately. In this contribution, a new method for safety classification of SSCs based on the categorization of plant operating modes is proposed, which considers the NPPs operating history to improve the economic efficiencies while maintaining the safety. According to the time duration of plant configurations in plant operating modes, average importances of SSCs are accessed for an NPP considering the operational process, and then safety classification of SSCs is performed for plant operating modes. The correctness and effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by application in an NPP's safety classification of SSCs