NRC Information No. 90-23: Improper installation of Patel conduit seals

On November 6, 1989, the staff at the H.B. Robinson plant notified the NRC that they had discovered that some of the conduit seal grommets used to seal insulated wire conductors entering environmentally qualified instrument housings were oversized for the application. The seals are used to prevent moisture from entering safety-related electrical components following loss-of-coolant accidents. The problem was attributed to inadequate installation instructions that were used when the seals were installed in 1986 and 1987. These instructions listed the grommets by wire gauge size and gave maximum wire insulation diameters for each wire size. In accordance with these instructions, the seals were selected based on wire gauge alone. However, since the insulation thickness for a given wire gauge the correct grommet size would have been the minimum wire insulation diameter for which a particular grommet will achieve an effective seal. The selection of grommet size based only on wire gauge size resulted in the installation of some grommets that were too large to provide an effective seal. As a result, some of the seals failed pressure tests that were designed to simulate post-LOCA pressures. During the investigation of the grommet leakage problem, the Robinson staff also checked the torque on the conduit seal union nuts that are used to compress the seals. EGS Corporation recommends that the union nuts be torqued to 50 ft-lb. On approximately half of the 90 seals inspected, the union nut moved about 1/4 inch when this torque was applied. EGS Corporation reports that 1/4 inch of movement does not necessarily indicate a degraded seal but recommends that the correct torque be verified on a representative sample of installed conduit seals