Study on eliminating fire dampers to maintain process confinement

The DOE General Design Criteria for the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) at the Westinghouse Savannah River Site (WSRS) requires the NFPA National Fire Codes to be incorporated into the design and simultaneously maintain process confinement integrity to prevent the release of radioactivity. Although the NFPA Standard for the Installation of Air Conditioning and Ventilation Systems, NFPA 90, requires fire dampers (FD) in HVAC duct penetrations of two hour rated fire barriers, closure of fire dampers at DWPF may compromise the integrity of the process confinement system. This leads to the need for an overall risk assessment to determine the value of 39 fire dampers that are identified later in the study as capable of a confinement system upset