Loss of coolant accident. Past, present and future

The history of LOCA is covered from the original design basis, failure of the largest connecting pipe with no peak clad temperature limit through to the current design basis, double ended failure of the largest pipe in the primary system with a design peak clad temperature limit of 22000F. Various obstacles along the way are addressed such as, degree of analytical sophisticaton, perplexing experimental results, the infamous 1971 semiscale tests, fuel densification and changes in USNRC evaluation models. In the future, it is projected that more reliance will be put on probabilistic evaluation of the LOCA with respect to both the accident analysis, reliability of the system and the probability of the accident itself. (author)