Recordkeeping needs to mitigate the impact of aging degradation

This report discusses technical issues associated with the role of nuclear plant records systems in understanding and managing the aging of nuclear plant components, systems, and structures. It considers both the types of technical data useful for verifying continued safe operation and the use of new technology for upgrading records systems. Specific topics reviewed include the need for maintenance and reliability data, operational history data to support the assessment of remaining fatigue life, comprehensiveness and usability of the engineering design basis, improvement of the data input process, and conversion of existing records into machine-readable forms. The report concludes that successful management of nuclear plant aging will require improvement of existing plant records systems; several generic and specific recommendations are provided. The computer-based technology for meeting this need and implementing these recommendations already exists and can be implemented at a reasonable cost