Methods and findings of a systems interaction study of a Westinghouse PWR

This paper describes the methods and findings of a systems interaction study of a Westinghouse PWR. BNL conducted the study as a methods application that was performed to support the resolution of Unresolved Safety Issue A-17 on Systems Interactions. The method calls for a fault tree model of the plant to be developed in stages, corresponding to successively increasing levels of scope and detail. A functional model is developed first, resolved only to sufficient detail to reflect support system dependences; this guides the subsequent searches for spatial and induced-human interactions. This process has led to the identification of an active single failure causing loss of low pressure injection following a large or medium LOCA