Seismic Safety Margins Research Program load combination project, Task 3. Load combination methodology development. Interim report 1

This is the first interim report giving the results to date on the development of a load combination methodology. After a brief background, the objectives and scope of the load combination methodology task are listed. This is followed by user oriented requirements on the methodology. The proposed methodology is then introduced and simply demonstrated. Examples of similar applications of the reliability based methodology are presented and accompanied by a listing of some of the unique considerations in applying this type of methodology to nuclear design. A fairly detailed exposition of a component reliability and design code optimization scheme is given along with a brief discussion of system and plant reliability considerations