FSAR fire accident analysis for a plutonium facility

The Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR) for a plutonium facility as required by DOE Orders 5480.23 and 5480.22 has recently been completed and approved. The facility processes and stores radionuclides such as Pu-238, Pu-239, enriched uranium, and to a lesser degree other actinides. This facility produces heat sources. DOE Order 5480.23 and DOE-STD-3009-94 require analysis of different types of accidents (operational accidents such as fires, explosions, spills, criticality events, and natural phenomena such as earthquakes). The accidents that were analyzed quantitatively, or the Evaluation Basis Accidents (EBAs), were selected based on a multi-step screening process that utilizes extensively the Hazards Analysis (HA) performed for the facility. In the HA, specific accident scenarios, with estimated frequency and consequences, were developed for each identified hazard associated with facility operations and activities. Analysis of the EBAs and comparison of their consequences to the evaluation guidelines established the safety envelope for the facility and identified the safety-class structures, systems, and components. This paper discusses the analysis of the fire EBA. This fire accident was analyzed in relatively great detail in the FSAR because of its potential off-site consequences are more severe compared to other events. In the following, a description of the scenario is first given, followed by a brief summary of the methodology for calculating the source term. Finally, the author discuss how a key parameter affecting the source term, the leakpath factor, was determined, which is the focus of this paper