Plant life management processes and practices for heavy water reactors

In general, heavy water reactor (HWR) nuclear power plant (NPP) owners would like to keep their NPPs in service as long as they can be operated safely and economically. Their decisions are depending on essentially business model. They involve the consideration of a number of factors, such as the material condition of the plant, comparison with current safety standards, the socio-political climate and asset management/ business planning considerations. Continued plant operation, including operation beyond design life, called 'long term operation, depends, among other things, on the material condition of the plant. This is influenced significantly by the effectiveness of ageing management. Key attributes of an effective plant life management program include a focus on important systems, structure and components (SSCs) which are susceptible to ageing degradation, a balance of proactive and reactive ageing management programmes, and a team approach that ensures the co-ordination of and communication between all relevant nuclear power plant and external programmes. Most HWR NPP owners/operators use a mix of maintenance, surveillance and inspection (MSI) programs as the primary means of managing ageing. Often these programs are experienced-based and/or time-based and may not be optimised for detecting and/or managing ageing effects. From time-to-time, operational history has shown that this practice can be too reactive, as it leads to dealing with ageing effects (degradation of SSCs) after they have been detected. In many cases premature and/or undetected ageing cannot be traced back to one specific reason or an explicit error. The root cause is often a lack of communication, documentation and/or co-ordination between design, commissioning, operation or maintenance organizations. This lack of effective communication and interfacing frequently arises because, with the exception of major SSCs, such as the fuel channels or steam generators, there is a lack of explicit responsibility for achievement of specific SSC lifetime. This paper discusses an overview of PLiM programs and considerations. This includes key objectives of such programs, regulatory considerations, asset management perspectives, integration of methodologies into current programs, organizational and technology infrastructure considerations, importance of effective plant data management and finally, benefits and costs. This paper is summary of the IAEA technical documents on 'Guidelines on Plant Life Management Processes and Practices for Heavy Water Reactors'. (author)