In its continued effort to apply lessons learned from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has awarded a research contract worth up to $2.2 million for two groups to analyze severe disasters at nuclear power plants.
At Fukushima, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake triggered a 15-meter tsunami, cutting the plant’s power and ability to cool the reactor, which led to three core meltdowns and three hydrogen blasts. The NRC soon after established a task force to review agency processes and regulations in light of the events. That group determined that an accident involving core damage, resulting in uncontrolled release of radioactive material, is “inherently unacceptable,” according to the NRC contract.
“There is a growing need to preserve the severe accident knowledge base acquired in the last three decades, and to maintain severe accident expertise and skills,” the document states.
The NRC awarded the contract to Rockville, Md.-based Energy Research Inc. and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which will compete for individual work orders under the deal. The two groups are expected to study the following severe accidents: in-vessel melt progression behavior, particularly, late-phase melt progression; ex-vessel melt progression behavior, particularly molten core-concrete interactions and debris coolability; and other targeted containment phenomenological issues such as hydrogen risk management and stratified steam explosion.
Energy Research President Mohsen Khatib-Rahbar said in a recent interview that his team of researchers plans to draw data from experiments and computer modeling, which will simulate reactor conditions during a meltdown. The company plans to work with researchers from various universities, including the University of California, Los Angeles, Purdue University, Virginia Tech, and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.
NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said by email Tuesday that the agency has yet to award individual work orders under the five-year contract. The agency expects to soon set up a meeting with technical staff to move forward with the work.
