Risk-informed inservice inspection program Original Research Article

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has developed draft guidance for power reactor licenses on acceptable methods for using probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) information and insights in support of plant-specific applications to change the current licensing basis (CLB) for inservice inspection (ISI) of piping. This process is also known as risk-informed inservice inspection programs (RI-ISI). The risk-informed inservice inspection process for operating nuclear power plants provides an alternative method for selecting and categorizing piping components that are inspected for the purposes of meeting the requirements of ASME Section XI. A RI-ISI approach will incorporate probabilistic techniques to help define the scope, type and frequency of inservice inspection. The risk-informed process may support a decrease in the number of inspection and inspection intervals but will also identify areas where increased resources should be allocated to enhance safety. The approach discussed in this paper follows the method developed by NRC staff.