Level-1 probability safety assessment of the Iranian heavy water reactor using SAPHIRE software

The main goal of this review paper is to analyze the total frequency of the core damage of the Iranian Heavy Water Research Reactor (IHWRR) compared with standard criteria and to determine the strengths and the weaknesses of the reactor safety systems towards improving its design and operation. The PSA has been considered for full-power state of the reactor and this article represents a level-1 PSA analysis using System Analysis Programs for Hands-On Integrated Reliability Evaluations (SAPHIRE) software. It is specifically designed to permit a listing of the potential accident sequences, compute their frequencies of occurrence and assign each sequence to a consequence. The method used for modeling the systems and accident sequences, is Large Fault Tree/Small Event Tree method. This PSA level-1 for IHWRR indicates that, based on conservative assumptions, the total frequency of accidents that would lead to core damage from internal initiating events is 4.44E−05 per year of reactor operation.