Review of incident involving reactor pressure vessel head degradation at U.S. PWR

Watanabe, Norio

JAERI-Review 2004-015, 144 Pages, 2004/07

JAERI-Review-2004-015.pdf:25.58MB

In March 6, 2002, significant degradation to the reactor vessel head material adjacent to a control rod drive nozzle was discovered at a U. S. pressurized water reactor (PWR), Davis Besse. Based on the documents issued by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) and the licensee, this report provides a brief description on circumstances related to discovery of the reactor vessel head degradation, and describes the degraded condition and causes, the USNRC's responses to this event and so on. In attachments, given are the contents of the generic communications (Bulletins, Generic Letters and Information Notices) issued by the USNRC for the events involving boric acid corrosion and degradation of reactor coolant pressure boundary components and the summary of the investigation reports issued by the USNRC's lessons-learned task force.