March 2001 Contents Highlight

Armenia Bulgaria Czech Republic Hungary

Kazakhstan Lithuania Russia Slovakia

Ukraine United States Cross-Cutting Activities Planned Activities

Armenia

Water chemistry training implemented at Armenia

In mid-March, a U.S. training specialist from Sonalysts Inc. participated in the second week of a two-week working session that focused on completion and implementation of the pilot training program in Water Chemistry for Chemistry Department Shift Supervisors at the Armenia nuclear plant. This was the final of three working sessions that were held to develop and implement this training program. At the end of the two-week period, training and program specialists from the U.S. Department of Energy who attended the pilot program implementation provided comments and feedback regarding the pilot program implementation. The comments and feedback provided are being included in the final training material. (John Yoder, DOE, 301-903-5650; Don Draper, PNNL, 509-372-4079)

Future safety evaluation projects at Armenia nuclear plant discussed
In mid-March, U.S. representatives from NNSA, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), PNNL, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Burns & Roe Enterprises Inc. traveled to Armenia and met with representatives from the Armenia nuclear power plant, Armatom, the Armenian Ministry of Energy, Nizhny Novgorod Atomenergoproekt (NNAEP), and Atomservice for a semiannual project coordination meeting to discuss the status and future plans for NNSA work in Armenia. Separate meetings were held with the head of the Armenian Department of Atomic Energy and the Deputy Minister of the Armenian Ministry of Energy. The U.S. representative from ANL also met with the safety assessment and seismic assessment group leaders at the Armenia nuclear plant, and with the deputy director of Armatom.

Contracting arrangements are being made to begin the next stage of the Armenia nuclear plant safety assessment project. An advanced class on the use of thermo-hydraulic system software (RELAP5) for safety assessments will be held at Armatom in April 2001. Armatom and power plant analysts will attend. Computer equipment is being ordered to support the safety assessment work.

The Armenian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (ANRA) issued a draft format and content guide for the Safety Analysis Report (SAR) that the plant needs for licensing. The power plant has requested help from the NNSA program to review those guidelines. A competitive bidding process is now under way to select a U.S. technical support organization to help the plant assess the guidelines and to assist with safety assessment work. During the week of June 4, the NNSA team will meet with representatives of the power plant to discuss the review results and will participate in a meeting between the plant and ANRA to further review the guidelines. The NNSA team will encourage the participation of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in this process. The Ministry of Energy has signed a memorandum to ANRA asking for a delay in the plant’s response to the draft SAR guidelines until July 2001.

Gidropress (the Russian reactor design institute) has provided a draft set of safe-shutdown procedures for seismic emergencies. A meeting will be held between the plant, Gidropress, and NNAEP on April 16 to review the procedures, which will become the basis for an approved safe-shutdown equipment list. NNAEP has provided the Armenia plant with floor-response spectra needed for the seismic analysis of safety-important systems. The plant has requested NNSA guidance with these calculations. In addition, the plant would like a U.S. specialist to attend a brief seismic screening walk-down during the summer outage, which is currently scheduled for July 1. A final walk-down, which cannot be completed without the safe-shutdown equipment list, would be held in 2002. The NNSA program is procuring a personal computer for the plant’s seismic laboratory to support their database activities and analysis work. (Walt Pasedag, NNSA, 301-903-3628; Mark Petri, ANL, 630-252-3719)