Safety Improvement to Israel Research Reactor 2 by Increasing the Robustness of Equipment to Ground Acceleration

Abstract

Nuclear facilities and in particular nuclear reactors are designed to withstand ground acceleration due to earthquake and to maintain the structures, systems, and components (SSC) safety function. The three main safety functions are shutdown, removal of residual heat, and indications of the first two. Achieving these three functions will be called a “safe path.” The Israel Research Reactor 2 (IRR2) has numerous diverse safe paths to ensure the availability of these three safety functions. Each safe path has an associated level of resistance to ground acceleration. A project for increasing the robustness of equipment to ground acceleration was initiated in order to improve the safety of the reactor and to comply with regulatory guidelines.