Reliability Analysis of the Reactor Protection System Using Markov Processes

Abstract

The event tree/fault tree techniques used in the current probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) of nuclear power plants are based on the binary and static description of the components and the system. While these techniques Bay be adequate in most of the safety studies, more advanced techniques, e.g., the Markov reliability analysis, are required to accurately study such problems as the plant availability assessments and technical specifications evaluations that are becoming increasingly important. This paper describes a Markov model for the Reactor Protection System of a pressurized water reactor and presents results of model evaluations for two testing policies in technical specifications.