Combustible Dust Testing

Laboratory testing to quantify dust explosion and reactivity hazards

Safety Data Sheets

Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

Gas and Vapor

Laboratory testing to quantify explosion hazards for vapor and gas mixtures

UN-DOT
Classification of hazardous materials subject to shipping and storage regulations
Hydrogen
Testing and consulting on the explosion risks associated with devices and processes which use or produce hydrogen
Safety Data Sheets

Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

Thermal Stability

Safe storage or processing requires an understanding of the possible hazards associated with sensitivity to variations in temperature

Adiabatic Calorimetry
Data demonstrate the consequences of process upsets, such as failed equipment or improper procedures, and guide mitigation strategies including Emergency Relief System (ERS) design
Reaction Calorimetry
Data yield heat and gas removal requirements to control the desired process chemistry
Battery Safety

Testing to support safe design of batteries and electrical power backup facilities particularly to satisfy UL9540a ed.4

Safety Data Sheets

Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

Cable Testing
Evaluate electrical cables to demonstrate reliability and identify defects or degradation
Equipment Qualification (EQ)
Testing and analysis to ensure that critical equipment will operate under adverse environmental conditions
Water Hammer
Analysis and testing to identify and prevent unwanted hydraulic pressure transients in process piping
Acoustic Vibration
Identify and eliminate potential sources of unwanted vibration in piping and structural systems
Gas & Air Intrusion
Analysis and testing to identify and prevent intrusion of gas or air in piping systems
ISO/IEC 17025:2017

Fauske & Associates fulfills the requirements of ISO/IEC 17025:2017 in the field of Testing

ISO 9001:2015
Fauske & Associates fulfills the requirements of ISO 9001:2015
Dust Hazards Analysis
Evaluate your process to identify combustible dust hazards and perform dust explosion testing
On-Site Risk Management
On-site safety studies can help identify explosibility and chemical reaction hazards so that appropriate testing, simulations, or calculations are identified to support safe scale up
DIERS Methodology
Design emergency pressure relief systems to mitigate the consequences of unwanted chemical reactivity and account for two-phase flow using the right tools and methods
Deflagrations (Dust/Vapor/Gas)

Properly size pressure relief vents to protect your processes from dust, vapor, and gas explosions

Effluent Handling

Pressure relief sizing is just the first step and it is critical to safely handle the effluent discharge from an overpressure event

FATE™ & Facility Modeling

FATE (Facility Flow, Aerosol, Thermal, and Explosion) is a flexible, fast-running code developed and maintained by Fauske and Associates under an ASME NQA-1 compliant QA program.

Mechanical, Piping, and Electrical
Engineering and testing to support safe plant operations and develop solutions to problems in heat transfer, fluid, flow, and electric power systems
Hydrogen Safety
Testing and consulting on the explosion risks associated with devices and processes which use or produce hydrogen
Thermal Hydraulics
Testing and analysis to ensure that critical equipment will operate under adverse environmental conditions
Nuclear Safety
Our Nuclear Services Group is recognized for comprehensive evaluations to help commercial nuclear power plants operate efficiently and stay compliant
Radioactive Waste
Safety analysis to underpin decomissioning process at facilities which have produced or used radioactive nuclear materials
Adiabatic Safety Calorimeters (ARSST and VSP2)

Low thermal inertial adiabatic calorimeters specially designed to provide directly scalable data that are critical to safe process design

Other Lab Equipment and Parts for the DSC/ARC/ARSST/VSP2 Calorimeters

Products and equipment for the process safety or process development laboratory

FERST

Software for emergency relief system design to ensure safe processing of reactive chemicals, including consideration of two-phase flow and runaway chemical reactions

FATE

Facility modeling software mechanistically tracks transport of heat, gasses, vapors, and aerosols for safety analysis of multi-room facilities

Blog

Our highly experienced team keeps you up-to-date on the latest process safety developments.

Process Safety Newsletter

Stay informed with our quarterly Process Safety Newsletters sharing topical articles and practical advice.

Resources

With over 40 years of industry expertise, we have a wealth of process safety knowledge to share.

Recent Posts

Producing Statistical Analysis Regarding Severe Accident Uncertainty at Nuclear Power Plants

Posted by Fauske & Associates on 05.15.19

By Nick Karancevic, Senior Nuclear Engineer, Fauske & Associates, LLC

The Three Mile Island Severe Accident occurred in 1979, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In 1986, the Chernobyl Criticality Accident occurred.  In 1986, what is widely considered as the worst commercial power reactor accident occurred at Chernobyl Power Station. In 1988, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued Generic Letter 88-20,
MAAP5 Primary System Nodalization Scheme
MAAP5 Primary System Nodalization Scheme

"Individual Plant Examination for Severe Accident Vulnerabilities". These events prompted a development of computer codes that could accurately simulate Severe Accidents, such as Three Mile Island, for accident management evaluations and prompted the development of Severe Accident Management Guidelines (SAMG). But, what kind of computing power was available back then? This would in part guide the future definition of “accurate simulation”. And more relevant, what kind of computing power is available now?

I can recall vividly when one of my friends stated there would soon be a 1000 MHz CPU available. We were all in disbelief and shock. The year was 2000, and such things were unheard of. Fast forward to the year 2018, and I find myself writing a business case to purchase a single server that will sit on somebody’s desk, with 112 CPU cores which in the grand scheme of things is really not that many CPUs compared to the power harnessed at the United States national laboratories.

A 2003 European Commission study noted that “core damage frequencies of 5 × 10-5 [per reactor-year] are a common result” or in other words, one severe accident would be expected every 20,000 reactor years. From this value, assuming there are 500 reactors in use in the world, one core damage incident would be expected to occur every 40 years. Ominously, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster occurred in the year 2011.

After the Fukushima Severe Accident, it was now time to revisit the severe accident nuclear codes. A lot of research and wisdom has resulted from the Three Mile Island accident; however, a lot more remained unknown. For example, what are the specific combinations of criteria needed for the nuclear fuel pins to fail? Now that we have more computing speed available, can we run a more detailed simulation, with more nodes, and more physics models, and still expect an answer overnight, if not a few hours. 

Most importantly, we may never know the exact criteria for nuclear fuel pin failure, or the best correlation of the two excellent candidates that should be used for some key phenomena. We may be able to tame the numerical uncertainty of complex engineering calculations, but we will never fully mitigate it with one hundred percent certainty. For these reasons, the solution stands out: why not simulate the same accident scenario using all of the available state of the art correlations, and a representative range of key parameters to get the best possible scenario? Statistical sampling and analysis tools can help the severe accident analyst to say, “not only is the best case autoignition temperature testingsimulation showing this result, but an uncertainty and sensitivity analysis shows the same”. In the year 2009, the NRC issued NUREG-1855, Volume 1, “Guidance on the Treatment of Uncertainties Associated with PRAs in Risk-Informed Decision Making”. Why not run a sensitivity and uncertainty analysis to determine how much time a nuclear reactor operator has to complete some action that will prevent core damage? I cannot envision a world where uncertainty and sensitivity analysis don’t become mainstream requirements of nuclear analysis, complementing other data analytics of today. 

There is much to share on sensitivity and uncertainty analysis for Severe Accident mitigation. Continue to see content like this by subscribing our blog below.

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Topics: Nuclear

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