Nuclear Safety Consulting

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

All Resources

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.

Fauske & Associates' Nuclear Services Group is recognized for comprehensive plant evaluations to help clients enhance the availability and reliability of their operating plants while maintaining regulatory compliance, extending plant life, and reducing operation and maintenance costs in commercial nuclear power plants in the United States and overseas.

FAI has a robust quality assurance system to meet stringent requirements required in the Nuclear industry, and have the following certifications:

ISO 9001
10CFR 50 Appendix B
ISO/IEC 17025
TickIT

Consulting Experience

Thermal Hydraulic Analysis

Thermal hydraulic analysis including detection and mitigation of water hammer events and resonance issues through simulation tools and sub-scale testing: FAI has decades of experience using RELAP5, a key industry recognized thermal hydraulic transient analysis software. Our experimental facilities are designed to conduct thermal hydraulic tests, including non-condensable gas-water or steam-water water hammer experiments.

Equipment Qualification (EQ) Testing

FAI brings Design Basis Accident (DBA) testing, including Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) and High Energy Line Break (HELB) testing capabilities to a variety of applications for equipment qualifications.

Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA)

FAI utilizes Probabilistic Risk Assessments (PRA) to gauge the probability of risk by using calculations to determine the potential, probability and possible severity of unwanted phenomena occurring in a nuclear power plant. FAI has developed extensive capabilities and experience in performance of NRC classified Level II risk analysis specifically focused on the potential for accidents that could release radioactivity from the facility. MAAP can simulate Loss-Of- Coolant Accident (LOCA) and non-LOCA transients for PRA applications.

Environmental Qualification (EQ)

This is the process of establishing the ability of an equipment to perform its intended function under prescribed operating conditions. This can be established through a combination of tests performed in a laboratory along with calculations.
Commonly performed tests for EQ are:
- Baseline functional test
- Radiation aging
- Post-radiation aging functional test
- Thermal aging
- Post-thermal aging functional test
- Cycle aging
- Post-cycle aging functional test
- Seismic test
- Post-seismic functional test
- High Energy Line Break (HELB) test
- Post-HELB functional test and visual inspection
- Water ingress

Equipment Survivability (ES)

Assessments are performed to evaluate the availability of the equipment and instrumentation during a severe accident.

Severe Accident Analysis

Fauske and Associates (FAI) experience in severe accident analysis goes back to the original experiments and computer modeling that led to initial development of the EPRI-owned MAAP code. FAI later was the principal author of the original Severe Accident Management (SAM) Technical Basis Report (TBR) also known as EPRI TR-101869). This report provided the technical bases for development of generic severe accident management guidance (SAMG).

In the aftermath of the Fukushima accident, EPRI commissioned an update to the original TBR, and FAI again was a principal author in this update.

Decommissioning and Decontamination

Fauske & Associates (FAI) provides technical expertise and program guidance for the storage, processing and disposal of nuclear, chemical and defense waste and for process and safety analysis to support Decontamination & Decommissioning (D&D) of nuclear and hazardous material facilities. Our three product areas for waste technology and D&D are (1) Process and safety models and analyses (2) Experimental facilities for hazard quantification and (3) The FAI developed and maintained FATE™ software. FATE™ is used for process design and safety evaluations related to waste technology, process engineering and safety and decommissioning and dismantling. It can consider engineering process components as well as facility design.

Laboratories and Testing Capability

FAI has several fully staffed laboratories with equipment such as a LOCA chamber, a thermal aging autoclave, and a thermal hydraulic loop supporting environmental qualifications, condition assessment, full-scale thermal/hydraulics experiments, and basic physical sciences.

Accident Investigation

FAI was founded on expertise in the modeling, evaluation and mitigation of severe accidents at commercial nuclear power plants, and has been intimately involved in the international response to the TMI-2, Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi accidents.

FAI employs Probabilistic Risk Assessments, Modular Accident Analysis Programs, and other severe accident modeling techniques and tools to create comprehensive risk profiles, thereby mitigating the risk of future accidents.

FAI has collaborated with the nuclear industry in understanding and preparing for severe accidents at power reactors:
- In 1980, FAI contributed to the development of the foundation NSAC-1 report, the first analysis of the TMI-2 accident.
- In 1986, FAI was part of the U.S. mission to Vienna, Austria, where the Soviet Union provided their first technical briefing on the Chernobyl accident to the western European countries.
- In 2011, FAI helped man the “War Room” in Tokyo that was monitoring Fukushima Daiichi (1F) accident progression during the event and considering strategies for accident response and mitigation.
- In 2012, FAI joined the Japanese consortium that was tasked by government agency METI with developing technologies to understand accident progression and the subsequent end-state configuration of Units 1, 2, and 3 at the 1F site. This provided comprehension of key phenomena that are crucial to the fundamental understanding of 1F-specific progression.

Software

We deploy a variety of specialized software such as FATE, RELAP5, MAAP, and ANSYS to perform simulations and analyses. Where developing custom software is required, MATLAB, Python, Java, Fortran, and others are used as well.