Passive system reliability analysis using Response Conditioning Method with an application to failure frequency estimation of Decay Heat Removal of PFBR

► This paper presents a computationally efficient and consistent methodology to evaluate reliability of passive nuclear safety systems. ► The methodologies are experimented with passive Decay Heat Removal System of Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR). ► Inclusion of passive system reliability in Probabilistic Safety Assessment is demonstrated. ► Failure frequencies are evaluated with respect to core damage as well as operational safety. Innovative nuclear reactor designs include passive means to achieve high reliability in accomplishing safety functions. Functional reliability analyses of passive systems include Monte Carlo sampling of system uncertainties, followed by propagation through mechanistic system models. For complex passive safety systems of high reliability, Monte Carlo simulations using mechanistic codes are computationally expensive and often become prohibitive. Passive system reliability analysis using recently proposed Response Conditioning Method, which incorporates the insights obtained from approximate solutions like response surfaces in simulations to obtain computationally efficient and consistent probability estimates, is presented in this paper. The method is applied to evaluate the reliability of passive Decay Heat Removal (DHR) system of Indian Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR). The accuracy as well as efficiency of the method is compared with direct Monte Carlo simulation. The variability of the reliability values is estimated using bootstrap technique. The system abilities, to prevent critical structural damage as well as to ensure operational safety, are quantitatively ascertained. The system functional failure probabilities are integrated with hardware failure probabilities and the inclusion of passive system unreliability in Probabilistic Safety Assessment is demonstrated.