IAEA IPSART mission to review Level-1 PSA study for Armenian NPP Unit 2

In June 2011, the Armenian Nuclear Regulatory Authority requested for IPSART mission. In October 2014, the IAEA carried out the mission under the IAEA Extra Budgetary Project (EBP) funded by Norway and aimed at strengthening nuclear safety. IPSART mission’s objective was to carry out an independent international peer review of the Level-1 PSA study for the ANPP Unit 2. The PSA scope included internal initiating events, internal fires, seismic and other external events for nominal power operating conditions. In addition, a limited review was provided for the ongoing Low Power and Shutdown part of the PSA process. During the observation, the following specific fields of expertise were addressed: initiating events, system reliability, accident sequence, human reliability, statistical data, natural hazard analysis and other elements of the PSA studies. The mentioned issues were thoroughly reviewed by IPSART expert team that consisted of two IAEA staff members and four external experts from Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine and the USA.

The NRSC and the ANPP specialists worked jointly with the IPSART team during the whole mission. During the mission a tour inside the plan was organized so that to help the IAEA experts to more closely observe the various plant features and the layout of buildings and corresponding equipment . The plant walkdown includes the turbine hall (in particular, the elevation 14.7), main control room, battery and DC compartment, diesel generator building, and the mezzanine rooms. The IPSART mission resulted in a final report, which, in turn, was delivered to all counterparts. The final report contained all the comments and findings addressed during the mission. The results of IPSART mission will surely be used for the improvement of the ANPP PSA models.