Three Mile Island Accident

Presented By: Mona Yousse

Soha Makhyoun
Contents:
 Description of The Event.
 Initiating Event.
 Scenario of The Event.
 Lesson Learned from (TMI).
 Mitigation of The Accident.
Description of The Event:
 Location of the
event:
Pennsylvania near
Harrisburg.

 Date of The Accident:

March 1979.
Schematic Diagram of the TMI unit 2
Initiating Event:
 The trouble started somewhere in the
condensate polisher system. Some
unknown event caused the polisher outlet
valves to close. There are several ways
that a saboteur could have made this
happen without being detected by plant
telemetry or subsequent investigations.
Scenario of The Event:
 Failure of the condensate valve.
 The design of the vertical one-through
steam generator.
 Heat of the reactor coolant.
 Opining of The relief valve.
 Turning off the emergency water injection
pumps.
1. Reactor
2. Once-through Vertical Steam
Generator
3. Pressurizer
4. Quench Tank or Pressurizer
Relief Tank
Green identifies the Reactor
Coolant System flow path.
Blue on right shows feed water
going to and in the secondary
side of the steam generator
Blue in bottom of containment
shows containment sump.
Blue in upper left shows the
Quench Tank. Note steam
leaving.
 Lesson Learned:
1- operator training needed to be improved:
 operators a better understanding of both the
theoretical and practical aspects of plant
operations.

 Licensed reactor operator training today is

conducted on full-scale replica simulators of actual
plants.

 These simulators permit operators to practice

and be tested in all kinds of accident scenarios.
2-Sharing of industry knowledge needed to be more effective

 organizations have been effective in promoting excellence in

the operation of nuclear plants and accrediting their training
programs.

 INPo has had a profound impact on the way nuclear plants are
managed and operated.

 improvement in plant performance in the 30 years since TMI.

Plant capacity factors have increased to 91.8 % in 2007 from
58.4 percent in 1979.
3-Fission products don't escape in the real world
The accident yielded insight into the "source term"--the
amount of radioactive(FP)released in the event of a major
accident.

 we learned that the release of volatile ( FP) was three to four

orders of magnitude smaller than that provided for in the 1962
federal licensing criteria.

Since that time, experiments have examined the timing,

magnitude, and controlling processes for FP releases from the
fuel, the primary system, and containment.

Today, the magnitude of the source term available for release in

an accident has been reduced significantly.
4-Control rooms: complex, poorly organized, and
did not provide important information.
 Improve design of control room with human factors in
mind and with computer technology.

 Improve surveillance and instrumentation of critical

systems required to cool the reactor and stop the escape
of radio nuclides.

 Control rooms in the TMI generation of plants weren't

designed with the needs of operators in mind.

 Necessary information wasn't readily available in a

convenient and understandable form.

 After the event, important safety system modifications

were made to detect and mitigate inadequate core cooling
and post-accident conditions.
5-The consequences of a nuclear
accident were less than we thought.
•Develop emergency plans.

•Emergency Planning Zones (EPZ):

Areas with preplanned emergency responses
and notification channels.

•Plume Exposure Pathway: 10 mile radius

zone with pre-planned evacuation methods
or shelter-in-place directives as appropriate.

•Practice emergency plans with local, state

and federal agencies to ensure proper
operation.
Mitigation:
 measures taken to limit the radiological
consequences of an accident including:
 limiting release into containment
 limiting release from the facility
 reducing public radiation exposure by
evacuation, off-site cleanup, etc.
Release Mitigation:

refers only to measures taken to limit the

release of radioactive material.

The accident precursor program should have the

following characteristics:
The program should be driven by consistent
goals and objectives that address the needs of the
future.
 from these precursors the program should
provide insights into improving safety in the
future.

 A system must be in place for collection data

and Providing data when more detailed
information is needed.
 Systems and methods should be sensitive
enough to identify an operational event as a
precursor without generating too many “false
detects” of events of little interest.
 event screening and selection criteria and
processes must remain consistent over time to
support trending and analysis.
 The program should provide correlate changes
in industry design and practices with changes in
the occurrence and nature of observed
precursors.
 potential accident sequences have been
identified and that the models used to assess
events are sufficient and only need changes that
reflect the configurations and operating
practices of specific facilities.

 Risk models must be updated to reflect

improvements in facilities, but these changes
should be made in a way that does not change
the level of detail .
Thank you for attention!!