Two firms in the nuclear industry, Engineering Planning and Management (EPM) and Nuclear Safety Associates (NSA), are combining their expertise in nuclear safety analysis, risk assessment and regulatory compliance to offer advanced services and solutions for nuclear plant licensees addressing seismic hazards and risk assessment.
In response to pending changes in regulatory requirements from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), EPM and NSA are leveraging their collective experience to offer clients a focused, dedicated team and the latest analysis technologies to perform the seismic and structural response analyses required, along with the corresponding probabilistic risk assessments.
“Recent attention on seismic activity around the world, along with the earthquake that hit the eastern U.S. this year, has led to intensified regulatory focus on seismic hazards and risks for U.S. nuclear facilities,” said Wade Larson, president of Engineering Planning and Management. "The combination of NSA’s strengths and experience in seismic and structural engineering with EPM’s expertise in systems engineering and probabilistic risk assessment offers nuclear facility operators the strongest team of industry experts to respond to these increasing demands.”
EPM and NSA offer a set of services to support nuclear power plant licensees responding to the anticipated NRC Generic Letter for “Seismic Risk Evaluations for Operating Reactors” associated with the resolution to Generic Issue 199 (GI-199).
“The ability to perform all aspects of the SMA and the SPRA by employing highly regarded experts and utilizing state-of-the art analysis techniques is a unique capability that sets us apart from the competition," said Nuclear Safety Associates President Robert Frost, Ph.D. “We have the ability to hit the ground running and provide clients with immediate, comprehensive and effective solutions to meet new requirements.”
This new venture by EPM and NSA builds on a recent joint marketing agreement between the two companies to offer comprehensive services to improve facility response plans and to mitigate health and economic consequences of all severe accidents. Client services offered under this joint agreement include analyses of Level 2 & 3 probabilistic risk assessments (PRA) based on a facility’s existing PRA results, scenario simulations for degraded cores, containment systems, venting and filtering systems to develop updated facility source terms, modeling of plume dispersions and evacuation plans.