2019 International Conference on Quality, Reliability, Risk,

Maintenance, and Safety Engineering (QR2MSE 2019)

August 6-9, 2019, Zhangjiajie, Hunan, China

QR2MSE 2019-0003-0099

Research and Application of Reliability Management Process in Nuclear

Power Plants

Bing-Yue Liu1,*, Miao-Miao Wang2

1. Nuclear Power Maintenance Center,
China Nuclear Power Operation Technology Corporation, LTD.,
Wuhan, Hubei, 430223, P.R. China
2. CNNP Nuclear Power Operations Management Corporation, LTD.,
Haiyan, Jiaxing, Zhejiang, 314300, P.R. China

ABSTRACT
In order to ensure nuclear operational reliability,
reduce production downtime while saving operation and
maintenance cost, applying equipment reliability
management has become a significant approach for
nuclear power plants (NPPs). A traditional equipment
reliability management process (AP-913) for NPPs has
been developed by Institute of Nuclear Power Operations
(INPO). Many studies and implementation activities have
been done by us according to the process, thus some
potential improvement opportunities have been identified.
Based on the application experience and good practices
from other references, some practical improvement
recommendations have been proposed. The proposed ones Figure 1 Three year scram averages from 2014 to 2016
can offer to assist the NPPs to implement a more accurate, (from INPO)
effective and applicable reliability management in an
efficient manner. To improve maintenance practices and equipment
reliability for US NPPs, INPO published a report entitled
KEYWORDS: reliability management, preventive “Equipment Reliability Process Description (AP-913)”.
maintenance program, nuclear power plants, FRACAS The report illustrates a model/process for setting up an
equipment reliability process, specifically for US NPPs.
1 INTRODUCTION The objective of the report is to help NPPs consider the
Equipment reliability plays a key role in ensuring safe application of AP-913, which aims to improve and
and reliable operation of the NPPs, which consists of two maintain equipment reliability [1-2].
main factors: plant equipment and personnel. Equipment AP-913 results from the operation and maintenance
related failures account for the majority of reactor scrams (O&M) practices of the US NPPs and its nuclear
or reactor trip. Reactor scrams or reactor trip means the regulatory requirements, which is more applicable to US
sudden closing down of a nuclear reactor, usually by rapid domestic NPPs. To remove requirements specific to only
insertion of control rods to reduce reactivity, either by US utilities, for example, the Maintenance Rule (MR) is a
automatic or manual operation. As show in Figure 1, the mandatory and regulatory requirement for US NPPs only,
equipment accounted for 75% of the scram causes in the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO)
Unites States (US) NPPs from 2014 to 2016. published an equipment reliability guideline adopted from
INPO AP-913 [3], in order to make the guidance more

*
Corresponding Author: liuby@cnnp.com.cn
Tel: +86-27-87409316.

978-1-7281-1427-9/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE 224

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generically applicable to nuclear facilities across the world
[4].
China National Nuclear Power Co., Ltd. (CNNP) is
one of the leading nuclear energy enterprises in China. Six
years ago, CNNP started to improve equipment reliability
systematically with a corporate level initiative. To ensure
consistency and efficiency, CNNP-owned software has
been developed to realize the fleet AP-913 management
across all units within CNNP. As AP-913 was tried to be
adopted within CNNP NPPs, we also paid close attention
to and extracted good practices from other industries
outside the nuclear energy. From the keynote speeches and
technical papers [5-10] of international conferences such
as International Conference on Quality, Reliability, Risk,
Maintenance, and Safety Engineering (QR2MSE), World
Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM),
etc., the insights into technical and managerial reliability
methodology has been presented. The core concept
involves “risk-informed”, “value based”, “big data” and so
on. Jiang and Murthy [11] proposed reliability and
maintenance decision models and cases under different
circumstances. The relationship between maintenance
decision and spares parts management was introduced by
Jiang and Zuo [12].
Integrated with good practices of multiple sources,
our AP-913 understanding has been definitely improved,
some technical information and potential process
improvements can be clarified more clearly to enhance the
further implementation.
The paper is organized as follows. The formulation
background of AP-913 is explained in section 2 and
illustrated in section 3. Section 4 gives an overview of our
real-life work, then lessons learned and potential
improvements are presented in section 5. Finally, the paper
is concluded in section 6.
2 PROCESS FORMULATION
Around 2000, some US nuclear utilities were facing
strong performance with high capacity factors. However,
some unplanned capacity losses still happened due to
seemingly random equipment failures. The utilities started
to cope with these issues by establishing multi-disciplinary
teams to investigate the incidents. In each case, the group
found that there was no single simple answer, and it is
essential to form a systematic and broader way to deal with
these individual equipment reliability concerns [1].
To help utilities improve equipment reliability, INPO
published a report entitled, “Equipment Reliability Process
Description AP-913” revision 1 in November 2001. AP-
913 becomes the Good Practice (GP) for effective
maintenance and reliability management across the nuclear
industry. Most US nuclear facilities follow part or all of
AP-913. As a matter of fact, AP 913 is a result of industry
collective efforts and it is a non-mandatory requirement.
However, most nuclear plants apply the initiative partly or
entirely, due to INPO’s leading role and influences on
nuclear industry, such as experience feedback, enterprise
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culture and management [13].
WANO regarded AP-913 as good practices and
published the equipment reliability guideline adopted from
AP-913. Therefore, WANO provides facilities a viable
alternative to INPO AP-913 and promotes the world-wide
utilization outside of the United States.
3 PROCESS ILLUSTRATION
As shown in Figure 2, AP-913 process includes six
basic blocks [13], each with a number of subordinate
elements. Each element has a series of considerations or
tasks, as briefly described below. The process areas span
many departments and disciplines. The intent of AP-913
process is to identify, organize and integrate available
activities into a single efficient and effective process in the
NPPs, not to establish a whole new one.
3.1 Scoping and Screening of SSCs
Generally, all components shall be classified critical,
noncritical, and run to maintenance (RTM) with failure
consequences that are unacceptable to plant safety and
reliability. And it is also recommended that the criticality
tier can be different based on the actual NNPs practices.
Functional failure analysis is usually performed for the
component classification. Single-point vulnerabilities
(SPVs) identification is the key focus for this element.
SPVs are a subset of critical components and should
include, as a minimum, those components whose failure
will directly result in a reactor scram or turbine trip that
will result in a reactor scram [2].
3.2 Performance Monitoring
For the critical and noncritical components from
above 3.1, performance monitoring can be applied at the
system, component or program level separately. Failure
Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is utilized to develop a
performance monitoring program or plan. A key point is to
select and implement appropriate Performance Monitoring
techniques systematically prior to the component or system
beyond its performance limits.
An example of recommended performance
monitoring activities is the routine system of engineer and
operator rounds. The rounds are executed periodically
(such as daily or weekly) to monitor minor changes in
equipment degradation and to prevent complete functional
loss. Activities to be performed during the rounds may
consist of visual inspection of the equipment, which intend
to look for missing/loose parts, leakage, noise,
fumes/smell, missing insulation, construction debris,
abnormal vibration, discoloration and rusting,
deformation, and cracking of foundations.
Generally, the activities will form a performance
monitoring plan in the NPPs. A system performance report
is usually produced quarterly to demonstrate the health
status with a score range from 0 to 100 marked by
different colors such red, yellow, white and green.
 Figure 2 AP-913 top level diagram
3.3 Corrective Action
Corrective action is probably the most important
element. It requires that the NPPs should investigate
functional failures to locate root causes to avoid failure
reoccurrence. It directs the plant resources to focus on
long-term improvement activities and capital asset
management. Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is most
frequently employed in this element.
3.4 Continuous Equipment Reliability
Improvement
The element is the core focus of AP-913 equipment
reliability strategy. It is necessary to establish a living
maintenance program with PM tasks and frequencies being
adjusted based on operating experience from the plant and
industry. This ongoing optimization is critical for
achieving the balance between reliability and availability,
as well as minimum total maintenance cost. EPRI’s
Preventive Maintenance Basis Database (PMBD) provides
recommended PM tasks and frequencies of major NPP
components based on FMEA, and quantitative reliability
can also be calculated due to the changes of PM tasks and
frequencies. Therefore, PMBD helps form the initial PM
basis and reference for a living PM program. It is
recommended that the NPPs should accumulate their own
PM basis in the long run.
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3.5 Long-Term Planning and Life Cycle
Management
The critical nuclear equipments must operate reliably
in the long run, all reliability issues must be considered
from the perspective of the lifetime. The Life Cycle
Management (LCM) methodology was developed to cope
with the issues and was subsequently integrated into AP-
913 process. This element involves ageing management
and cost effectiveness analysis, and provides solid
foundation for NPP equipment operation life extension.
3.6 Preventive Maintenance Implementation
The element covers application issues of AP-913.
NPPs are expected to have a rigorous work order system
by which maintenance activities can be scheduled,
performed and recorded. The records are used for
measuring the PM program effectiveness and reliability
trending of SSCs, thus they should be of reliability-
oriented, and both the key quantitative and qualitative data
should be collected.
4 PROCESS APPLICATION
From the initial pilot study of AP-913 to systematic
application among fleet-wide NPPs, it takes CNNP several
years to put equipment reliability management process into
practices. The main AP-913 related activities are listed
below.
 (1) Establishment of the reliability technical
documentation and management process
Technical and managerial guidelines are developed
with a corporate level to cover the requirements of AP-
913. These ensure the application consistence among all
the NPPs and offer a reference basis for developing
preventive maintenance (PM) program, ageing
management (AM) programs, ect..
Different approaches for developing or optimizing
PM programs have been employed, such as FMEA,
Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) [14],
Streamlined RCM (SRCM), Consequences of Failure
Analysis (COFA) [15], etc.. Generally speaking, RCM and
SRCM can be considered as a system-level FMEA, while
COFA as a component-level FMEA.
In terms of performance monitoring program
development, a systematic FMEA is performed [16]. In
addition, based on O&M historical data, quantitative
reliability and maintenance decision modeling study has
also been carried out [17].
(2) Developing and applying the Equipment
Reliability DataBase (ERDB) software
ERDB is designed to apply AP-913 equipment
reliability process among CNNC's all nuclear units (fleet
management). It provides a workbench for reliability
management. The main modules include ERI/KPI display,
identification of critical components, preventive
maintenance optimization and management, performance
monitoring (system, component, program), etc.. The
software has been developing from 2013, as shown in
Figure 3. Figure 4 shows the ERDB launch event on Nov.
23, 2018 in Wuhan city, where CNPO’s headquarter is
located.
Figure 3 ERDB interface
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Figure 4 ERDB launch event
(3) Setting up and operating of the Equipment
Reliability Committee (ERC)
(4) Carrying out the reliability review for each plant
and the reliability training at various levels regularly
5 LESSONS LEARNED AND IMPROVEMENTS
Some lessons learned and potential improvement
opportunities are recommended below from our
implementation experience of AP-913.
5.1 Lessons Learned
(1) For a better and successful integration to the
existing plant programs, it is essential to design and clarify
interdisciplinary interfaces, determine their responsibilities
from the beginning. Staring implementation from a new
NPP is a better choice.
(2) The whole work can be divided into several
successive phases. Set a proper target for each phase and
the successful accomplishment of the previous phase will
offer valuable reference for the next one.
5.2 Potential Improvements
(1) Potential process improvements
According to Jiang [18] ˈ the product life cycle
(PLC) can be roughly divided into design for reliability,
test for reliability, operate and maintain for reliability, and
modify for reliability. That is, reliability practices should
go across all the activities of the whole PLC and form a
Plan-Do-Check-Action (PDCA) closed-loop system.
In reliability engineering activities, a failure
reporting, analysis, and corrective action system
(FRACAS) has been a good practice in other industries.
FRACAS provides a process for reporting, classifying,
analyzing failures, and scheduling corresponding
corrective actions to avoid failure reoccurrence, thus it
assists to improve and maintain component reliability.
Different users may have different FRACAS software
design, in that the specific work process of users may vary
greatly. An effective FRACAS should be integrated into
the primary work to form a single, effective one process.
FRACAS records the problems related to a product or
process and their related root causes and failure analysis to
assist in identifying and implementing corrective actions,
finally an invaluable database can be established [19].
The FRACAS method was initiated by the US
government and first introduced for use by the US Navy
and all departments of defense agencies in 1985. The
FRACAS should be a closed loop process consisting of the
steps below:
Failure Reporting (FR): The failures or faults are
formally reported with the help of a standard form (Defect
Report, Failure Report), which may be related to a system,
an equipment, a software or a process.
Analysis (A): Make quantitative or qualitative
analysis so as to identify the root cause of failures or
faults.
 Corrective Actions (CA): Corrective actions are
identified, applied and verified in order to prevent further
failure recurrence.
Therefore, the first improvement is the closed-loop
clarification and enhancement from the insight into
FRACAS. As illustrated in Figure 2, the element “3.4
Continuing Equipment Reliability Improvement” can be
considered as Plan (P), which means mainly to develop or
optimize PM programs/plans. Then, “3.6 Preventive
Maintenance Implementation” deals with Do (D), that is to
perform PM programs/plans, collect and report data. And
“3.2 Performance Monitoring” can be regarded as Check
(C), which involves on-line and off-line condition
monitoring and trending. Finally, we can treat “3.3
Corrective Action” as Action (A).
In addition, FRACAS software and data may have
been available there in the design and manufacturing phase
of PLC. It should be of great importance and integrated to
the AP-913 process.
The second potential improvement relates to spare
parts management process. Jiang et al. [11,12]
demonstrated the PM program strategy effect on spare
parts inventory control and prediction. Spare parts
management influences on the equipment reliability and
availability closely. Thus, it is essential that the element
“3.4 Continuing Equipment Reliability Improvement” may
be supplemented and integrated with spare parts
management process, which involves inventory
classification, demand forecast, inventory control
strategies and optimization.
Among them, forecasts play a key role and two
methods are available. One is based purely on the demand
history, i.e., time-series methods (black-box approaches),
the other is reliability-based method (white-box
approaches), which consider the underlying failure, repair
or/and replacement process if full reliability information is
available. In addition, maintenance policies determine the
need for spare parts inventories. Therefore, the element 3.4
could include spare parts process within it.
(2) Technical information or tools to support the
implementation
The core methodology of MR is risk-informed
maintenance optimization. MR has not been a regulatory
requirement for China NPPs. However, risk analysis is
very important for the AP-913 implementation. In our
work, risk-informed Probabilistic Safety Analysis (PSA)
has been used in component classification and
maintenance optimization. Fault tree analysis (FTA) can be
employed to calculate the event risk in case of no PSA
models.
6 CONCLUSIONS
This paper mainly discusses the application of the
equipment reliability process AP-913 in the NPPs. The
lessons learned and potential improvements should be
valuable to the organizations attempting to implement an
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equipment reliability process modeled on AP-913. Further
considerations may include:
(1) The application of design for reliability (DFR)
and design for Prognostics and Health Management
(PHM) in design phase of the NPPs, and their integration
with AP-913.
(2) The application and integration of advanced
techniques with AP-913, such as big data analysis, wireless
transfer, etc.
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