ASeC SOFTWARE APPLICATION BASED ON FMEAE IN A MECHANICAL SAMPLES POSITIONING SYSTEM ON A RADIAL CHANNEL FOR IRRADIATIONS IN A NUCLEAR RESEARCH REACTOR WITH CONTINUOUS FULL-POWER OPERATION

Safety of nuclear installations and devices is an important feature in order to achieve their environmental acceptability. This paper presents an application of the industrial engineering tool to assess the reliability of a mechanical samples positioning system, for irradiations on a radial channel, at nuclear research reactor in a full-power continuous operation. The objective was identifying their most critical elements with respect to their failure-modes, and proposing the corresponding improvements.The system has been introduced into practice since 2007, in channel BH#3 of the IEA-R1 reactor at the Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares (Brazil), and has been successfully operated and allowed the conducting of important experiments. The advanced reliability analysis is performed using Failure Mode and Effects Analysis-expanded implemented at the ASeC software. Based on the results, it was showed that the mechanical samples positioning system for irradiations on a radial channel, at nuclear research reactor, in a full-power continuous operation, is reliable and safe, for an appropriated reactor channel functioning.