RSICC Home Page SAPHIRE 8.0.9

RSICC CODE PACKAGE PSR-608

 

1.         NAME AND TITLE

SAPHIRE 8.0.9: Systems Analysis Programs for Hands-On Integrated Reliability Evaluations.
Please note: The NRC does not provide technical support for use of this legacy version of SAPHIRE unless the requestor joins the NRC SAPHIRE users group.

 

2.         CONTRIBUTOR

            Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho. through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

3.         CODING LANGUAGE AND COMPUTER

            FVISUAL BASIC, VISUAL C/C++, MODULA-2; IBM PC (P00608PCX8600).

 

4.         NATURE OF PROBLEM SOLVED

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has developed a powerful personal computer (PC) software application for performing probabilistic risk assessments (PRAs), called Systems Analysis Programs for Hands-on Integrated Reliability Evaluations (SAPHIRE) Version 8.

Using SAPHIRE 8 on a PC, an analyst can perform a PRA for any complex system, facility, or process. Regarding nuclear power plants, SAPHIRE can be used to model a plant's response to initiating events, quantify associated core damage frequencies, and identify important contributors to core damage (Level 1 PRA). It can also be used to evaluate containment failure and release models for severe accident conditions, given that core damage has occurred (Level 2 PRA). It can be used for a PRA assuming that the reactor is at full power, at low power, or at shutdown conditions. Furthermore, it can be used to analyze both internal and external initiating events, and it has special features for transforming models built for internal event analysis to models for external event analysis. It can also be used in a limited manner to quantify risk for release consequences to both the public and the environment (Level 3 PRA). For all of these models, SAPHIRE can evaluate the uncertainty inherent in the probabilistic models. SAPHIRE has evolved with advances in computer technology.


5.         METHOD OF SOLUTION

SAPHIRE contains editors or options for creating event trees and fault trees, defining accident sequences and basic event failure data, solving system fault trees and accident sequence event trees, quantifying cut sets, performing sensitivity and uncertainty analyses, documenting the results, and generating reports. SAPHIRE capabilities for performing a PRA are summarized below.

* Graphical fault tree construction

* Graphical event tree construction

* Rule-based fault tree linking

* Fast cut set generation

* Fault tree flag sets

* Failure data

* Uncertainty analysis

* Cut set editor, slice, display, and recovery analysis tools

* Cut set path tracing

* Cut set comparison

* Cut set end state partitioning

* End state analysis

* User-defined model types

* User-defined basic event attributes


SAPHIRE 8 has a powerful report generation module. In addition, SAPHIRE has utility functions to recover a corrupted database, check project information for quality purposes, and change user defined constants. With SAPHIRE, a user can export the graphical fault trees and event trees to an industry-standard Windows metafile or JPEG files.


6.         RESTRICTIONS OR LIMITATIONS

Due to the complexity of and the variety of ways a fault tree can be defined it is difficult to define limits on the complexity of the problem solved by this software. It is, however, capable of solving a substantial fault tree due to efficient methods. At this time, the software can efficiently solve problems as large as other software currently used on mainframe computers.
Please note: The NRC does not provide technical support for use of this legacy version of SAPHIRE unless the requestor joins the NRC SAPHIRE users group.

 

7.         TYPICAL RUNNING TIME

Running times are a function of the problem to be solved and the actions performed by the user.

 

8.         COMPUTER HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

PC with Microsoft Windows.

 

9.         COMPUTER SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

            Package includes precompiled executable for Windows operating systems.

 

10.       REFERENCES

a) Included Documentation:

C. L. Smith, S. T. Wood, “Systems Analysis Programs for Hands-on Integrated Reliability Evaluations (SAPHIRE) Version 8” Vols 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, NUREG/CR-7039 INL/EXT-09-17009 (June 2011).

b) Background Documentation:

W.L. Woodruff: Supplemental Information for COBRA-3C/RERTR ANL Applied Physics Division Memorandum (February 1983)..

 

11.       CONTENTS OF CODE PACKAGE

            One self-extracting executable containing precompiled executable for Windows systems, sample problem input and documentation.

 

12.       DATE OF ABSTRACT

            July 2014.

 

KEYWORDS: RISK ASSESSMENT