Risk-Informed Categorization and Treatment of Structures, Systems and Components for Nuclear Power Reactors

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is amending its regulations to provide an alternative approach for establishing the requirements for treatment of structures, systems and components (SSCs) for nuclear power reactors using a risk-informed method of categorizing SSCs according to their safety significance. The amendment revises requirements with respect to "special treatment," that is, those requirements that provide increased assurance (beyond normal industrial practices) that SSCs perform their design basis functions. This amendment permits licensees (and applicants for licenses) to remove SSCs of low safety significance from the scope of certain identified special treatment requirements and revise requirements for SSCs of greater safety significance. In addition to the rulemaking and its associated analyses, the Commission is also issuing a regulatory guide (RG) to implement the rule.