§ 53.710 — Maintaining capabilities and availability of structures, systems, and components.

§ 53.710 Maintaining capabilities and availability of structures, systems, and components.

Measures must be provided for each commercial nuclear plant licensed under this part such that the capabilities, availability, and reliability of plant SSCs, when combined with corresponding programmatic controls and human actions, provide that the safety criteria defined in §§ 53.210 and 53.220 will be met.

(a) Technical specifications must be developed, implemented, and maintained that define conditions or limitations on plant operations that are necessary to ensure that safety-related (SR) SSCs can fulfill the safety functions identified under § 53.230 and support meeting the safety criteria of § 53.210. The technical specifications must describe the following requirements:

(1) Limits on the inventory of radioactive materials within the reactor system and supporting systems with the potential, individually or collectively, to cause a release exceeding the safety criteria in § 53.210 as a result of a design-basis accident analyzed in accordance with § 53.450(f).

(2) Operating limits for the facility that if exceeded could lead to a failure to perform a required safety function necessary to demonstrate compliance with the safety criteria in § 53.210.

(3) For each SSC classified as SR in accordance with § 53.460, technical specifications must define—

(i) Limiting conditions for operation. Limiting conditions for operation are the lowest functional capability or performance levels of SR SSCs required to ensure that the design-basis accidents analyzed in accordance with § 53.450(f) satisfy the safety criteria of § 53.210. When a limiting condition for operation is not met, the licensee must shut down the plant or follow any remedial action permitted by the technical specifications until the condition can be met.

(ii) Surveillance requirements. Surveillance requirements are requirements relating to test, calibration, or inspection to assure that the necessary quality of systems and components is maintained and that the limiting conditions for operation will be met.

(4) Design elements to be included are those elements of the plant such as materials of construction and geometric arrangements, which, if altered or modified, would have a significant effect on safety and are not covered in categories described in paragraphs (a)(1) through (3) of this section.

(5) Administrative controls are the provisions relating to organization and management, procedures, recordkeeping, review and audit, and reporting necessary to assure operation of the plant in a safe manner. Each licensee must submit any reports to the Commission pursuant to approved technical specifications under § 53.040.

(b) Control measures on plant operations, including availability controls, must be developed and implemented to ensure that the configurations and special treatments for SR SSCs and non-safety-related but safety-significant (NSRSS) SSCs provide the capabilities, availability, and reliability required to demonstrate compliance with the criteria of §§ 53.220 and 53.450(e). ¹ The control measures must—

¹ The comprehensive risk metrics and related risk performance objectives established under § 53.220 involve assessing and averaging the risks over a defined period (e.g., plant year) and do not constitute a real-time requirement that must be continuously demonstrated by the licensee.

(1)(i) Identify who within the licensee's organization has authority to make configuration changes;

(ii) Establish processes to make configuration changes to NSRSS SSCs; and

(iii) Establish processes to ensure that all organizations of the commercial nuclear plant affected by the configuration changes are formally notified and approve of the change.

(2) Describe how the special treatments for each NSRSS SSC and special treatments for SR SSCs beyond those under paragraph (a) of this section will be established and maintained over the operating life of the commercial nuclear plant.