Fire Protection Research Program at Sandia Laboratories. [BWR; PWR]

Sandia Laboratories is executing a program for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to provide data needed for confirmation of the suitability of current design standards and regulatory guides for fire protection and control in water reactor power plants. This paper summarizes the activities of this ongoing program through December 1979. Characterization of electrically initiated fires revealed a margin of safety in the separation criteria of Regulatory Guide 1.75 for such fires in IEEE-383 qualified cable. However, tests confirmed that these guidelines and standards are not sufficient, in themselves, to protect against exposure fires. This paper describes both small and full scale tests to assess the adequacy of fire retardant coatings and full scale tests on fire shields to determine their effectiveness. It also describes full scale tests to determine the effects of walls and ceilings on fire propagation between cable trays