Document: NRC Regulatory Guide
Document ID: a5ee4c78-1135-4bb6-8d54-e974a3402f87
Document Type: regulatory_guide
Title: An Approach for Plant-Specific, Risk-Informed Decisionmaking: Graded Quality Assurance
Source: NRC Regulatory Guide Division 1
Source URL: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1221/ML12216A017.pdf
Revision Date: 2023-06
Chapter: 
Section ID: RG-1.176
CFR Part: 
CFR Title: 

Content:
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION August 1998 REGULATORY GUIDE OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REGULATORY RESEARCH REGULATORY GUIDE 1.176 (Draft was issued as DG-1064) AN APPROACH FOR PLANT-SPECIFIC, RISK-INFORMED DECISIONMAKING: GRADED QUALITY ASSURANCE A. INTRODUCTION Background The NRC has established deterministic criteria for determining which commercial nuclear power plant equipment is considered safety-related (see Section 50.2, "Definitions," of 10 CFR Part 50, "Domestic Licensing of Production and Utilization Facilities"; Appendix A, "Seismic and Geologic Siting Criteria for Nuclear Power Plants," to 10 CFR Part 100, "Reactor Site Criteria"; Section 50.65, "Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants," of 10 CFR Part 50; and Section 50.49, "Environmental Qualification of Electric Equipment Important to Safety for Nuclear Power Plants," of 10 CFR Part 50). Because of the importance of the safety-related equipment to protecting public health and safety, the NRC has additionally required that a quality assurance (QA) program (described in Appendix B, "Quality Assurance Criteria for Nuclear Power Plants and Fuel Reprocessing Plants," to 10 CFR Part 50) be applied to all activities affecting the safety-related functions of that equipment. The overall purpose of the QA program is to establish a set of systematic and planned actions that are necessary to provide adequate confidence that safety-related plant equipment will perform satisfactorily in service. The requirements delineated in Appendix B to 10 CFR Part 50 recognize that QA program controls should be applied in a manner consistent with the importance to safety of the associated plant equipment. In the past, engineering judgment provided the general mecha- nism to determine the relative importance to safety of plant equipment. In recognition of advances made in the state of the art in the probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) technology area, the NRC has made the decision to