Document: NUREG-0800
Document ID: 7f6b0af0-d79e-4704-9eac-aa03109a7731
Document Type: srp
Title: RISK-INFORMED DECISIONMAKING: TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Source: NUREG-0800
Source URL: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0425/ML042520260.pdf
Revision Date: 2023-06
Chapter: 16
Section ID: 16.1
CFR Part: 
CFR Title: 

Content:
he Commission established its regulatory requirements related to the content of TS. In doing this, the Commission emphazed matters related to the prevention of accidents and the mitigation of accident consequences; the Commission noted that applicants were expected to incorporate into their TS those items that are directly related to maintaining the integrity of the physical barriers designed to contain radioactivity. Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.36, TS are required to contain items in the following five specific categories: (1) safety limits, limiting safety system settings, and limiting control settings, (2) limiting conditions for operation, (3) surveillance requirements, (4) design features, and (5) administrative controls. Since the mid-1980s, the NRC has been reviewing and granting improvements to TS based, at least in part, on PRA insights. Some of these improvements have been proposed by the Nuclear Steam Supply System (NSSS) owners groups to apply to an entire class of plants. Many others have been proposed by individual licensees. Typically, the proposed improvements involved a relaxation of one or more allowed outage times (AOTs) or surveillance test intervals (STIs) in the TS.' In its July 22, 1993, final policy statement on TS improvements (58 FR 39132) (Ref. 10), the Commission stated that it: ... expects that licensees, in preparing their Technical Specification related submittals, will utilize any plant-specific PSA or risk survey and any available literature on risk insights and PSAs ... Similarly, the NRC staff will also employ risk insights and PSAs in evaluating Technical Specifications related submittals. Further, as a part of the Commission's ongoing program of improving Technical Specifications, it will continue to consider methods to make better use of risk and reliability information for defining future generic Technical Specification requirements. I The improved Standard Technical Specifications (NUREGs 1430-1434) (Refs. 3-7) use the terminology