Plant Life: Equipment Aging, Life Extension, and Decommissioning

Most nuclear power plants have operating life times of between 20 and 40 years, and most plants in the United States have been licensed for 40 years. Maintenance is of paramount importance to preserving and extending plant life and to maintaining safe operation. Maintenance is also important to ensure that design assumptions and margins in the original design basis are maintained and are not unacceptably degraded. Therefore, nuclear power plant maintenance is important to protecting public health and safety. The extent of monitoring may vary from system to system depending on the system's importance to safety. Plant's programs, such as technical specification surveillance testing are normally used to satisfy monitoring requirements. Operating experience reveals that the number of cable failures is increasing with plant age and that cable failures are occurring within the plants' 40‐year licensing periods.