OECD/NEA OPDE Project

The goals of the OECD Piping Failure Data Exchange (OPDE) Project are to:

• collect and analyse piping failure event data to promote a better understanding of underlying causes, impact on operations and safety, and prevention;
  
• generate qualitative insights into the root causes of piping failure events;
  
• establish a mechanism for efficient feedback of experience gained in connection with piping failure phenomena, including the development of defence against their occurrence;
• collect information on piping reliability attributes and influence factors to facilitate estimation of piping failure frequencies.

The OPDE Project is envisaged to include all possible events of interest with regard to piping failures. It will cover piping components of the main safety systems (e.g. ASME Code Class 1, 2 and 3). It also covers non-safety piping systems that, if leaking, could lead to common-cause initiating events such as internal flooding of vital plant areas. As an example, raw water systems such as non-essential service water could be a significant flood source given a pipe break. Steam generator tubes are excluded from the OPDE project scope. Specific items may be added or deleted upon decision of the Project Review Group. Two meetings of this body are held in annually with support from the NEA. The last meeting of this body was held on 7-8 November 2007 with the support of the NEA. During this meeting the participants discussed the terms and conditions for the third phase of the project (June 2008-May 2011). An updated version of the project database is provided to all participants every six months.

Current project participants

Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States.

Project period

Current mandate: July 2005-June 2008

Budget

~US$ 72 000 per year

Publications

H. Pretrel, J.M. Such, Study based on large scale experiments on periodic instabilities of pressure and burning rate during pool fire in confined and mechanically ventilated compartment, European Combustion Meeting, Chania, Crete, 11-13 April 2007.

M. Faury, H. Pretrel, M. Coutin, W. Le Saux, M. Piller, P. Guillou, Recent results on fire scenarios in confined and mechanically ventilated compartment from large scale experiments,
Structural Mechanics in Reacter Technology (SMiRT 19), Toronto, Canada, 12-17 August 2007

H. Pretrel, C. Lucchesi, Phenomenological study of large scale pool fire behaviour in free atmosphere, Interflam 2007, London, UK, 3-7 September 2007.

Related links

• Workshop on Risk-Informed Piping Integrity Management
  2-4 June, 2008, Madrid, Spain
• NEA Nuclear Safety Programme
• Overview of Joint Projects
• OPDE working area (requires password)
• NEA contacts:

  Alejandro Huerta (alejandro.huerta@oecd.org)

Last updated: 25 June 2008