The basis for this project is the need to maintain awareness of the conditions of components, materials, and structures (CMSs) in nuclear power plants as their service periods increase The need involves two important focuses: first, to systematically confirm satisfactory behavior of plant safety-related CMSs and to effectively understand and mitigate, as they emerge, new phenomena that could degrade safety margins. Second, to further validate the margins that were originally designed into the plants, for example, radiation effects on reactor pressure vessel embrittlement. Sustained awareness of the condition of NPP equipment involves the need for selective access to naturally-aged CMSs. The motivation for this project is to provide a systematic, ordered approach to identify and coordinate acquisition of candidate CMs that are recognized as important to resolve key issues. The first need is to develop a broad consensus regarding the priority candidates that need to be accessed. The second need is to identify which plants, either operating or shutdown, have candidates that could be available on a timely basis. A timely, coordinated approach can mitigate problems that have sometimes arisen when potentially valuable candidates were not recognized in time to arrange consensus and funding to access, derive, and apply the information represented by the candidates. Another value of the coordinated approach is to avoid accessing CMSs that are of marginal value and end up not being utilized.
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