EPRI｜Severe Accident Management Guidance Technical Basis Report

Nuclear power plants are designed to withstand challenging transients such as one resulting from an instantaneous, double-ended rupture of a reactor coolant pipe. This underlying design philosophy, combined with the conservatisms used in the design-basis analyses, has produced reactor systems and containments that can accommodate a broad range of accident conditions, including most of the sequences that could lead to core damage. This is true for all commercial light water reactor (LWR) designs