Revision 5 - March 2007
USNRC STANDARD REVIEW PLAN
This Standard Review Plan, NUREG-0800, has been prepared to establish criteria that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
staff responsible for the review of applications to construct and operate nuclear power plants intends to use in evaluating whether
an applicant/licensee meets the NRC's regulations. The Standard Review Plan is not a substitute for the NRC's regulations, and
compliance with it is not required. However, an applicant is required to identify differences between the design features, analytical
techniques, and procedural measures proposed for its facility and the SRP acceptance criteria and evaluate how the proposed
alternatives to the SRP acceptance criteria provide an acceptable method of complying with the NRC regulations.
The standard review plan sections are numbered in accordance with corresponding sections in Regulatory Guide 1.70, "Standard
Format and Content of Safety Analysis Reports for Nuclear Power Plants (LWR Edition)." Not all sections of Regulatory Guide 1.70
have a corresponding review plan section. The SRP sections applicable to a combined license application for a new light-water
reactor (LWR) are based on Regulatory Guide 1.206, "Combined License Applications for Nuclear Power Plants (LWR Edition)."
These documents are made available to the public as part of the NRC's policy to inform the nuclear industry and the general public
of regulatory procedures and policies. Individual sections of NUREG-0800 will be revised periodically, as appropriate, to
accommodate comments and to reflect new information and experience. Comments may be submitted electronically by email to
NRR_SRP@nrc.gov.
Requests for single copies of SRP sections (which may be reproduced) should be made to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555, Attention: Reproduction and Distribution Services Section, or by fax to (301) 415-2289; or by
email to DISTRIBUTION@nrc.gov. Electronic copies of this section are available through the NRC's public Web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr0800/, or in the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and
Management System (ADAMS), at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html, under Accession # ML070550072.
NUREG-0800
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
STANDARD REVIEW PLAN
BRANCH TECHNICAL POSITION 7-19
GUIDANCE FOR EVALUATION OF DIVERSITY AND DEFENSE-IN-DEPTH IN DIGITAL
COMPUTER-BASED INSTRUMENTATION AND CONTROL SYSTEMS
REVIEW RESPONSIBILITIES
Primary – Organization responsible for the review of instrumentation and controls
Secondary – Organization responsible for the review of reactor systems
A. BACKGROUND
Digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems can be vulnerable to common-cause failures
caused by software errors, which could defeat the redundancy achieved by hardware
architecture. In NUREG-0493, "A Defense-in-Depth and Diversity Assessment of the
RESAR-414 Integrated Protection System," the staff documented a diversity and
defense-in-depth (D3) analysis of a digital computer-based reactor protection system in which
defense against common-cause failures was based on an approach using a specified degree of
system separation between echelons of defense. Subsequently, in SECY 91-292, "Digital
Computer Systems for Advanced Light-Water Reactors," the Staff included discussion of its
concerns about common-cause failures in digital systems used in nuclear power plants. As a
result of the reviews of advanced light-water reactor (ALWR) design certification applications for
designs that use digital protection systems, the staff has documented its position with respect to
common-cause failures in digital systems and defense-in-depth. This position was documented