ANALYTICAL SUPPORT FOR BEYOND DESIGN BASIS AND OTHER EMERGING SEVERE ACCIDENT ISSUES

THE U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (NRC) is issuing this Sources Sought Synopsis as a means of conducting market research or as a market survey to determine the availability and potential technical capability of the business community to provide all management, supervision, administration, and labor for ANALYTICAL SUPPORT FOR BEYOND DESIGN BASIS AND OTHER EMERGING SEVERE ACCIDENT ISSUES. Services are to be provided to the NRC in Rockville, Maryland. The applicable North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code assigned to this procurement is 541330. THERE IS NO SOLICITATION AT THIS TIME. This request for capability information does not constitute a request for proposal; submission of any information in response to this market survey is purely voluntary; the Government assumes no financial responsibility for any costs incurred. The purpose of this announcement is to provide potential sources the opportunity to submit information regarding their capabilities to perform work for the NRC free of conflict of interest (COI). For information on NRC COI regulations, visit NRC Acquisition Regulation Subpart 2009.5 (http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/contracting/48cfr-ch20.html). All interested parties, including all categories of small businesses (small businesses, small disadvantaged businesses, 8(a) firms, women-owned small businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, and HUBZone small businesses) are invited to submit a response. The capabilities package submitted by a vendor should demonstrate the firm's ability, capability, and responsibility to perform the principal components of work listed below. The package should also include past performance/experience regarding projects of similar scope listing the project title, general description, the dollar value of the contract, and name of the company, agency, or government entity for which the work was performed. Organizations responding to this market survey should keep in mind that only focused and pertinent information is requested. If significant subcontracting or teaming is anticipated in order to deliver technical capability, organizations should address the administrative and management structure of such arrangements. Organizations responding to this market survey should keep in mind that only focused and pertinent information is requested. Submission of additional materials such as glossy brochures or videos is discouraged. BACKGROUND: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) recently completed Melt Coolability and Concrete Interaction (MCCI) program sought to decrease the uncertainty in calculating the molten core and concrete interaction and consequent debris coolability. The OECD/MCCI program had several experimental tasks including conduct of large-scale core-concrete interaction (CCI) experiments under dry and flooded conditions. These experiments have an important implication with regard to severe accident management guidelines for operating and new reactors. Furthermore, the Fukushima accident two years ago heightened the need to better understand the debris coolability and other emerging severe accident issues in order to enhance reactor safety as outlined in the Near Term Task Force (NTTF) recommendations. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is currently participating in a follow-on program involving additional CCI tests to understand the effect of early flooding of the containment on accident progression and debris coolability. There is a need to evaluate how the knowledge gained from these experiments and supporting analysis is reflected in the NRC's confirmatory safety analysis code, MELCOR and to improve the code, as necessary. The OECD also sponsored the recently completed SERENA (Steam Explosion Resolution for Nuclear Applications) Phase II program, which evaluated the capability of existing computer codes to predict if fuel-coolant interactions could lead to steam explosion-induced loads in a reactor. Experiments were performed at the KROTOS and TROI facilities under the SERENA II program. These experiments have an important implication, like the CCI experiments, with regard to severe accident management guidelines for operating and new reactors. Specifically, the experimental results have a bearing on the beneficial effect of flooding the containment as well as potentially deleterious effect with regard to steam explosion potential. The SERENA II program identified the need to further improve the analytical models and codes to better assess the steam explosion energetics. Thus, there is a continuing need to perform post-test analyses of KROTOS and TROI experiments along with parametric and sensitivity studies. Under a bilateral arrangement with the Institut de Radioprotection et de S'ret Nucl'aire (IRSN), France, the NRC is participating, in the CCI experiments at the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). The CCI experiments are extension of the recently completed OECD/MCCI program for which analytical support was sought under the scope of a contract with the University of Wisconsin which is nearing completion. The OECD/MCCI program has several elements one of which is to conduct large-scale CCI experiments. In two-phase OECD program (MCCI-I and MCCI-II) over a period of eight years, six CCI tests (CCI-1 through CCI-6) were conducted. At the conclusion of the CCI tests under the OECD/MCCI program, the participants recommended additional CCI tests to better understand the debris coolability issue and reduce uncertainties. The CCI-7 and CCI-8 tests are these additional experiments. For information, the experiments are large-scale involving one-half ton or more of reactor prototypic materials, heated to melting and then cooled by water from the top to investigate debris coolability. ANL has the task of conducting the experiments. Under the bilateral arrangement, the NRC's commitment includes performing pre- and post-test calculations of the CCI experiments and participating in a benchmark exercise involving code-to-code comparison. MANDATORY QUALIFYING CRITERIA: The Principal Investigator (PI) must have considerable experience and in-depth knowledge with the safety analysis codes CORQUENCH and MELCOR/CORCON for core-concrete interaction and debris coolability analysis, and TEXAS-V for fuel-coolant interaction analysis. In-depth knowledge in this regard means detail knowledge about models in these codes, what physical phenomena these models address, improvements made to models and codes over their lifetime, coding structures, etc. Considerable experience means a long time involvement (10 years at a minimum) in all aspects of the code development and applications including model improvement, code assessment, validation, and reactor safety analysis using these codes. MARKET RESEARCH QUESTIONS: If your organization has the potential capacity to perform these contract services, please provide the following information: 1) Organization name, address, email address, Web site address and telephone number. 2) What size is your organization with respect to NAICS code 541330 (i.e. "small" or "other than small")? If your organization is a small business under the aforementioned NAICS code, what type of small business (i.e. small disadvantaged business, woman-owned small business, economically disadvantaged woman-owned small business, veteran-owned small business, service-disabled veteran-owned small business, 8(a), or HUBZone small business? Specify all that apply. 3) Although no geographic restriction is anticipated, if responding organizations are located outside the Washington Metropolitan area (Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia), indicate how the organization would coordinate with the NRC program office located in Rockville, Maryland to provide the support services. 4) Dose your organization have experience in developing fuel-coolant interaction (FCI) models and codes for reactor safety applications? If so, provide a list of contracts with the following information: (a) description of supplies and services included in the scope; (b) contracting organization, contract number, contract type, and contract value; (c) period of performance; and (d) indicate your organization's role (prime contractor, subcontractor, consultant, etc.). 5) Does your organization have prior experience in running various analysis codes (e.g., CORQUENCH, MELCOR/CORCON, TEXAS) for benchmarking exercises, code assessment, and plant applications? If so, provide a list of contracts with the following information: (a) description of supplies and services included in the scope; (b) contracting organization, contract number, contract type, and contract value; (c) period of performance; and (d) indicate your organization's role (prime contractor, subcontractor, consultant, etc.). 6) Does your organization have working level familiarity with various OECD programs (e.g., OECD-MCCI, OECD-SERENA) related to the subject of the solicitation? If so, indicate your organizations' role in this respect. 7) Has your company worked for any of the licensee's regulated (http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/) by the NRC in the past year? 8) Has your company previously brought to the NRC any potential organizational conflict of interest issues with NRC? If so, how were they resolved? Interested firms responding to this Sources Sought Synopsis are encouraged to structure capability statements in the order of the area of consideration noted above. All capability statements sent in response to this notice must be submitted electronically, via e-mail, to Claudia Melgar, at Claudia.Melgar@nrc.gov, in either Microsoft Word or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), within fifteen (15) calendar days from the date of publication of this notice. This market survey is being conducted through the FedBizOpps to reach the widest possible audience and to gather current market information. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Current incumbent is University of Wisconsin System Contract Number NRC-04-09-136. DISCLAIMER AND NOTES: Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's potential capability and capacity to perform the subject work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation.