Junk Plant Cook: Steam Lines Vibration Cause Giant Leak

What does that say about their problem detection program before the component fails? I'd be looking for some recent increase of vibration causing a rapid failure.  

 

Bridgman Nuclear Plant Finds Cause Of July Shut Down

By Rebecca Thiele • 8 hours ago

 

Officials at D.C. Cook Nuclear Plant in Bridgman may have found what caused a steam pipe to burst in July. The plant was shut down for a week last month after pressure from a faulty steam pipe wore a hole in the wall of the turbine building. 
Turbines help power the plant - which Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials say ultimately keeps the reactor cool. Tom Taylor is the resident inspector at D.C. Cook for the NRC. He says the supports holding the steam pipe up likely weren’t sturdy enough, causing the steam pipe to vibrate and crack.
“Over time some vibrations might have caused some weakening of some of the joints that then led to the failure,” he says.
D.C. Cook Communications Manager Bill Schalk says the pipe was fixed before the plant came back online, but plant workers hope to have a more permanent solution by the fall.
“When we are shut down in October there’ll be a more comprehensive modification to that so that either there won’t be that vibration or that there’ll be sufficient hardening of that particular area so the vibrations wouldn’t result in any failure of the pipe,” says Schalk….