Description
The quality assurance and control procedures and tests undertaken during site investigation, design, construction, operation and closure of the repository, including the manufacture of the waste forms, containers and construction of engineered features and the quality assurance of performance and safety assessments, including data clearance.
It can be expected that a range of quality control measures will be applied during the repository life cycle, as well as to the manufacture of the waste forms, containers, etc. There may be specific regulations governing quality control procedures, objectives and criteria.
Category
Categorisation as a Feature, Event and/or Process.
Features
are physical components of the disposal system and environment being assessed. Examples include waste packaging, backfill, surface soils. Features typically interact with one another via processes and in some cases events.Events
are dynamic interactions among features that occur over time periods that are short compared to the safety assessment timeframe such as a gas explosion or meteorite impact.- "Processes" are issues or dynamic interactions among features that generally occur over a significant proportion of the safety assessment timeframe and may occur over the whole of this timeframe. Events and processes may be coupled to one another (i.e. may influence one another).
The classification of a FEP as an event or process depends upon the assessment context, because the classification is undertaken with reference to an assessment timeframe. In this generic IFEP List, many IFEPs are classified as both Events and Processes; users will need to decide which of these classifications is relevant to their context and its timeframes.
- Process
Relevance to Performance and Safety
The “Relevance to Performance and Safety” field contains an explanation of how the IFEP might influence the performance and safety of the disposal system under consideration through its impact on the evolution of the repository system and on the release, migration and/or uptake of repository-derived contaminants.
Quality control measures will influence the achieved quality of the overall barrier system, consisting of both engineered barriers and natural barriers. Quality control measures during site characterisation will influence the quality of information obtained and hence impact upon the quality of repository designs and the planning and implementation of operations within a repository. The quality control measures will therefore influence the quality of performance and safety assessments, since it provides key data for these. Quality control measures during construction of a repository will influence whether wastes can be emplaced, and engineered barriers can be constructed, to maximise the effectiveness of the overall barrier system (e.g. by minimising excavation damaged zones, or locating galleries remote from water-conducting features of the rock mass). Quality control measures during the manufacture / emplacement of engineered barriers will help ensure that they perform effectively in the post-closure period. Failure to implement appropriate quality control measures could cause the performance of the various emplaced barriers to be impaired and /or not to work effectively in concert with each other and/or the natural barriers during the post-closure period.
2000 List
A reference to the related FEP(s) within the 2000 NEA IFEP List.
Related References
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IAEA (), The Management System for the Development of Disposal Facilities for Radioactive Waste, Nuclear Energy Series No. NW-T-1.2, International Atomic Energy Agency, ISBN 978–92–0–113810–1, http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/P1496_web.pdf
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EC (), Quality assurance in the management of radioactive waste in the European Community, Euradwaste series No. 4, EC Report EUR 13069 EN, ISBN 92-826-2349-1, https://bookshop.europa.eu/en/euradwaste-series-no-4-pbCDNA13069/downloads/CD-NA-13-069-EN-C/CDNA13069ENC_001.pdf?FileName=CDNA13069ENC_001.pdf&SKU=CDNA13069ENC_PDF&CatalogueNumber=CD-NA-13-069-EN-C