International Workshop on Developments in Safety Assessment Approaches and Safety Management Practices of Fuel Cycle Facilities

General information

The NEA Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI) Working Group on Fuel Cycle Safety (WGFCS) will hold an international workshop called Safety Assessment Approaches and Safety Management Practices of Fuel Cycle Facilities. The workshop will be hosted by the NEA on 7-9 October 2019. The workshop is planned to last three days.

A single day visit to IRSN at Fontenay-aux-Roses is planned as part of the workshop. The tentative visit date is 9 October 2019. In case there are a large number of workshop presentations, the visit and the date of the WGFCS annual meeting might need to be rescheduled.

Objectives

Working under the mandate of the CSNI, the objective of the WGFCS is to advance the understanding for regulators, technical support organisations (TSOs) and operators of relevant aspects of nuclear fuel cycle safety in NEA member countries.
The objective of this workshop is to exchange information and to discuss the following subjects:

• various approaches of national regulators and licensees in the safety assessment of Fuel Cycle Facilities (FCFs) in the different countries, focusing on the developments and improvements adopted in the last years;
• recent international progress on the safety assessment methods including feedback from oversight practices of FCFs operators.

The workshop will be centred on the following technical areas:

• internal and external initiating events in relation to FCFs safety and specific methods for identification and definition of thresholds to screen out events in case of FCFs;
• experience in the identification and analysis of design extension conditions for FCFs;
• experience in the use of graded approach in FCFs;
• application of the ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) principle to FCFs;
• integration of deterministic and probabilistic approaches to the FCFs safety analysis and integrated risk-informed decision-making and use of different probabilistic techniques to assess facility safety;
• safety assessment during FCFs operating life: license renewal, periodic safety reviews, safety analysis update and evaluation of life extension as a part of facility safety management system.

Format and outline

The workshop will include an introductory session, four technical sessions devoted to presentations by participants on the topics identified above and a final session. The final session will summarise the discussions and develop conclusions and recommendations for possible further CSNI actions.

Programme

Opening session

Session 1 - Safety assessment of FCFs including analysis of external events and design extension conditions

Session 2 - Experiences on use of graded approach in safety assessment in design, construction and licensing of FCFs

Session 3 - Probabilistic approaches in safety assessments of FCFs e.g. identification of events and integrated risk-informed decision-making, application of the ALARA, etc.

Session 4 - FCFs operating life and evaluation of life extension, ageing management as a part of the management system

Final session

All participants are expected to take part in the discussion and in the formulation of conclusions in the final session.

The topics and number of sessions are subject to change at the discretion of the organising committee.

Logistics and participation

Participants

Consistent with other NEA workshops, participation is open to experts from FCF operating organisations, regulatory authorities and their TSOs, FCF designers and vendors and industry associations and observers from NEA member countries. The organising committee will seek participation from other countries and organisations.

Nominations should be sent to the WGFCS Secretariat. Those wishing to prepare a presentation for the workshop should submit an abstract with the preliminary registration form. The meeting is open to a small number of experts from non-OECD member countries as well.

Abstracts and registration

Participants wishing to present papers must submit an abstract (between 200 and 400 words). All abstracts should be submitted by 29 May 2019 via e-mail with the registration form for abstracts. Please also inform the NEA in which session you propose to present your paper.

(Note: All abstracts should be submitted electronically, using MS Word and “Times New Roman 11” font.)

The organising committee will review the abstracts, and authors will be notified of the result of the review by 3 June 2019. Specific instructions for the format of papers will be provided to authors. The paper length should not exceed 12 pages of A4 format including tables and figures. Registration will open after 10 June 2019 and close on 12 August 2019. Participants should verify final registration dates on the page. Details on travel costs, meeting space and registration fees will be provided at a later date.

Papers and presentations

Full papers should be submitted by 12 August 2019. Presentations of the papers should not exceed 20 minutes and should be sent electronically no later than 9 September 2019.

Location and accomodation

The workshop will be hosted by the NEA. It will be held at the OECD Conference Centre, 2 rue André Pascal, 75775 Paris, France. More details about the workshop location, the name of the hotel and information about nearby hotels will be provided soon.

Proceedings

Proceedings of the workshop will be published and will include full papers and presentations from the opening session, all technical sessions, conclusions and recommendations from the discussions in the panel sessions, and the final summary session of the workshop.

Language

All presentations and discussions will be in English and a good command of the English language will be necessary to fully benefit from the workshop.

Organising committee

Contact

OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)
Division of Nuclear Safety Technology and Regulation
Tel.: +33 (0)1 45 24 11 59