NEA Mandates and Structures

Working Group on Fuel Safety (WGFS)

Chair(s):	Masaki AMAYA, Japan	Secretary:	Michelle BALES (michelle.bales@oecd-nea.org)
Vice-Chair(s):	Martin SEVECEK, Czech Republic Nicolas TREGOURES, France James CORSON, United States
Member(s):	All NEA member countries^*
	Russia (Suspended*)
	^*Russian Federation suspended pursuant to a decision of the OECD Council.
Full participant(s):	European Commission Under the NEA Statute
Participant(s):	India
Observer(s)(International Organisation):	International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) By agreement
Date of creation:	31 December 1999
End of mandate:	31 December 2026

Mandate (Document reference):

The Strategic Plan for the Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI) [NEA/CSNI/R(2000)3]
Summary Record of the 27^th Meeting of the CSNI [NEA/SEN/SIN(2000)1]
Summary Record of the 39^th Meeting of the CSNI [NEA/SEN/SIN(2006)3]
CSNI Operating Plan (2006-2009) [NEA/CSNI/R(2007)7]
Summary Record of the 40^th Meeting of the CSNI [NEA/SEN/SIN(2007)1]
Summary Record of the 47^th Meeting of the CSNI [NEA/SEN/SIN(2010)2]
CSNI Operating Plan (2011-2016) [NEA/CSNI/R(2011)2]
Summary Record of the 61^st Meeting of the CSNI [NEA/SEN/SIN(2017)2]
Operating Plan and Guidelines for the Nuclear Energy Agency Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations: 2017-2022 [NEA/CSNI/R(2017)17/REV1]
Participant Status of India in the CSNI and its subsidiary bodies: 2018 Update of the NEA Participation Plan [NEA/NE(2018)8], Summary of Decisions taken at the 137th Session of the Steering Committee [NEA/SUM/DEC(2018)2] and official letter received from India on 31 October 2019 confirming its acceptance of Participant Status in the CSNI and its subsidiary bodies
2022 Update of the NEA Global Relations Strategic Directions [NEA/NE(2022)18/REV1]
Summary of Decisions Taken at the 144th Session of the Steering Committee for Nuclear Energy [NEA/SUM/DEC(2022)2]
Summary Record of the 68^th Meeting of the CSNI [NEA/SEN/SIN(2020)3]
Summary Record of the 71^st Meeting of the CSNI [NEA/SEN/SIN(2022)4]
Mandate of the Working Group on Fuel Safety (WGFS) [NEA/SEN/SIN/FUEL(2023)1]

Mandate (Document extract):

Extract of document [NEA/SEN/SIN/FUEL(2023)1]

Background

The Special Experts Group on Fuel Safety Margins, the predecessor to the Working Group on Fuel Safety (WGFS), was created following the 27^th Meeting of the CSNI with a mandate to advance the current understanding and address safety issues related to fuel safety margins (see Annex II of NEA/SEN/SIN/FUEL(2000)2). Today, the WGFS continues to fulfil this mandate by assessing the technical basis for current safety criteria and their applicability to high burnup and new fuel designs and materials.

Scope

Guided by the Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI), the mission of the WGFS is to address safety issues related to existing and advanced fuels.

The WGFS specifically aims to facilitate international understanding of fuel safety issues, including experimental approaches, interpretation and use of experimental data, and/or other relevant information.

Objectives

The WGFS will:

assess the technical basis for current fuel safety criteria and their applicability to existing and advanced fuel designs and materials, with a focus on those used in water-cooled reactors, including small-modular reactors (SMRs). The assessment will focus on fuel behaviour in anticipated transients, postulated accident conditions and design extension conditions (DEC-A), both in-reactor and during storage and transportation. Information relevant to fuel performance under normal operating conditions will be considered only to the extent necessary to assess fuel safety;
provide guidance on the needs and priorities for future research programmes dedicated to the safety of existing and advanced fuel, including relevant NEA joint projects, with the aim of understanding and adequately modelling key phenomena and of quantifying safety margins;
review, from the safety point of view, the adequacy of fuel codes and methodologies used for different core assessments as related to high burn-up fuel, new fuel designs, and materials. Cores with different fuel assembly designs and with MOX fuel are to be considered. Water-cooled reactor designs, including SMRs utilizing advanced fuel designs, are also considered. Neutronic, thermal-hydraulic, and materials aspects are considered as they relate to core safety assessment; and
provide a forum where fuel safety issues derived from operating experience and research can be addressed and resolved in an effective manner.

Working methods

The WGFS will report to the CSNI periodically, and at least once per year. The WGFS will carry out its programme of work as approved by the Committee in “CSNI Activity Proposal Sheets” (CAPS).

The WGFS will organize meetings to foster the exchange of knowledge and the development of best practices on specific subjects or task groups dedicated to covering programme items. The WGFS will meet annually for a Plenary Meeting, which includes information exchange on ongoing NEA Joint Projects on the subject of fuel behaviour and progress reporting of task group activities. Interim meetings of the WGFS are held as a function of current/foreseen activities. An effort is made to link interim meetings to another fuel- or WGFS-related event.

Membership

The WGFS is composed of experts from NEA member countries in the area of nuclear fuel behaviour. Members have expertise in fuel behaviour in anticipated transients, postulated accident conditions and design extension conditions (DEC-A), both in-reactor and during storage and transportation. Members come from regulatory authorities, research organizations, technical support organizations, reactor operators and fuel vendors.

Interactions

Co-operation with other NEA bodies will be actively pursued, as appropriate, e.g. with the Working Group on the Analysis and Management of Accidents (WGAMA) on issues involving thermal hydraulics and/or fuel damage, with the Working Group on Fuel Cycle Safety (WGFCS) on fuel-storage issues, and with subsidiary bodies of the Nuclear Science Committee (NSC) working on fuel issues (i.e. Expert Group on Reactor Fuel Performance or EGRFP). This will result in optimisation of both the resources mobilised by member countries for NEA activities and the quality of the work produced.

The NEA has established Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with a number of organisations such as the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), the American Nuclear Society (ANS), the CANDU Owners Group (COG), the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), to promote international collaboration, particularly in the area of nuclear safety. Accordingly, representatives from these organisations can be invited to participate in the activities of WGFS, consistent with the MOUs concluded, to co-ordinate their work and to avoid unnecessary duplication.

The NEA provides a framework for establishing joint safety research projects, and the CSNI expects that the WGFS will promote technical exchanges by creating opportunities with relevant projects, and provide technical support as appropriate.

Deliverables

The WGFS will produce state-of-the-art reports and other technical reports, workshops and conferences with related reports and proceedings, benchmarking exercises and joint research proposals addressing fuel safety. One or more (internal) reports are usually issued for each of the activities. Final reports are issued as CSNI reports. The activity derived from tentative and long-term TGs on fuel safety are mostly published as technical reports, reports from international standard problem (ISP) and benchmark activities, providing status and recommendations.