Innovation and research in reactor safety. Pt. 2

The second part of this article contains the continued survey of the advanced development of measures of engineered safeguards and facilities for accident management, referring in greater detail to digital safety and instrumentation and control systems, studies carried out at national research centers, and new facilities. Another topic considered in a separate chapter is the mitigation of the consequences of severe accidents. Irrespective of numerous improvements in accident prevention, reactor safety research in the past decade was characterized by its concentration on severe accidents. The objective of restricting the consequences of hypothetical severe accidents to the plant building was approached in mitigating emergency measures developed and, in some part, also implemented. In addition, analytical methods in the field of severe accidents were expanded, and technologies were developed and validated which seek to stabilize the core melt and to control the phenomena associated with core meltdown. On the whole, light water reactors incorporating the innovations mentioned above attain a safety level which, combined with corresponding efforts in the economic sector, is a prerequisite of the renaissance of nuclear technology in the beginning century. (orig.)