Joint research and evaluation work in the field of fire

In general, any assessment concerning the safety of nuclear facilities is based on acquired scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, some areas related to safety remain still inadequately explored, knowledge in these areas needs to be further developed either through the results obtained from studies or from experimental research. With the aim of achieving an optimal safety level, one of IPSN's main tasks is to highlight these gags in current knowledge and point out to nuclear facility operators the need to fill them. These general considerations are pertinent to the particular field of fire. At IPSN, safety assessment activities and research are carried out side-by-side, thus facilitating the implementation of corresponding research programs. This ability to orient research with respect to safety assessment requirements, the contribution of research scientists to safety assessment or the formulation of safety problems, are today counted among the strong points of IPSN operation. This paper presents also the present main fire risk safety concerns for Nuclear Power Plants and the associated research carried out by IPSN (past, underway and future) to improve the scientific knowledge in the related areas. (authors)