Development of the Regulation Concept for a Fusion Reactor

Fusion energy has been studied in many countries such as U.S., France, Japan, Korea etc. Because it would provide much more energy for a given weight of fuel than any technology currently in use, and the fuel itself (primarily deuterium) exists abundantly in the Earth's ocean. Nuclear fusion reactor uses tritium and deuterium as fuel while nuclear fission reactor uses uranium and plutonium as fuel. Besides, inherent design characteristics and driving condition of nuclear fusion reactor is different from those of nuclear fission reactor. Therefore, we cannot apply the regulation rules of nuclear fission reactor to nuclear fusion reactor without change and thus it is needed to development of the safety regulation concept which reflects the characteristics of nuclear fusion reactor. Safety regulation of nuclear fusion reactor employs deterministic approach until sufficient data are secured. However, regulation methodology of nuclear fusion reactor should be based on risk-informed regulation (RIR). In the present study, nuclear legislation of Korea and the General Design Criteria (GDC), Title 10 CFR Part 50 Appendix A of U.S. were reviewed. Through this, the validity of applying the fission reactor regulation to a fusion reactor was estimated, and the improvements from existing the fission reactor regulation were deduced for a fusion reactor