Annual safety research report, JFY 2011

In the safety infrastructure research working group report, 'the effective conducting of nuclear safety infrastructure research', published by METI in March 2010, the roles of regulatory agencies and JNES and their cooperation, and the research road map for nuclear safety regulation researches were summarized. As for the regulatory issues the governments or JNES considered necessary, JNES and compiled' safety research plan' in respective research areas necessary for solving the regulatory issues (safety research needs) and was conducting safety research to obtain the results, etc. Safety research areas, subjects and research projects were as follows: design review of nuclear power plant (4 subjects and each subject having several research projects totaled 19), control management of nuclear power plant (3 subjects and each subject having several research projects totaled 11), nuclear fuel cycle (2 subjects and each subject having several research projects totaled 5), nuclear fuel cycle backend (2 subjects and each subject having several research projects totaled 6), nuclear emergency preparedness and response (3 subjects and each subject having several research projects totaled 5) and bases of nuclear safety technology (3 subjects and each subject having several research projects totaled 7). In JFY 2010, JNES worked on the 53 research projects of 17 subjects in 6 areas as safety researches. In addition to these 53 research projects of 17 subjects in 6 areas, JNES worked on 22 research projects of 5 new subjects in new added area (correspondence on the basis of the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident) in JFY 2011. This annual safety research report summarized respective achievements and state of regulatory tools necessary for solving regulatory issues according to the safety research plan, JFY 2010 Edition as well as the situation of the reflection for the safety regulations, and also described results of urgent 7 research projects needed to get outcome by the end of JFY 2011 and 15 research projects of 4 added subjects: examination for new safety regulation (7 research projects), development of newly necessary evaluation methods (2 research projects), evaluation of the validity for the work for convergence of Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident (3 research projects) and horizontal development to other nuclear power plants (3 research projects). (T. Tanaka)