Japan Nuclear Technology Institute activities

Full text: 1. Introduction of JANTI Japan Nuclear Technology Institute (JANTI) was established in April, 2005 by consent of Japanese nuclear industries such as electric utilities, manufacturers, subcontractors etc., and its members consist of 114 companies. JANTI has two major purposes. One is to support industrial initiatives for safety operation on the model of INPO. The other is to improve regulatory practices to agree with the state of the art nuclear technology based on operation data. JANTI promotes three core stones such as Operating Experience Analysis, Nuclear Safety Network and Codes and Standards. Our activities are based on knowledge management by gathering, evaluating the operation experiences from domestic and overseas nuclear power plants, promoting safety culture and industrial standards for safety operation by reflecting on lessons learned from operation experiences. 2. The out line of activities JANTI took over and enhanced information-gathering / delivery / utilization operations of the Nuclear Information Center, which was established in 1983 under the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry to incorporate lessons learned from the TMI (Three Mile Island) nuclear accident. The following items are implemented: (1) Sharing operational experiences from nuclear energy facilities (nuclear power plants, fuel cycle facilities of Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited) to issue recommendations based on event analysis. (2) Conducting trend analysis of operation information to provide feedback on plant operation and maintenance work by exploring a database to counter issues associated with facility aging. (3) Utilizing operation information and equipment reliability data, data for probabilistic safety assessment and drawing up the guidelines for reliability centered maintenance / condition-based maintenance. 2.2 Promoting safety culture JANTI took over and evolved the rules of Nuclear Safety Net, which was established to incorporate lessons learned from the JCO nuclear accident in 1999. Efforts were made to optimize NS Net operations based on its past activities, while maintaining the positive aspects of the Peer Review mechanism. The following items are implemented: (1) Performing Peer Review with the help of INPO and establishing JANTI Peer Review. (2) Promoting safety culture 2.3 Developing voluntary consensus standards As Japanese laws begin to incorporate performance oriented standards, there is a need for developing voluntary consensus standards. (1) Grasping industry needs and drawing up a roadmap for them. (2) Supporting the development of voluntary consensus standards 3. Summary The capacity of the nuclear industry has been amassed to establish JANTI as an institute for developing the industry's technological foundation, promoting industrial initiatives for safety operation and contributing to the revitalization of the nuclear industry itself. Its basic policies are to use scientific, rational data and knowledge to contribute to enhancing industrial initiatives for safety operation. Especially, as the recent topic, Japanese utility revealed the critical event by inadvertent rod withdrawal which happened in 1999. It enhanced JANTI to improve our activities furthermore. Its outline and the countermeasures will be explained at the meeting. (author)