Implementation of risk management in Korean next generation reactor design and optimization process

The Korean Next Generation Reactor (KNGR), as a part of the national long-term R and D program launched in 1992, is being developed to meet the electricity demands in the coming years. The KNGR project has successfully finished its second phase and initiated the third phase in 1999. At the beginning of phase III of the KNGR design development project, the design alternatives were studied and the design requirements from the conceptual and basic design were also reviewed to reinforce the economic competitiveness while maintaining the safety goals. Implementation of comprehensive risk management is an executive management decision and performing design specific Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) is an integral part of risk management program. In KNGR design and optimization process, PSA method was used extensively for this purpose. This paper exemplifies the use of PSA in the decision making process and summarizes the effort for design optimization focusing on the integration of safety, operations and cost goals for the development of KNGR