[en] The deregulation of the UK electricity market has been instrumental in bringing about considerable organisational change in the management of nuclear sites. This in turn has created new pressures on maintaining safety standards. It is these concerns that prompted the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate to introduce Licence Condition 36 which came into force in April 2000. This paper gives an insight into the thought processes that lay behind the introduction of Licence Condition 36 and discusses the key issues involved. (author)

[en] The fourth annual EPRI Nuclear Asset Management Workshop helped decision makers at all levels of nuclear enterprises to keep informed about developing nuclear asset management (NAM) processes, methods, and tools. The goal is to operate nuclear plants with enhanced profitability, while maintaining safety

[en] Deregulation of electricity markets is driving electricity prices downward as well in the U.S. as in Europe. As a consequence high burnup fuel will be demanded by utilities using either the storage or the reprocessing option. At a minimum, burnups consistent with the current political enrichment limit of 5 w/o will be required for both markets.Significant progress has been achieved in the past by Siemens in meeting the demands of utilities for increased fuel burnup. The technological challenges posed by the increased burnup are mainly related to the corrosion and hydrogen pickup of the clad, the high burnup properties of the fuel and the dimensional changes of the fuel assembly structure. Clad materials with increased corrosion resistance appropriate for high burnup have been developed. The high burnup behaviour of the fuel has been extensively investigated and the decrease of thermal conductivity with burnup, the rim effect of the pellet and the increase of fission gas release with burnup can be described, with good accuracy, in fuel rod computer codes. Advanced statistical design methods have been developed and introduced. Materials with increased corrosion resistance are also helpful controlling the dimensional changes of the fuel assembly structure. In summary, most of the questions about the fuel operational behaviour and reliability in the high burnup range have been solved - some of them are still in the process of verification - or the solutions are visible. This fact is largely acknowledged by regulators too. The main licensing challenges for high burnup fuel are currently seen for accident condition analyses, especially for RIA and LOCA. (author)

[en] In today's increasingly competitive environment within the electrical power generation industry, the nuclear power utilities are constantly striving for greater efficiency and lower operating costs. Economic de-regulation costs. Economic de-regulation of the electrical market is occurring in a number of countries, including Canada, and this places additional pressure on utilities to be economically competitive. The industry examines all its business activities critically to determine if they provide benefit and good value for money. In these circumstances there can be a tendency for the longer term strategic activities to be treated as lower priority and have reduced funding. Such activities include research and development, design authority, corporate knowledge, and technical expertise, and their associated infrastructure. This paper discusses how the situation with regard to funding of research and development (R and D) has evolved in Canada over the past 5 years, and how the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has responded to the changing environment. Of particular interest is a R and D capability review that the industry undertook, the results of which are briefly described. Other related infrastructure aspects such as technical expertise, design authority, education and their inter-relationship with R and D. are also discussed. There are a number of important elements that are needed for a successful way forward: recognition of the depth of the problem by stakeholders; clarification of the roles and responsibilities of these stakeholders; strong leadership within the power reactor industry; improved co-ordinating amongst the industry partners; effective international co-operation; and succession planning in the broadest sense. It is finally concluded that the issue of R and D funding and expertise maintenance is one that will not go away and will inevitably worsen. It is a difficult issue to tackle and there are no simple solutions. The situation has worsened to the point where regulatory intervention was considered necessary. It is therefore incumbent upon the regulator to ensure that minimum standards are set and that these are adhered to by the licensees. This will require more vigilant regulatory oversight of these issues than has been customary in the past. (author)

[en] The structure, systems and components of a nuclear power plant are subject to a degrading process that is unavoidable due to exposure to environmental conditions (temperature, moisture, cyclic loadings, etc). Deterioration rate depends on structural design of the components, materials employed, execution quality, preservation conditions and environmental aggressiveness. Various programs for evaluation of aging phenomenon were launched (e.g. the US-NRC / US-Nuclear Regulatory Commission). The objectives of such programs are: 1. Developing the technical bases for validation and improvement of analytical methods and acceptance criteria usable in decision making; 2. Approaching the technical aspects relating to passive structures and components ageing. A first step is identification and evaluation of the degradation events due to aging. The data obtained are introduced into a computerized database organized according to the parameters characterizing the degradation phenomena. On this basis one identifies the passive structures and components most sensitive to aging, the most frequent ageing mechanisms, the aging effects, degrading rate, and other relevant characteristics. This step is then followed by an analysis of the requirements, guides and programs launched by Regulating Organizations, of industrial programs, and of world wide gathered information concerning degradation, all these allowing the identification of the pertinent aspects of passive structures and components with virtual impact on NPP risk. Among these components on finds primarily building elements, reservoirs, anchorages, concrete structures (other than confinement buildings for which special programs exist). Regarding the renewing the licence of operation for a NPP, of greatest importance are the concrete buildings where nonexistence of cracks is a major criterion of acceptance. In conclusion, one stresses the necessity of improving the analytical methods of assessing the effects of ageing degradation upon the performances of the passive structures and components, including fragility analyses for probabilistic risk assessment. These methodologies are to be applied for quantifying the impact of degradation of passive structures and components on the Cernavoda NPP safety and for use as decision tool in the NPP re-licensing as well

[en] The main objectives of the Bruce Power SOE project are to systematically extract the safety limits, credits and assumptions from the licensing safety analyses, to identify and document the corresponding operational requirements which must be met in order to ensure compliance, and to implement these requirements into the station nuclear safety compliance framework. The process of ensuring compliance to the documented SOE is the key aspect of the implementation of this project. The first step of implementation is assessment of completeness, consistency and accuracy with the existing compliance framework documentation of the plant through detailed reviews performed by multi-disciplinary expert panels. The second step is to operationalize this assessment into an implementation plan. This is referred to as the 'SOE Baseline Implementation' process. This paper discusses in more detail the Bruce Power's specific approach to this subject. (author)

[en] Management System is a quite new managerial structure that deals with the organization as whole, integrating processes in the direction of the shared goals and objectives. Nuclear organizations have been able to adapt themselves to the new managerial and administrative trends and improvements driven by experience along the time. The role of the Regulatory Body has been well established, taking care about avoiding undue interference in the activities of the Operating Organizations. The organizational integration proposed by the Management System brings new risks about how to define the field of the Regulatory Body actions. (author)

[en] The involved institutions, their responsibilities and interaction between them in the licensing process are presented. A developed methodology presenting the sequence of obtaining the approvals and permits required by the regulator is illustrated. An example for the sequence of actions for obtaining of site selection permit issued by Bulgarian Nuclear Regulatory Agency (BNRA) is given. Main laws and regulations defining the involved institutions and the required certificates, approvals and permits are listed

[en] This paper discusses the safety analysis fundamentals in reactor design. This study includes safety analysis done to show consequences of postulated accidents are acceptable. Safety analysis is also used to set design of special safety systems and includes design assist analysis to support conceptual design. safety analysis is necessary for licensing a reactor, to maintain an operating license, support changes in plant operations

[en] Through the amendment of the Reactor Regulation Law in 1999, following review of the JCO criticality accident, the Nuclear Safety Inspection System was established and the Safety Preservation Rules were refined in an attempt to further improve nuclear safety maintenance. According to the Safety Preservation Rules, the safety preservation activities at nuclear power plants must be built upon safety culture.Under such circumstance, the TEPCO issue was revealed in 2002. Triggered by this issue, NISA has been implementing a variety of improvements, one of which involves the establishment of a study group in 2003, to discuss on how to implement safety culture sufficiently and possible recommendations. Subjects such as the followings piled in the report will indicate leading keys in case it is going to realize such efforts: 'Foundation of safety culture is a quality management' and 'Realistic and scientific technique is necessary for the evaluation of safety culture'. In order to respond to these requests, JNES has been developing an Integrated System for Monitoring and Evaluation of Safety Culture, of which concept is structured by 3 elements: (1) 'System for safety (formal structure, method, and activity)', (2) 'Safety attitude and behavior of organizational members' and (3) 'Sharing of safety attitude and behavior of organizational members'. This paper delivers the background of the development, illustrates a representative early sign of declining plant performance extracted by a root cause analysis of human and organizational factors, and introduces the Integrated System examined and verified from various viewpoints. (author)