atw Vol. 63 (2018) | Issue 1 ı January
8
ABSTRACTS | ENGLISH
UK Is Leading the Way With Clear Strategy
for Nuclear
NucNet | Page 10
The UK is Europe’s most prominent leader in nuclear
development because of the government’s clear
strategy of supporting nuclear energy as part of its
future energy mix, a senior official from US-based
nuclear equipment manufacturer Westinghouse
Electric Company said. Mr Kirst told that the UK
government’s decision to support the financing of
new energy projects, including nuclear, by way of a
contract for difference scheme was a breakthrough.
Additionally potential for nuclear development in
other EU member states is possible in Poland and the
Czech Republic where also new nuclear capacities
are possible. Potential exists also in non-EU countries
like Turkey and the Ukraine.
ETSON Strategic Orientations on Research
Activities. ETSON Research Group Activity
J.P. Van Dorsselaere, M. Barrachin, D. Millington,
M. Adorni, M. Hrehor, F. Mascari, A. Schaffrath,
I. Tiselj, E. Uspuras, Y. Yamamoto, D. Gumenyuk,
N. Fedotova, O. Cronvall and P. Liska | Page 13
In 2011, ETSON published the “Position Paper of
the Technical Safety Organizations: Research Needs
in Nuclear Safety for Gen 2 and Gen 3 NPPs”. This
paper, published only a few months after the
Fukushima- Daiichi severe accidents, presented the
priorities for R&D on the main pending safety
issues. It was produced by the ETSON Research
Group (ERG) that has the mandate of identifying
and prioritizing safety research needs, sharing
information on research projects in which ETSON
members are involved, defining and launching new
research projects and disseminating knowledge
among ETSON members. Six years after this
publication, many R&D international projects
finished in diverse frames, and other ones have
started. In particular a lot of work was done (and is
going on…) on the analysis of the Fukushima-
Daiichi severe accidents. Meanwhile a roadmap on
research on Gen. 2 and 3 nuclear power plants
(NPP), including safety aspects, was produced by
the NUGENIA association, followed by a more
detailed document as “NUGENIA global vision”. It
was also demonstrated that the ETSON R&D
priorities were consistent with the implementation
of the 2014 Euratom Directive on safety of nuclear
installations.
Council Regulation of the European Dual
Use Regulation – A Never Ending Story?
Ulrike Feldmann | Page 19
For the first time, the EC Council Regulation of
19 December 1994 established a Community regime
for the control of exports of dual-use items. In 2000,
the first major revision of the dual-use regime came
into force, subjecting not only sensitive material, i.
e. plutonium and highly enriched uranium, but also
the entire category 0 (nuclear material, installations,
equipment) to a licensing requirement for intra-
Community shipments. This revision was revised a
few months later due to inappropriate content by
removing a small proportion of nuclear goods. A
further comprehensive new revision was published
in 2009. However, the EU Commission’s current
proposal to revise Annex IV of the regulation does
not do justice to the objective of free trade of goods
and the maintenance of the competitiveness of
European industry from the point of view of the
European nuclear industry, as well as from the point
of view of the non-nuclear industry in the EU.
Nuclear Safety, Security and Safeguards:
An Application of an Integrated Approach
Howard Chapman, Jeremy Edwards,
Joshua Fitzpatrick, Colette Grundy,
Robert Rodger and Jonathan Scott | Page 21
National Nuclear Laboratory has recently produced
a paper regarding the integrated approach of
nuclear safety, security and safeguards. The paper
considered the international acknowledgement of
the inter-relationships and potential benefits to be
gained through improved integration of the nuclear
‘3S’; Safety, Security and Safeguards. It considered
that combining capabilities into one synergistic
team can provide improved performance and value.
This approach to integration has been adopted, and
benefits realised by the National Nuclear Laboratory
through creation of a Safety, Security and
Safeguards team. In some instances the interface is
clear and established, as is the case between safety
and security in the areas of Vital Area Identification.
In others the interface is developing such as the
utilisation of safeguards related techniques such as
nuclear material accountancy and control to
enhance the security of materials. This paper looks
at a practical example of the progress to date in
implementing Triple S by a duty holder.
Clearance of Surface-contaminated Objects
from the Controlled Area of a Nuclear
Facility: Application of the SUDOQU
Methodology
F. Russo, C. Mommaert and T. van Dillen | Page 29
The lack of clearly defined surface-clearance levels in
the Belgian regulation led Bel V to start a collaboration
with the Dutch National Institute for Public
Health and the Environment (RIVM) to evaluate the
applicability of the SUDOQU methodology for the
derivation of nuclide-specific surface-clearance
criteria for objects released from nuclear facilities.
SUDOQU is a methodology for the dose assessment
of exposure to a surface-contaminated object, with
the innovative assumption of a time-dependent
surface activity whose evolution is influenced by
removal and deposition mechanisms. In this work,
calculations were performed to evaluate the annual
effective dose resulting from the use of a typical
office item, e.g. a bookcase. Preliminary results allow
understanding the interdependencies between the
model’s underlying mechanisms, and show a strong
sensitivity to the main input parameters. The results
were benchmarked against those from a model described
in Radiation Protection 101, to investigate
the impact of the model’s main assumptions. Results
of the two models were in good agreement.
The SUDOQU methodology appears to be a flexible
and powerful tool, suitable for the proposed application.
Therefore, the project will be extended to
more generic study cases, to eventually develop surface-clearance
levels applicable to objects leaving
nuclear facilities.
Carbon-14 Speciation During Anoxic
Corrosion of Activated Steel in a Repository
Environment
E. Wieland, B.Z. Cvetkovic, D. Kunz,
G. Salazar and S. Szidat | Page 34
Radioactive waste contains significant amounts
of 14 C which has been identified a key radionuclide
in safety assessments. In Switzerland, the 14 C inventory
of a cement-based repository for low- and
intermediate-level radioactive waste (L/ILW) is
mainly associated with activated steel (~85 %). 14 C
is produced by 14 N activation in steel parts exposed
to thermal neutron flux in light water reactors.
Release of 14 C occurs in the near field of a deep
geological repository due to anoxic corrosion of
activated steel. Although the 14 C inventory of the
L/ILW repository and the sources of 14 C are well
known, the formation of 14 C species during steel
corrosion is only poorly understood. The aim of the
present study was to identify and quantify the
14 C-bearing carbon species formed during the
anoxic corrosion of iron and steel and further to
determine the 14C speciation in a corrosion experiment
with activated steel. All experiments were
conducted in conditions similar to those anticipated
in the near field of a cement-based repository.
Review of Fuel Safety Criteria in France
Sandrine Boutin, Stephanie Graff,
Aude Foucher-Taisne and Olivier Dubois | Page 38
Fuel safety criteria for the first barrier, based on
state-of-the-art at the time, were first defined in the
1970s and came from the United States, when the
French nuclear program was initiated. Since then,
there has been continuous progress in knowledge
and in collecting experimental results thanks to the
experiments carried out by utilities and research
institutes, to the operating experience, as well as to
the generic R&D programs, which aim notably at
improving computation methodologies, especially
in Reactivity-Initiated accident and Loss-of-Coolant
Accident conditions. In this context, the French
utility EDF proposed new fuel safety criteria, or
reviewed and completed existing safety demonstration
covering the normal operating, incidental
and accidental conditions of Pressurised Water
Reactors. IRSN assessed EDF’s proposals and presented
its conclusions to the Advisory Committee
for Reactors Safety of the Nuclear Safety Authority
in June 2017. This review focused on the relevance
of historical limit values or parameters of fuel safety
criteria and their adequacy with the state-of-the-art
concerning fuel physical phenomena (e.g. Pellet-
Cladding Mechanical Interaction in incidental conditions,
clad embrittlement due to high temperature
oxidation in accidental conditions, clad ballooning
and burst during boiling crisis and fuel melting).
AMNT 2017: Outstanding Know-How &
Sustainable Innovations – Technical Session:
Reactor Physics, Thermo and Fluid Dynamics
Enhanced Safety & Operation Excellence –
Focus Session: Radiation Protection
Joachim Herb, Erik Baumann and
Angelika Bohnstedt | Page 44
Summary report on the Key Topics “Outstanding
Know-How & Sustainable Innovations – Technical
Session: Reactor Physics, Thermo and Fluid
Dynamics” and “Enhanced Safety & Operation Excellence
– Focus Session: Radiation Protection” of
the 48 th Annual Meeting on Nuclear Technology
(AMNT 2017) held in Berlin, 16 to 17 May 2017.
‘Newcomer’ Nuclear Nation Leads Way Into
New Nuclear Year
John Shepherd | Page 66
At the start of a new year, it is appropriate that a
‘newcomer’ nuclear nation has launched work on
building its first nuclear power plant. First nuclear
safety-related concrete has been poured for the
plant at Rooppur in Bangladesh – making the South
Asia nation the first in 30 years to start building its
first commercial reactor unit following the United
Arab Emirates in 2012 and Belarus in 2013.
Despite setbacks that nuclear has endured in recent
years, there are nearly 60 reactors under construction
around the world, mostly in Asia. Some
447 commercial reactor units are in operation in
30 countries.
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