Chapter 8 - Nuclear reactor safety

Abstract

Nuclear reactor safety is treated with high level of regard in nuclear enterprise. This is essentially owing to the hazardous effects of radioactivity release from the reactor to the environment especially if this release is more than the acceptable level. Therefore there is emphasis on achieving general safety, radiation protection safety and technical safety. These objectives apply to all stages of nuclear plants including planning, siting, design, construction, commissioning, operation, decommissioning, and closure. Basic focus has been to strengthen safety aspects such as safety framework in nuclear installations, by ensuring fundamental safety principles, safety goals, inherent and passive safety measures, assessment of safety by deterministic and probabilistic safety analysis, reliability analysis of safety systems, and uncertainty analysis. In this chapter, besides covering many of the above aspects of safety, exposure has been given to advanced developments such as on the description of the increased state of the reactor, deterministic safety analysis using conservative mathematical approach to best estimate approach with analysis of uncertainty in input data and mathematical models. The uncertainty analysis of probabilistic safety analysis is highlighted. A condensed overview of the three major nuclear accidents and a history of safety analysis is also presented. The reference material dealing with the details of safety of nuclear reactors are listed in the references.