Progress reports for Gen IV sodium fast reactor activities FY 2007.

Abstract

An important goal of the US DOE Sodium Fast Reactor (SFR) program is to develop the technology necessary to increase safety margins in future fast reactor systems. Although no decision has been made yet about who will build the next demonstration fast reactor, it seems likely that the construction team will include a combination of international companies, and the safety design philosophy for the reactor will reflect a consensus of the participating countries. A significant amount of experience in the design and safety analysis of Sodium Fast Reactors (SFR) using oxide fuel has been developed in both Japan and France during last few decades. In the US, the traditional approach to reactor safety is based on the principle of defense-in-depth, which is usually expressed in physical terms as multiple barriers to release of radioactive material (e.g. cladding, reactor vessel, containment building), but it is understood that the 'barriers' may consist of active systems or even procedures. As implemented in a reactor design, defense-in-depth is classed in levels of safety. Level 1 includes measures to specify and build a reliable design with significant safety margins that will perform according to the intentions of the designers. Level 2 consists of additional design measures, usually active systems, to protect against unlikely accidental events that may occur during the life of the plant. Level 3 design measures are intended to protect the public in the event of an extremely unlikely accident not foreseen to occur during the plant's life. All of the design measures that make up the first three levels of safety are within the design basis of the plant. Beyond Level 3, and beyond the normal design basis, there are accidents that are not expected to occur in a whole generation of plants, and it is in this class that severe accidents, i.e. accidents involving core melting, are included. Beyond design basis measures to address severe accidents are usually identified as being for prevention of progression into severe accident conditions (prevention of core melting) or for mitigation of severe accident consequences (mitigation of the impact of core melting to protect public health and safety). Because design measures for severe accident prevention and mitigation are beyond the normal design basis, established regulatory guidelines and codes do not provide explicit identification of the design performance requirements for severe accident accommodation. The treatment of severe accidents is one of the key issues of R&D plans for the Gen IV systems in general, and for the Sodium Fast Reactor (SFR) in particular. Despite the lack of an unambiguous definition of safety approach applicable for severe accidents, there is an emerging consensus on the need for their consideration for the design. The US SFR program and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in particular have actively studied the potential scenarios and consequences of Hypothetical Core Disruptive Accidents (HCDA) for SFRs with oxide fuel during the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) and Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant (CRBRP) programs in the 70s and 80s. Later, the focus of the US SFR safety R&D activities shifted to the prevention of all HCDAs through passive safety features of the SFRs with metal fuel in the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) program, and the study of severe accident consequences was de-emphasized. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of the current SFR safety approach and the role of severe accidents in Japan and France, in preparation for an expected and more active collaboration in this area between the US, Japan, and France.