Abstract
In recent years, China’s nuclear power industry has enjoyed a good momentum of development, and related companies have also developed many nuclear analysis software applications. However, as the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA, Chinese nuclear regulatory institution) did not approve any software before 2018, all these software applications were not evaluated formally, so they have not yet been used in reactor safety analysis. In order to solve this problem, in 2018, the National Nuclear Safety Administration started to carry out an engineering applicability evaluation for software developed by Chinese companies. After several years of review, as the first approved Chinese domestic software, core physics analysis software PCM developed by the China General Nuclear Power Group officially passed the software safety evaluation of the China Nuclear Safety Administration. This study will present the basic situation of the development of China’s nuclear power engineering software and introduce the framework, methods, procedures, requirements, and other aspects of China’s software safety evaluation work. The evaluation process and evaluation key issues of PCM software will also be illustrated.
Highlights
As of September 2021, there are 62 nuclear reactors in China in total, and 51 of them are under operation
After several years of effort, NNSA’s reviewers have accumulated a lot of experience in software validation and confirmation, models, calculation methods, etc., and at the same time have a clearer understanding of the difficulties in software evaluation work
In the software evaluation work, there are the following key issues that need to be solved in the application of software engineering in China: 1) Lack of software validation data
Summary
As of September 2021, there are 62 nuclear reactors in China in total, and 51 of them are under operation. Before Hualong One was built, with the exception of Qinshan unit 2#, all operating power plants housed imported reactors designed by Canada, Russia, or France. The safety analysis software for nuclear power plants used in China was developed by Canada, Russia, or France, simultaneously. Since such software was reviewed by foreign nuclear safety authorities, NNSA’s position was to approve the evaluation opinions of foreign safety review agencies and allow the use of these supporting software applications in the safety analysis and design of domestic nuclear power plants. NNSA has directly approved using WCOBRA/TRAC in AP1000 safety analysis
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