The passive ALWR approach to assuring containment integrity

Abstract

Design requirements for the advanced light water reactor (ALWR) have been developed so as to provide high assurance of containment integrity even in the event of a severe accident. The containment integrity requirements are in the form of two design criteria, and associated methodology, which address containment severe accident performance and offsite dose and are specified in the ALWR utility requirements document (URD), a set of detailed design requirements for next generation plants in the US. The containment performance criterion, which is the main focus of this paper, specifies that plant design characteristics and features shall be provided to preclude core damage sequences which could bypass containment and to withstand core damage sequence loads. This containment performance capability, along with the associated dose mitigation capability, provides a technical basis for emergency planning change since there would not be the same need for rapid offsite emergency response that is called for under the existing US emergency planning basis.