Technical Meeting on the Safety of High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors and Molten Salt Reactors

Focus

The focus of this Technical Meeting, that will be held in a hybrid format (virtual and in-person participation), is on key areas of safety of HTGR and MSR highlighted as important during the review of applicability of the IAEA Safety Standards to novel advanced reactors undertook by the IAEA and international experts in 2020-2021. This review concluded that although many of the Safety Standards are applicable to these technologies, it is essential to build detailed technical knowledge about the safety characteristics of different non-water-cooled reactor types, such as HGTRs and MSRs, including SMRs of these types. Experts from GIF Member States can support the development of an international repository of knowledge to enhance the global understanding of the safety related issues and the safety demonstration of these technologies and to support the future development of the IAEA safety standards.

Objective

The objective of the event is to provide the participants with an opportunity to share experiences and discuss challenges related to the safety approach in the design and the safety analysis of HTGRs and MSRs. Special emphasis will be placed on the collection of technology-specific examples of experience on the design, safety analysis, and regulation of HTGRs and MSRs.

Topics

The event will address examples of safety design aspects of HTGR and MSR designs, and their prototypes, aiming to develop a repository of knowledge, including:

• Identification and overview of specific safety functions that are necessary to fulfil the fundamental safety functions as defined in IAEA SSR-2/1 (Rev. 1), and how their fulfilment is ensured by design features, including inherent features.
• Overview of the design basis with due account taken of operational states, accident conditions, as well as conditions arising from effects of external and internal hazards.
• When relevant, examples of instances where (specific plant event sequences that could result on high radiation doses or in a large radioactive release are claimed to be practically eliminated (IAEA SSR-2/1 Rev. 1) taking into account relevant uncertainties, particularly those due to limited knowledge of extreme physical phenomena.
• Scope and examples of analysis performed to justify and confirm the design basis for items important to safety, and to ensure that the overall concept design is capable of meeting the established acceptance criteria, in particular the dose limits and the authorized limits for radioactive releases associated with each state, and that the consequences of accidents are as low as reasonably achievable.
• Examples of set identification and grouping approach) of postulated initiating events and accident scenarios for deterministic and probabilistic analyses.
• Examples of approach and justification of systems selection (and if applicable including manual operator actions) credited in the safety analysis to provide for safety functions in deterministic safety analysis. Examples could also cover claims of systems performance and justification.
• Examples of deterministic and probabilistic analyses of HTGRs and MSRs.
• Outcomes and experiences of the regulatory review of HTGRs and MSRs.

Please download the information sheet for additional details on participating in the meeting, papers and presentations, and key contacts for this Technical Meeting.

Key Deadlines and Dates

• 21 December 2021: Opening of abstract submission through IAEA-INDICO
• 2 March 2022: Submission of abstracts through IAEA-INDICO.
• 2 March 2022: Deadline for submission of the Participation Form (Form A) and if applicable Form for Submission of a Paper (Form B) and the Grant Application Form (Form C), to the competent national authority (e.g., Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Permanent Mission to the IAEA or National Atomic Energy Authority) or their organization for onward transmission to the IAEA
• 18 March 2022: Notification of acceptance of abstracts for oral presentations.
• 2 May 2022: Full paper submissions through INDICO using the Full paper template
• 9-13 May 2022: Meeting dates.