Nuclear Energy Agency Online Bulletin

Covers new material for December 2007 and January 2008:

NEA publications

Publications on sale can be ordered at the OECD bookshop: www.oecd.org/bookshop.

Evolution of the System of Radiological Protection
Third Asian Regional Conference, Tokyo, Japan, 5-6 July 2006
ISBN 978-92-64-04209-4. 244 pages. Price: €50, US$70, £36, ¥ 6 900.

Nuclear Law Bulletin No. 80
ISSN 0304-341X. 2008 subscription (two issues): €106, US$137, £72, ¥15 700.

Disponible également en français :
Bulletin de droit nucléaire n° 80
ISSN 0304-3428. Abonnement 2008 (deux numéros) : €106, US$137, £72, ¥15 700.

Free publications are available at www.nea.fr/html/pub/webpubs/. Paper copies may be requested by sending an e-mail to neapub@nea.fr.

Cultural and Structural Changes in Radioactive Waste Management Organisations
Lessons Learnt
ISBN 978-92-64-99036-4. 44 pages (275 kb).

Disponible également en français :
Changements culturels et organisationnels dans les organismes de gestion des déchets radioactifs
ISBN 978-92-64-99037-1. 44 pages (396 ko).

Experience from the Third International Nuclear Emergency Exercise (INEX 3) on Consequence Management
ISBN 978-92-64-99040-1. 48 pages (195 kb).

Disponible également en français :
Enseignements tirés du troisième Exercice international d'urgence nucléaire (INEX 3) sur la gestion des conséquences
ISBN 978-92-64-99041-8. 48 pages (207 ko).

NEA News
ISSN 1605-9581. 44 pages (2.5 mb).

Disponible également en français :
AEN Infos
ISSN 1605-959X. 44 pages (1,3 mo).

Regulating the Long-term Safety of Geological Disposal
Towards a Common Understanding of the Main Objectives and Bases of Safety Criteria
ISBN 978-92-64-99031-9. 82 pages (380 kb).

Strategy for Developing and Conducting Nuclear Emergency Exercises
ISBN 978-92-64-99038-8. 38 pages (305 kb).

Disponible également en français :
Une stratégie pour la conception et la réalisation des exercices d'urgence nucléaire
ISBN 978-92-64-99039-5. 42 pages (143 ko).

Nuclear safety

A new NEA Working Group on the Regulation of New Reactors (WGRNR) has been established. The working group will address the regulatory aspects of the siting, licensing and regulatory oversight of generation III+ and generation IV nuclear reactors. The WGRNR will focus on construction inspection issues and share this experience with the other groups working under the aegis of the NEA Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA). The WGRNR will also co-ordinate its activities with the work performed by the Multinational Design Evaluation Programme (MDEP) such that any duplication of effort is avoided. More information is available at www.nea.fr/html/nsd/cnra/wgrnr.html.

An NEA workshop on the Role of Research in a Regulatory Context was held on 5 December 2007 at the NEA offices in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. In the course of the workshop participants examined the safety research needs for reactors in service, under construction and in development. They concluded that the NEA Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI) needs to develop a long-term strategy in this area. The CSNI strategy should identify the key safety and risk issues associated with particular design concepts, which of these issues require experimental data, and the infrastructure required to gather this data.

Nuclear development

Renewed interest in including nuclear energy in the energy mix of many member countries raises the question of potential raw material limits to nuclear energy growth. The NEA has therefore convened an ad hoc expert group to examine the issue. The expert group, which is comprised of representatives from NEA member countries, the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency, will consider all materials required for the construction and operation of nuclear power plants and their associated fuel cycle facilities. Expert group members have already carried out a preliminary assessment by comparing global resource estimates with the requirements arising from a hypothetical tenfold expansion of nuclear generating capacity. The expert group is also investigating other sources of data on raw material inputs, with a particular focus on specialty materials used in nuclear fuel manufacture. Once a complete list of critical material requirements is compiled, simulations of the impact on raw material supplies under more realistic scenarios of nuclear capacity development will be performed. An assessment of material requirements for new reactor designs will also be undertaken with input from nuclear power plant vendors. More information is available at www.nea.fr/html/ndd/limits.html.

Nuclear science

The NEA Working Party on Multi-scale Modelling of Fuels and Structural Materials for Nuclear Systems (WPMM) met for the first time on 15-16 January 2008 at the NEA offices in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. The WPMM will review and evaluate the multi-scale modelling and simulation techniques currently employed in the selection of materials used in nuclear systems. During this meeting WPMM members shared past experience in developing models for assessing nuclear materials and identified a number of areas of study that they plan to explore further. More information is available at www.nea.fr/html/science/wpmm/.

The fourth NEA workshop on the coupled neutronics/thermal-hydraulics transient benchmark for pebble bed modular reactors was held on 21-25 January 2008 at the NEA offices. Workshop participants were trained in the use of the new DIREKT computer code (which performs time-dependent, two-dimensional simulations of thermal-hydraulic transients in gas-cooled nuclear reactors) and the modelling of the benchmark. Participants also worked on a series of steady state and transient problems with solutions provided by several independently developed computer codes. More information is available at www.nea.fr/html/science/wprs/pbmr400/.

A new Research and test facilities database (RTFDB) has just been launched on the NEA website. The database, set up by the NEA Expert Group on Needs of R&D Facilities in Nuclear Science, was established as part of the expert group's worldwide review of the status of research and test facilities in the field of nuclear science and technology. Information in the database was initially collected from the internet and other published sources before being verified by independent reviewers. The database is available at www.nea.fr/rtfdb/.

Data Bank

Nuclear data services

The following nuclear data libraries have recently been added to the evaluated nuclear data (EVA) database:

• Proton activation data file (PADF-2007);
• International reactor dosimetry file (IRDF-2002);
• International cross-section standards.

The EVA database contains a large number of evaluated data libraries, all in ENDF format; it can be consulted at www.nea.fr/html/dbdata/eva/evaret.cgi.

The PADF-2007 and IRDF-2002 libraries are also available in the NEA-developed nuclear data display program JANIS. JANIS, now in its third release, is designed to facilitate the visualisation and manipulation of nuclear data. Its objective is to allow the nuclear data user to view numerical values and graphical representations without necessarily being familiar with the storage format. It offers maximum flexibility for the comparison of different nuclear data sets. More information is available at www.nea.fr/janis/.

Computer program services

The NEA held a course on Analytical Benchmarks: Case Studies in Neutron Transport Theory on 30 January-1 February 2008 at the NEA offices in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. The objective of the course was to give participants a grounding in the fundamental concepts of neutron transport theory, including recent theoretical and numerical advances in analytical benchmarking. Course participants included neutron transport method developers, teachers of reactor physics and neutron transport theory as well as several doctoral students. A list of the NEA courses in this field scheduled for 2008 can be found at www.nea.fr/html/dbprog/.

New computer programs available
Forthcoming workshops and seminars

16-JAN-2008	NEA-1737	TALYS-1.0, Computes nuclear reactions cross-sections, yields and spectra via a comprehensive set of nuclear models (Arrived)
15-JAN-2008	NEA-1735	CARL 2.3, Radiotoxicity, activity, dose and decay power calculations for spent fuel (Arrived)
20-DEC-2007	NEA-1798	ANGELO-LAMBDA, Covariance matrix interpolation and mathematical verification (Now tested)
19-DEC-2007	NEA-1730	ZZ COV-15GROUP-2006, 15-group cross-section covariance matrix library (Now tested)
19-DEC-2007	USCD1236	ZZ-SCALE5.1/COVA-44G, 44-group cross-section covariance matrix library extracted from SCALE5.1 (Now tested)
18-DEC-2007	NEA-0914	REFIT, Multi-level Resonance Parameter Least Square Fit of Neutron Transmission and Capture Data (Now tested)
10-DEC-2007	USCD1218	STANEF, ENDF/B Book-keeping Operations for ENDF Format Files (Now tested)
10-DEC-2007	USCD1212	INTER, ENDF/B Thermal Cross-Sections, Resonance Integrals, G-Factors Calculation (Now tested)
10-DEC-2007	USCD1216	PSYCHE, ENDF/B Data Consistency Check in ENDF Format (Now tested)
10-DEC-2007	USCD1209	FIZCON, ENDF/B Cross-Sections Redundancy Check (Now tested)
10-DEC-2007	USCD1208	CHECKR, ENDF/B Format Check (Now tested)
10-DEC-2007	USCD1235	ENDF-UTILITY-CODES, Codes to check and standardise data in the Evaluated Nuclear Data File (ENDF) (Now tested)
10-DEC-2007	IAEA1313	MIXER2007, Cross-Section Calculations for a Composite Mixture of ENDF Format Material (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA1309	FIXUP2007, ENDF Format Redundant Cross-Section Check (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA1322	EVALPLOT2007, ENDF Plots Cross-Section, Angular Distribution and Energy Distribution (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA1308	DICTIN2007, Reaction Index Generated for ENDF Format (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA1307	CONVERT2007, FORTRAN Program Converter for Different Computers (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA1321	COMPLOT2007, Compare ENDF/B Plots of Reaction Data (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA1380	ACTIVATE2007, Activation Cross-Section by Combining Cross-Section and Multiplier (ENDF Fomat) (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA1379	PREPRO2007, Data Preparation and Management, Subsidiary Calculations (ENDF Format) (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA0932	VIRGIN2007, Calculates Uncollided Neutron Flux and Neutron Reactions from Transmission in ENDF Format (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA1283	SIXPAK2007, ENDF Format Double Differential Cross-Section Converter to Single Differential Format (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA0854	SIGMA1-2007, Doppler Broadening ENDF Format Linear-Linear. Interpolated Point Cross-Section (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA1314	RELABEL2007, Labels FORTRAN Statements in ENDF Format Processing Programs (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA0848	RECENT2007, Reconstruction of Cross-Section Data from Resonance Parameters (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA1312	MERGER2007, Merges ENDF/B Data by Material Number or Identifier (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA1311	LINEAR2007, Linear-linear Interpolation of ENDF Format Cross-Sections (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA1310	LEGEND2007, Angular Distribution Table Calculations in ENDF Format (Now tested)
07-DEC-2007	IAEA0849	GROUPIE2007, Bondarenko Self-Shielded Cross-Sections from ENDF/B (Now tested)
06-DEC-2007	CCC-0601	GENII-1.485, GENII-LIN, Multi-purpose Health Physics Code (Now tested)
04-DEC-2007	PSR-0533	SQUIRT 1.1, Predicts leakage rate and crack area for cracked pipes in nuclear power plants (Arrived)
04-DEC-2007	PSR-0523	DEPLETOR Version 2, Provides depletion capability to the Purdue Advanced Reactor Core Simulator (PARCS) code (Arrived)
04-DEC-2007	PSR-0482	REMIT5.1, Radiation exposure monitoring and information transmittal system (Arrived)
04-DEC-2007	CCC-0729	SERA-1C0, Simulation environment for radiotherapy applications (Arrived)
04-DEC-2007	ESTS0608	RSAC-6, Gamma doses, inhalation and ingestion doses, fission products inventory after fission products release (Arrived)
04-DEC-2007	ESTS1365	NLCGCS_MPV3.0, Inversion of electromagnetic fields for subsurface electrical properties (Arrived)