Programme of work

The working group's objective is to advance the current understanding and to address safety issues related to fuel safety margins. In particular, the working group aims to systematically assess the technical basis for current safety criteria and its applicability to high burn-up and new fuel designs and materials being introduced. The needs and priorities for future research programmes in the area of fuel safety behaviour will also be examined, with the aim of understanding and adequately modelling key phenomena and quantifying safety margins.

Revision of the 1986 CSNI state-of-the-art report on pressurised water reactor fuel behaviour in design-basis accident conditions

This work will consist of two reports, one on loss-of-coolant accidents and on on reactivity-induced accidents. Drafts of these reports are currently under review; the final reports will include the conclusions of the Japan Atomic Energy Authority fuel safety research meeting, held in May 2007. The original report, NEA/CSNI(1986)129 is available on this website.

Benchmarking of Halden facility loss-of-coolant experiments

The benchmark exercise based on the Halden facility loss-of-coolant experiment IFA-650.3 is now complete. Benchmarking will continue based on the experiments IFA-650.4 and IFA-650.5, once the experimental data has been released by the Halden project board.

Future activities

Planned activities for the WGFS include:

reviewing design basis accidents, especially loss-of-coolant accidents and reactivity-induced accidents;
periodically assessing and reviewing fuel safety criteria;
investigating advanced fuel designs and the possible effect of such designs on safety margins (both for existing and advanced reactor designs).

Working Group on Fuel Safety (WGFS)

Programme of work

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