B' R' Sehgal

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Presentation at the ERMSAR Meeting Karlsruhe,
Germany, June 12-14,2007EXCELLENCE SPREADING
ACTIVITIESinSARNET NETWORK

• B. R. Sehgal
• Professor Emeritus, Nuclear Power Safety (NPS)
• Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
• AlbaNova University Center
• 106 91 Stockholm
• e-mail bsehgal_at_safety.sci.kth.se

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Objectives of the Program

• Excellence Spreading Program is 3 years old. It
  is funded at a low-level but its objectives are
  important for the future impact of SARNET. The
  objectives are
• - preserve, nurture and disseminate the
  knowledge gained since TMI-2 in LWR Severe
  Accident (SA) phenomenology, methodology and
  practice.
• - educate and train young researchers and
  students so that there is a cadre of trained
  persons who can continue to maintain and improve
  the high standards of safety that have been
  achieved over the last 20 years.

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Program Elements

• Consistent with the objectives outlined, the
  Excellence-spreading Program consists of the
  following program-elements
• - development of a text book embodying what has
  been learnt so far about the SAs,
• - education of young researchers and students
  through the conduct of annual courses, providing
  both the presentation material and the lecture
  notes in text format,
• - training of young researchers and students
  through actual hands-on research work in the
  various experimental and the analysis-development
  projects that are being conducted in the SARNET
  Network. This involves the mobility of
  researchers and students from their own
  institutions to those of other partners for
  periods of a few weeks to several months.

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The Text Book - 1

• The text book has been entitled, LWR Severe
  Accident Safety. An outline of the book was
  presented in the 2005 ERMSAR meeting. It follows
  the the SA scenario, preceded by a historical
  review of the LWR safety. The book length has
  been initially fixed at 400 pages however there
  is some flexibility.
• The first lecture course given in January 2006
  also followed the progression of a SA, i.e. early
  in-vessel, late in-vessel, ex-vessel branching
  into early and late containment failure,
  respectively with processes of steam explosion,
  hydrogen combustion, DCH, and MCCI, melt/debris
  coolability. These topics were complemented by
  source term, PSA, issue resolution, environmental
  impact, severe accident management and new
  designs.
• Writing of the text lecture notes by the various
  lecturers has served as a practice run for the
  text book. Some additional topics will also be
  covered in the book, e.g., (1) structural aspects
  of containment failure, (2) description of models
  in ASTEC and MELCOR Codes, (3) SA progression for
  BWRs and CANDUS, (4) mechanistic modles for
  detailed description of key processes, (5) ATWS.

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The Text Book - 2

• All the topics have been assigned to various
  experts. Writing is proceeding on most of the SA
  topics and some parts of the book have already
  been written. Leaders have been assigned for the
  major sections of the SA phenomenology.
• We believe that the SA safety book will be a
  premier product of SARNET. The authors of the
  various subchapters are chosen to be those who
  are
• - most knowledgable of literature on the subject
• - critical in evaluation and comprehensive in
  approach
• - cognizant of how their part fits in the whole
  picture
• - not advertising the research work they or
  their institution performed.
• The schedule calls for the final draft of the
  book to be completed by January 2008 after
  extensive editing and review. The goal is to have
  the book published and available by August 2008,
  which is perhaps the completion date for SARNET-1.

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Development of Courses - 1

• Two courses have been conducted so far. The first
  course on severe accident phenomenology (SAP) was
  focussed on students and young researchers while
  the second was focussed on engineers working in
  the industry (vendors, utilities, TSOs,
  regulatory bodies).
• The program of the first course is shown in Table
  1 showing lecture titles and lecturers, who were
  from the partner organisations. A tour of
  experimental facilities in Cadarache was
  provided. The course was held in January 2006.
• The first course was a great success with 87
  attendees and 15 lecturers. A photograph of
  attendees is shown . About 80 of the attendees
  were from EU countries and the rest from other
  parts of the World. There were 5 researchers from
  China, 4 from Pakistan and others from Russia,
  US, Canada and other countries. The attendees
  graded the course as 3.49/4.
• The second course was also held in Cadarache in
  March 2007. The course lecture program is shown
  in Table 2. A significant addition in this course
  was the lectures on BWRs. There was also a
  lecture on the plant instrumentation. This course
  had 38 attendees, with a significant fraction
  coming from Canada.

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SCHEDULE OF SAP COURSE IN 2006
Table 1
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PARTICIPANTS
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SCHEDULE OF SAP COURSE IN 2007 Table 2
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Development of Courses - 2

• A third course is currently under preparation for
  delivery in March 2008. This course will be in
  collaboration with OECD/NEA, who want to describe
  results of some of the severe accident projects
  that they have organised over the years.
• The course is tentatively entitled Severe
  Accident analysis, Applications and Management
  Guidelines. The course objective is to teach the
  students, researchers and nuclear safety
  engineers how to determine consequences
  (source-term) for SA scenarios for PWRs and BWRs.
  The consequence determination is part of the
  PSA-2 effort. The applications of ASTEC and
  MELCOR codes will bedescribed along with models
  in these codes. The second focus of the course is
  SAM and development of SAM guidelines to prevent
  a SA from occurring and to mitigate its
  consequences if it ever occurs. The attendees
  will learn how the management measures were
  decided on and how the analyses and the codes
  helped in designing the SAM measures. This can be
  demonstrated in particular for the prevention of
  the early failure of the containment. The
  measures for reduction of the ex-vessel
  consequences as practised in AP-1000, EPR and
  VVER-1000 will also be analysed through models
  and codes.

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The Mobility Program

• The Mobility Program consists of
• - student summer internships
• - research delegation at the laboratory of a
  SARNET partner.
• The procedure of application and approval has
  been established. The research to be conducted
  should be in the SARNET framework. The delegating
  and the host organisations agree on a work scope
  for the delegate, which has to be approved by the
  SARNET topical and excellence-spreading
  coordinators.
• The mobility program in the third year had a
  better response than in earlier years. There were
  a total of 12 mobility actions in 2006-2007. This
  is shown in Table 3. We should note that there
  was a much greater number of female delegates
  coming from Eastern Europe and from Spain.
• It is however, quite clear that there is not a
  large pool of young engineers in our field and we
  cannot hope to have a very large number of
  mobility actions.
• As for the last year, the coordinator for
  excellence-spreading is trying to connect the
  delegates together with research projects offered
  by several institutions.

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Dissemination of SARNET Research Results

• The SARNET Network needs greater visibility. This
  year, it is proposed to send brochures and
  newsletters to various industry organisations
  (vendors, utilities, TSOs, regulatory bodies) in
  Europe and other countries, describing the
  significant results in SA research that have been
  achieved in the first 3 years of the operations
  of SARNET Network.

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Conclusions

• The Excellence-spreading Program has set itself
  quite high goals, which will enhance the impact
  of the SARNET Network on the future of the
  nuclear enterprise in Europe. In particular, the
  text-book will be a legacy. It will help in
  preserving knowledge and in promoting the
  education of present and future students and
  researchers in reactor safety. The mobility
  program will promote European integration, since
  the students and researchers trained under this
  program will become the future links for
  collaboration between and among the different
  European universities and research laboratories.