Safety Design Criteria For Generation IV Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor System - 2022
A report by the GIF Risk and Safety Working Group (RSWG).
The Generation-IV International Forum [GIF] Policy Group proposed, at its meeting in October 2010, to develop “Safety Design Criteria [SDC]” for Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors [SFRs]. Similar initiatives were implemented for Lead-cooled Fast Reactors (LFRs), Very High Temperature Reactors (VHTR), and Gas-cooled Fast Reactors (GFRs).
The objective of the GFR SDC is to present reference criteria for the safety design of structures, systems, and components of a GFR system with the aim of achieving the safety goals of a Generation-IV reactor system. The reference criteria are systematically and comprehensively explained in the SDC.
The contents of the SDC are grouped into the following four parts:
I. Chapter 1, Introduction, describes the background, objectives, and formulation principles. Chapter 2, Safety Approach to the GFR as a Generation-IV reactor system, contains GIF’s safety goals and basic safety approach, a fundamental orientation on safety, and the safety approach to a Generation-IV GFR system.
II. In Chapters 3 to 6, eighty-three criteria for the overall safety design and specific structure, system, and component design are described in sequence. The structure of this part is the same as that of the IAEA SSR-2/1 (Rev.1), where safety requirements for the current generation light-water reactor power plants are listed. This style is used for the convenience of the users. The potential users of the SDC are not only GIF GFR concept developers but also parties interested in the GFR technology in general, including international and national regulatory organisations.
III. A Glossary, covering specific terminologies for the GFR system and for Generation-IV reactor systems in general. A number of important terms, defined in e.g. the IAEA safety standards/glossary, are also incorporated for the convenience of the reader.
IV. An Appendix, which includes examples of key items of the GFR system configuration and technical background to understand better the GFR safety characteristics.
Improvements to reactor safety come from continuous efforts to update safety designs and related R&D. Therefore, the current SDC will be continuously updated as necessary by, for example, attaching additional guidelines where more detailed explanations/criteria are needed.