Ranking of severe accident research priorities

The objectives of the SARNET network are to define common research programmes in the field of severe accidents and to develop common computer tools and methodologies for safety assessment in this field. To reach these objectives, one of the work packages, named “Severe Accident Research Priorities” (SARP), aimed at reviewing and reassessing the priorities of research issues as a basis to harmonize and to re-orient research programmes, to define new ones, and to close – if possible – resolved issues on a common basis. The work was performed in close collaboration with 8 participating institutions, led by GRS, representing technical safety organisations, industry and utilities (IRSN, CEA, EDF, FZK, GRS, KTH, TUS, VTT). This action made use notably of (1) the outcomes of the EURSAFE project in the 5th Framework Programme, i.e. the Phenomena Identification and Ranking Tables (PIRT) on severe accidents, (2) the results of the validation and benchmarking activities on ASTEC, (3) the results of reactor calculations carried out in the other SARNET tasks, and (4) the outcome of the research performed in the three thematic sub-domains of SARNET (corium, containment and source term).The main outcome of EURSAFE was a list of 21 topics which included recommendations for experimental programmes and code developments. This list formed the basis of the work in SARP. Also the methodology applied in EURSAFE to consider both the risk potential and the severe accident issues where large uncertainties still subsist was adopted. The analyses of the progress of research and development activities considered whether (1) any research issue was resolved due to reduction of uncertainties or gain of scientific insights, (2) any new issue had to be added to the list of needed research, (3) any new process or phenomenon had to be included in the general PIRT list taking into account the safety relevance and the lack of knowledge, and (4) any new accident management program has to be developed to cope with unresolved problems. Furthermore a strategy plan was elaborated to ensure a wide consensus with the end-user requirements and the objectives of SARNET research activities.