The course addresses both fundamentals of safety design and methods of safety analysis for nuclear
power plants, with emphasis on Light Water Reactors. Topics covered include
- safety characterization and safety features of nuclear power plants
- reactor safety principles and criteria
- design-basis and beyond-design-basis events, including severe accidents
- accident phenomena
- safety systems and containment performance
- deterministic safety analysis (basic elements)
- accident modeling and simulation codes
- probabilistic safety analysis (basic elements)
- analysis of operational transients and accidents
- emergency operation procedure and accident management
- safety issues and their resolution
- applications of passive safety in new reactor designs
- operating experience, regulation and safety culture
Nuclear Power Safety (NPS) is paramount to both economic performance and public acceptance of nuclear power. The ultimate mission of NPS is to ensure that release of radioactive materials from nuclear power plants and its effect on plant personnel, public health and environment is as low as reasonably achievable.Technical contents of NPS address both the Probability and Consequences of such radioactive releases from a nuclear power plant under normal, abnormal and accident conditions.
The NPS course aims to provide students with the knowledge to be able to address questions: What are possible accidents? How do they occur? How often they occur? What are the consequences?
After the course you shall possess a basic understanding of principles, issues and tools in nuclear power safety. This objective is achieved if you show that you are able to:
- Define safety requirements to be achieved in design, construction and operation of a nuclear power plant,
- Identify key milestones in accident progression scenarios (from design-basis accidents to severe core-melt accidents) and define respective prevention and mitigation measures,
- Perform a scoping assessment of a perceived threat against a plant safety barrier using contemporary knowledge and methods in safety analysis.
