Chair(s): |
Masaki AMAYA, Japan |
Secretary: |
Michelle BALES (michelle.bales@oecd-nea.org) |
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Vice-Chair(s): |
Martin SEVECEK, Czech Republic Nicolas TREGOURES, France James CORSON, United States | ||
Member(s): | All NEA member countries* | ||
Russia (Suspended*) | |||
*Russian Federation suspended pursuant to a decision of the OECD Council. | |||
EU participation: |
The European Union (EU) takes part in the work of the NEA, in accordance with the NEA Statute and the Supplementary Protocol to the Convention on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. | ||
Participant(s): |
India | ||
Observer(s)(International Organisation): |
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) By agreement | ||
Date of creation: | 31 December 1999 | ||
End of mandate: | 31 December 2026 |
Mandate (Document reference):
Mandate (Document extract):
Extract of document [NEA/SEN/SIN/FUEL(2023)1]
Background
The Special Experts Group on Fuel Safety Margins, the predecessor to the Working Group on Fuel Safety (WGFS), was created following the 27th Meeting of the CSNI with a mandate to advance the current understanding and address safety issues related to fuel safety margins (see Annex II of NEA/SEN/SIN/FUEL(2000)2). Today, the WGFS continues to fulfil this mandate by assessing the technical basis for current safety criteria and their applicability to high burnup and new fuel designs and materials.
Scope
Guided by the Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI), the mission of the WGFS is to address safety issues related to existing and advanced fuels.
The WGFS specifically aims to facilitate international understanding of fuel safety issues, including experimental approaches, interpretation and use of experimental data, and/or other relevant information.
Objectives
The WGFS will:
Working methods
The WGFS will report to the CSNI periodically, and at least once per year. The WGFS will carry out its programme of work as approved by the Committee in “CSNI Activity Proposal Sheets” (CAPS).
The WGFS will organize meetings to foster the exchange of knowledge and the development of best practices on specific subjects or task groups dedicated to covering programme items. The WGFS will meet annually for a Plenary Meeting, which includes information exchange on ongoing NEA Joint Projects on the subject of fuel behaviour and progress reporting of task group activities. Interim meetings of the WGFS are held as a function of current/foreseen activities. An effort is made to link interim meetings to another fuel- or WGFS-related event.
Membership
The WGFS is composed of experts from NEA member countries in the area of nuclear fuel behaviour. Members have expertise in fuel behaviour in anticipated transients, postulated accident conditions and design extension conditions (DEC-A), both in-reactor and during storage and transportation. Members come from regulatory authorities, research organizations, technical support organizations, reactor operators and fuel vendors.
Interactions
Co-operation with other NEA bodies will be actively pursued, as appropriate, e.g. with the Working Group on the Analysis and Management of Accidents (WGAMA) on issues involving thermal hydraulics and/or fuel damage, with the Working Group on Fuel Cycle Safety (WGFCS) on fuel-storage issues, and with subsidiary bodies of the Nuclear Science Committee (NSC) working on fuel issues (i.e. Expert Group on Reactor Fuel Performance or EGRFP). This will result in optimisation of both the resources mobilised by member countries for NEA activities and the quality of the work produced.
The NEA has established Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with a number of organisations such as the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), the American Nuclear Society (ANS), the CANDU Owners Group (COG), the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), to promote international collaboration, particularly in the area of nuclear safety. Accordingly, representatives from these organisations can be invited to participate in the activities of WGFS, consistent with the MOUs concluded, to co-ordinate their work and to avoid unnecessary duplication.
The NEA provides a framework for establishing joint safety research projects, and the CSNI expects that the WGFS will promote technical exchanges by creating opportunities with relevant projects, and provide technical support as appropriate.
Deliverables
The WGFS will produce state-of-the-art reports and other technical reports, workshops and conferences with related reports and proceedings, benchmarking exercises and joint research proposals addressing fuel safety. One or more (internal) reports are usually issued for each of the activities. Final reports are issued as CSNI reports. The activity derived from tentative and long-term TGs on fuel safety are mostly published as technical reports, reports from international standard problem (ISP) and benchmark activities, providing status and recommendations.