Advanced Reactor Risk-Informed Licensing: Evaluation of Data Availability and Suitability

Abstract

Advanced reactor concepts are being developed to push the nuclear energy frontier while promising enhanced safety, flexibility and performance. In parallel, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is adapting a risk-informed framework for licensing and regulation of these advanced reactor designs. Such a framework depends fundamentally on the availability of adequate and credible data to develop the necessary reliability and risk models. However, unlike the existing light water reactors (LWRs) which have accumulated more than sixty years of operational experience and empirical data, many of these advanced reactor designs currently lack any established failure data for the risk informed licensing process. To address this problem, in this paper we define a set of 12 characteristics to evaluate existing non-LWR databases and the data contained in those, enabling a structured assessment of their suitability