https://doi.org/10.1051/epjn/2019015
Review Article
Safety assurance through advances in long-term operation
1
Materials Science & Structural Integrity, Wood, Warrington, UK
2
DEN-DMN, CEA, Saclay, France
3
VTT, Espoo, Finland
4
Structural Materials Division, Technology Department, Ciemat, Madrid, Spain
* e-mail: kevin.mottershead@woodplc.com
Received:
5
April
2019
Accepted:
4
June
2019
Published online: 5 May 2020
Mindful of the challenges to long-term operation, especially the severe safety and environmental consequences shown through historical nuclear power plant accidents (e.g. Fukoshima, Chernobyl, etc), it is imperative that European research and innovation focuses on demonstrating reliable long-term operation. Five examples of European Commission supported projects meeting such objectives are INCEFA+, SOTERIA, ATLAS+, MEACTOS and NUGENIA+. There are economies of scale within, and synergies across these projects which enable further advantage to be gained. Additionally, since researchers are well engaged internationally, this brings into European Organisations latest developments in understanding from further afield (e.g. USA, Japan), further enabling safety assurance advances, and enabling work overseas to be influenced consistent with European requirements. Through examples, this paper provides evidence of the advances claimed, whilst being careful to also declare areas of interest for which further work is still a priority.
© K.J. Mottershead et al., published by EDP Sciences, 2020
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.