25 Feb (NucNet): The European Technical Safety Organisation Network (Etson), which advises nuclear regulators, has published four safety assessment guides, Etson and its French member, IRSN, have announced.
IRSN (the Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety) said the technical guides were drafted and published to promote and disseminate on the European and international levels the best nuclear safety assessment practices.
The guides are based on work by 12 working groups in which experts have analysed different safety evaluation methods implemented in European countries, IRSN said.
The guides comprise a general Safety Assessment Guide that describes the European methodology for safety evaluations and how to apply it. Etson also published the first three topical guides produced by the Etson group collaboration, covering deterministic severe accident analysis, event review and precursor analysis, and human and organisational factors in nuclear facilities design and modification processes.
IRSN said each Etson member will adopt the harmonised methods laid out in the documents and will apply them in its own safety analysis and report back on experience in that application.
Etson said the goal of the guides is to ensure that, whatever the technical analysis could be, safety assessments are performed by each Etson member “according to the same lines” and can therefore be used with the same confidence.
Etson was created in 2006 and aims to contribute to the harmonisation of nuclear safety in Europe and beyond, its website says. Its members are professional science-based organisations from Belgium (Bel V, Brussels), the Czech Republic (UJV, Řež), Finland (VTT, Espoo), France (IRSN, Fontenay-aux-Roses), Germany (GRS, Köln), Lithuania (LEI, Kaunas), Slovakia (Vuje, Trnava), and Switzerland (PSI, Villigen).
The documents are online:
www.etson.eu/InformationCenter/Pages/Reports-Publications.aspx
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