Content

Operation & Control
• Cycle specific safety evaluation methodology.
• Basic principles of the in-core fuel management based on the linear reactivity model.
• Reactivity coefficients (moderator, Doppler), neutron poisons (xenon, samarium, …), their variation with burnup and core state parameters and their impact on core power distribution.
• Reactivity control means (boron, control rods, burnable poisons) and their sensitivity to the core burnup and in-core fuel management parameters.
• Operating modes, operating limits and protection diagram.
• Fuel rod design and thermal-mechanical behavior in normal operation and accidental conditions.
• Core thermal hydraulics : thermal-design procedures and elaboration of the core thermal limits and core protections.
• Measurement systems and their specificities in the nuclear reactor.
• Core  control, surveillance and protection systems and their performance in transient and steady-state operation.
• Seminar on  the major Design Base Accidents, consequences and mitigation.
• Seminar on reload calculations: tools used and economic considerations.

Optional visits and laboratory session:
• Visit of a Nuclear Power Plant.
• Two day session of compact and full scope Nuclear Power Plant simulator.

Reliability & Safety
• Introduction to nuclear safety: hazard sources, safety functions, safety systems, defence in depth, line of defence method
• Safety goals and risk based criteria: the concept of risk, individual and societal risk criteria, release limits, core damage frequency limit, safety goals at function or system level
• The safety design cycle: (conservative) deterministic analysis based on design basis accidents and (best estimate) analysis of beyond design basis events; probabilistic analysis as a review of the safety design;
• Overall process of probabilistic safety assessment (PSA): PSA level 1, 2 and 3
• Qualitative analysis: hazard and scenario identification methods (FMEA, HAZOP, Event trees..)
• Component reliability: basic RAMS concepts, failure and repair time distributions, estimation of parameters from real life data, uncertainty bounds, Bayesian estimation of parameters
• Systems reliability:
• Fault tree analysis: fault tree construction, coherence of fault trees, logical and probabilistic analysis of fault trees, system unavailability, expected number of failures, criticality of events and minimal cut sets,
• Markov analysis: state diagrams, transition matrices, determination of system unavailability and system
• Common cause failure analysis: type of dependencies, qualitative and quantitative analysis of common cause failures
• Elements of human reliability analysis
• Accident sequence analysis: event trees, determination of sequence frequencies and plant response
• Elements of PSA level 2 and level 3 methodology
• Exploitation of PSA results

Course material

Operation & Control
• Collection Génie Atomique  "La chaudière des réacteurs à eau sous pression"
Ed. EDP Sciences, 2004
• Collection Génie Atomique « Exploitation des cœurs REP », Ed. EDP Sciences, 2008
• USNRC Technical Training Center, « Pressurized Water Reactor Systems”

Reliability & Safety
• McCormick, N., Reliability and Risk Analysis – Methods and Nuclear Power Applications, Academic Press, New York, 1981.
• Henley, E.J. and Kumamoto, H., Reliability Engineering and Risk Analysis, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1981.
• Modarres, M., What Every Engineer Should Know about Reliability and Risk Analysis, Dekker Inc., New York, 1993.
• Kumamoto, H., and Henley, E.J., Probabilistic Risk Assessment and Management for Engineers and Scientists, 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2001.
• Bedford, T. and Cooke, R., Probabilistic Risk Analysis, Foundations and Methods, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2001.