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Equivalence of safety requirements between CANDU and US NRC requirements

Conference · · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States)
OSTI ID:5885673
;  [1];  [2]
  1. Sheridan Park Research Community, Mississauga, Ontario (Canada)
  2. AECL Technologies, Rockville, MD (United States)
The Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU) technology has been built on an original pressurized heavy-water reactor (PHWR) concept, which has several characteristics different from those of light water reactors (LWRs). However, the philosophy of defense-in-depth, based on multiple levels of safety and implemented through the provision of several physical and functional barriers against the release of radioactivity to the environment, is applied to both types of reactor. It is not surprising, therefore, that there is conceptual convergence of safety objectives between the CANDU and the LWR designs, which in turn translates into an equivalence of CANDU safety requirements with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requirements established for LWRS. The demonstration of this safety requirements equivalence has been an important activity for the licensing of CANDU reactors in countries whose regulatory environment has been influenced by the NRC approach and has more recently acquired a special emphasis in the context of a preapplication review of an advanced CANDU design, the CANDU 3, for its design certification in the United States. This paper highlights results of a comparative exercise dealing with the fundamental principles of the CANDU safety philosophy and the corresponding NRC requirements.
OSTI ID:
5885673
Report Number(s):
CONF-930601--
Conference Information:
Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States) Journal Volume: 68
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English