Development and Application of Consensus Standards in Criticality Safety in the USA
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
The development of national consensus standards in the USA had its beginnings in the document series titled “The Nuclear Safety Guide”. This document was the product of collaboration among criticality safety and critical experiment specialists from the major fissile material processing sites nationwide. Starting in 1964 with the first standard, the number has grown to sixteen, with two currently under development. They provide guidance in essentially all aspects of criticality safety that are important to accident prevention. The two regulatory bodies in the USA, which oversee operations with significant quantities of fissile materials, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy, both adopt all of these sixteen nuclear criticality safety standards as the basis for regulation. The application of philosophies and technical guidance found in these standards is judged to be the underlying reason for the very low criticality accident rate that exists in the USA and, indeed, in the world today.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 788285
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-01-5807; TRN: US0302094
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 1 Oct 2001
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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