Dr. David Holcomb presents "Liquid-Fuel Molten Salt Reactor Design Safety Standard (ANS 20.2) Overview" at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Molten-Salt Reactor Workshop on 2021-10-13.
David Holcomb is Chair of the American Nuclear Society’s Working Group on Developing an MSR Design Safety Standard.
Draft Standard Increases Safety Adequacy Design and Evaluation Efficiency and Predictability
• Existing body of regulations and safety evaluation methods are based upon the characteristics of the existing fleet of LWRs
– MSRs represent a substantial technological departure from LWRs
– Cumbersome to evaluate the safety of each new MSR design based upon customized exceptions to existing practice
• Safety principles are the same for any nuclear plant
• MSR focused design safety standard
– Preserves and translates existing safety principles to MSRs – Addresses MSR specific issues
ANS 20.2 Provides MSR Class Specific Design Criteria That Embody the Safety Objective of Each of the GDCs
• Each GDC sequentially evaluated for applicability to MSRs
– GDC directly adopted when fully relevant (e.g., quality assurance)
– ARDC adopted in cases where it provides better match to MSR characteristics
– SFR or MHTGR design criteria adopted where they more closely match MSR characteristics
• Additional criteria reflective of the distinctive characteristics of MSRs added to set of criteria
– For example, criterion added to address safety issue of coolant activation due to proximity to the neutron field
• Each MSR-DC provides rationale for adaption to GDC
– for example, Rationale for Adaption to GDC: Derived from ARDC. “Coolant boundary” has been relabeled “fuel salt boundary” to reflect the difference between MSRs and other advanced reactors.