Implementing Safeguards by Design for an Advanced Reactor

Despite strong IAEA support for and increasing industry interest in Safeguards by Design (SbD), no definite model for its implementation in an advanced reactor program has yet been defined. Westinghouse Electric Corporation (WEC) is now pioneering SbD within the design and development program for its eVinci micro-reactor - and considering several important aspects of the implementation model in the process. This initial application of SbD to the eVinci microreactor program will be the model for future SbD efforts at all WEC nuclear facilities. This paper describes some of the issues involved and how WEC is framing and addressing them. The economic environment for advanced micro-reactor development demands technological innovation to meet demanding core lifetime, operational autonomy, and remote site deployment requirements. This increases technical and economic risks for designers and introduces ambiguity about reactor systems design features. In addition, these requirements must be met at costs competitive with conventional small power and process heat sources - in development, design, and licensing programs under challenging schedules. In such a challenging development and deployment environment, several aspects of the SbD implementation program are critical, including [1] the economic costs of implementing SbD and their effects on the integrity of the business case for the reactor, [2] the appropriate stages of reactor systems development at which to explore design features and operating processes to support safeguards, and [3] definition of formal safeguards requirements which are integrable with the systems engineering process for reactor development. Subsidiary to these core issues are many procedural questions – how to time SbD concept development and analysis to support the overall development schedule without risking delays in producing a licensable design, how to minimize the risk of compromising the licensing technical case in any manner, and how to estimate the incremental cost of a safeguards program which is “designed into” (integral with) the reactor design rather than “added on” to the design. 2 Among the findings from implementing SbD within the eVinci program to date are [1] a need to state SbD objectives in a technologically neutral context, allowing room for innovative approaches, [2] defining a definitive schedule window for the introduction of safeguards approaches in each major reactor subsystem, [3] the earliest possible definition and resolution of economic uncertainty regarding safeguards measures.