Project planning

Three main phases are proposed to develop the ASAMPA_E project.

Phase 1: identification of topics where additional guidance is needed to develop extended PSAs

The technical scope of ASAMPSA_E is extremely large. This constitutes an ambition for this project but will need a relevant management to develop activities on topics where guidance will be more useful for European organisations involved in NPPs risk assessment activities.

The identification of topics where stakeholders have an interest in harmonisation of practices has to be done during this first phase of the project (it cannot be done before the start of the project due to the number and complexity of topics).

This phase will include an interaction with the end-user community, and with some key experts in different areas related to internal and external hazards. It will include an identification of activities that have been initiated in other frameworks and also a review of external events, with amplitude exceeding or close to the initial NPPs design, that have already been registered on NPPs in operation.

This phase (and the whole project) will be organised with the objective to promote technical exchanges between experts that may work in separated activities. This is a key issue for the motivation of experts involved in ASAMPSA_E and eventually for the project success.

Activities of ASAMPSA_E that have to be started during this phase:

a review of “high amplitude” external events that have already concerned NPPs in operation in Europe and others countries (specific survey at the beginning of the project and also contacts with IAEA services)
a list of hazards to be considered in the ASAMPSA_E project will be established based on existing standards (e.g. IAEA SSG-3) and the partners’ experience or needs
the synopsis (list of topics) for the ASAMPSA_E guidelines will be established and the identification of key reference documentation will be identified
the first technical meetings (preliminary exchange of experience, experts interview …) will be organised and some practical arrangement of the WP activities will be discussed, with for example subgroups in charge of specific topics a report on Fukushima lessons for PSA developments will be initiated

For the interaction with the end-user community:

a formal interaction will be organised through a questionnaire and a synthesis of End-Users needs ; the questionnaire will focus on Gen II and Gen III NPPs and will make a strong link with the existing safety requirements and safety objectives; this questionnaire will be limited to some key questions ; for example, it will be asked to European utilities to provide information on the high amplitude external events that have already occurred on NPPs in operation
an open workshop will be organised to share the outcomes from answers to the questionnaire and incorporate some final suggestions for the ASAMPSA_E project; this workshop will also help to make sure that “all” relevant and important information is located (e.g. IAEA and ASME standards) and collected by the project; it will confirm the detailed synopsis of the future guidance document and the identification of “difficult” areas.

For the interaction with some key experts working on hazards:

for some hazards, specific technical meetings will be organised, with identification and invitation of external experts if needed
if relevant, discrepancies that may exist between nuclear risk assessment and more academic research activities (or risk assessment in other industry) will be identified

Link with other frameworks

Concerning interaction with other activities at international level (by OECD, IAEA or at regional scale such as Nordic countries, USA, Asia …) ASAMPSA_E will be managed with the idea to avoid any non-useful duplication of tasks.

The final synopsis (or list of topics) to be examined in ASAMPSA_E will be fixed at the end of this phase.

Phase 2: Development of the ASAMPSA_E recommendations (technical guidelines)

The ASAMPSA_E recommendations and guidelines will be mostly developed during this phase. The experience of the ASAMPSA2 project has shown that this was possible during a limited time frame if the conclusions of the previous phase are sufficiently robust:

the ASAMPSA_E guidelines synopsis must be precise enough and must not be significantly modified after the beginning of the phase 2
the different topics must have been efficiently distributed between the partners; specific needs of inputs from external experts should have been identified.

In addition to the WP meetings, some technical meetings, with both representatives of the technical group and the end-user group (WP10), will be organised during this phase.

In some case, it may be impossible to formalise any guidance due to some lack of knowledge or a real lack of available methodology. Such a case will be identified and proposed for some further research activities.

Phase 3: Final review, conclusions, validation (WP10)

During this phase, the ASAMPSA_E draft recommendations and guidelines will be submitted to an external review in an international framework. The conclusions of the review will be discussed in a second open workshop.

The final ASAMPSA_E deliverables will be updated based on the external review conclusions and the second workshop discussions.

Recommendations for follow-up actions will be developed in relation with the end-users at this stage.

The overall planning is presented here.