Safety Design is conducted research on safety design and safety evaluation for industrial use of HTGR.
HTGR stands out due to the inherently safe characteristics with reliance on such material uses as inert, single-phase helium coolant, refractory coated fuel particle, and heat-resistant graphite moderator. Our group aims to establish safety requirements which enable to practically eliminate uncontrolled release of massive radioactive nuclides without reliance on active equipment or operator actions by fully utilizing the inherent safe characteristics. We also have investigated safety requirements and guidelines as well as design considerations for coupling a hydrogen production plant (H2 plant) to a nuclear facility towards the industrial use of HTGR.
The draft safety requirements based on our proposal had been reviewed by the "research committee on safety requirements for HTGR" established in Atomic Energy Society of Japan (AESJ) during FY2013 and FY2014, and were finalized. Following this activity, the basic concept of the safety guides to meet the safety requirements had been determined in "research committee on safety design process for prismatic HTGR" during FY2015 and FY2016. We participates Coordinated Research Project (CRP) on Modular High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor Safety Design in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to investigate and make proposals on International HTGR safety requirements based on our proposal.
We are also developing a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) method considering the safety and design features of HTGR.
The safety requirements will be formulated by Nuclear Regulation Authority through the licensing for coupling H2 plant to the HTTR in order to demonstrate world's first hydrogen production utilizing nuclear heat.
Development of HTGR safety standards