Some SMR built in Russia and China, many others claim close to deployment. A new generation of designers and safety analysts is growing butconnection with past expertise and depth of experience for many conceptsis questionable. Superior acceptability of SMR over large reactors may exist in some areas (financing, construction time, simplification, …)but questionable in others (cost of unity product e.g. kwhr/thermal efficiency, utilization of nuclear fuel, proliferation-safeguards, environment damage following out-of-control accidents,multiple unit commitment …)- Non-electricity exploitation(a wide variety of possibilities are proposed ranging from transportation to chemical industry) imposes the consideration of specific safety frameworks and many not new ( co-gen, hydrogen , process heat,…) . Large number of units and large number of hosting countries unavoidably enlarge the spectrum of potential failures ( of design, safety, financial…) Probability of disaster cannot be brought to ‘zero’as shown by un-avoided failures of any complex system within whatever military, oil, chemistry, transportation and space industry (PRA claims are too small and unrealistic ) .
Safety Challenges of SMR designs in view of existing (reactor) technology
Francesco D'Auria
Conceptualization
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2023-01-01
Abstract
Some SMR built in Russia and China, many others claim close to deployment. A new generation of designers and safety analysts is growing butconnection with past expertise and depth of experience for many conceptsis questionable. Superior acceptability of SMR over large reactors may exist in some areas (financing, construction time, simplification, …)but questionable in others (cost of unity product e.g. kwhr/thermal efficiency, utilization of nuclear fuel, proliferation-safeguards, environment damage following out-of-control accidents,multiple unit commitment …)- Non-electricity exploitation(a wide variety of possibilities are proposed ranging from transportation to chemical industry) imposes the consideration of specific safety frameworks and many not new ( co-gen, hydrogen , process heat,…) . Large number of units and large number of hosting countries unavoidably enlarge the spectrum of potential failures ( of design, safety, financial…) Probability of disaster cannot be brought to ‘zero’as shown by un-avoided failures of any complex system within whatever military, oil, chemistry, transportation and space industry (PRA claims are too small and unrealistic ) .I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
