The MUSA Project: Management and Uncertainties of Severe Accidents

MUSA was founded in HORIZON 2020 EURATOM NFRP-2018 call on “Safety assessments to improve Accident Management strategies for Generation II and III reactors”. On June 15th, 2018 obtains the NUGENIA label that recognizes the excellence of the project. The 4 years Consortium is formed by 29 Organizations (25% non EU) with an overall cost of € 5,768,452.50 (about 630 person months). The main objective is to assess the capability of Severe Accident (SA) codes when modelling reactor/Spent Fuel Pool accident scenarios of GEN.II and GEN.III designs. Further goals are: • Identification of Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) methodologies to be employed, with emphasis on the effect of both existing and innovative SA Management (SAM) measures on the accident progression, particularly those related to Source Term (ST) mitigation; • Determination of the state-of-the-art prediction capability of SA codes regarding ST that potentially may be released to the environment, and to the quantification of associated code’s uncertainties applied to SA sequences. The achievement of the MUSA objectives is assured by a consistent and coherent work programme reflected in 7 technical Work Packages (WP), coordinated by the following organizations: WP1 MUSA COordination (MUCO) - CIEMAT WP2 Identification & Quantification of Uncertainty Sources (IQUS) - GRS WP3 Review of Uncertainty Quantification Methods (RUQM) - KIT WP4 Application of Uncertainty Quantification Methods against Integral Experiments (AUQMIE) - ENEA WP5 Uncertainty Quantification in the Analysis and Management of Reactor Accidents (UQAMRA) - JRC WP6 Uncertainty Quantification and Innovative Management of SFP Accidents (IMSFP) - IRSN WP7 COmmunication & REsults DISsemination (COREDIS) - UNIPI. A special attention will be about the knowledge transfer towards young generation, mainly through the production of learning modules and a mobility programme. These education activities will be carried out in a close collaboration with ENEN. The project has an “innovative research agenda” in order to move beyond the state-of-the-art regarding the predictive capability of SA codes by combining them with the best available or improved UQ tools. By doing so, not only the prediction of timing for the failure of safety barriers and of radiological ST will be possible, but also the quantification of the uncertainty bands of selected analysis results, considering any relevant source of uncertainty, will be provided. Finally, MUSA will be an open results project for its importance on forthcoming SA analyses and it will mean a better exploitation of research previously performed within the EU framework. Furthermore, over the years, reliable and experienced teams of modellers and analytical teams have been built-up, and MUSA is a unique opportunity to achieve real feedback among them, encouraging cooperation in research, innovation and young generation’s formation.