A continuously increasing interest in nuclear power has been obvious over the past years in several countries with already established nuclear power programmes, as well as in countries at various stages of preparation or initiation of a nuclear power programme. There are presently a number of innovative nuclear reactor concepts on which research and development (R&D) work is being undertaken, and they are characterized by different design approaches, technologies and safety features. As a result of these different design approaches, technologies and safety features, Member States must establish new design safety requirements or apply their current design safety requirements to advanced reactor designs.
Objective
This project aims at performing a study on the current practices of applying the IAEA Safety Standard SSR 2/1 design safety requirements to the small modular reactor (SMR) technologies. The IAEA, with a team of international experts, will evaluate the application of SSR-2/1 safety requirements to at-large SMR designs expected to be deployed in the near-term. This includes the light water reactor (LWR), light water floating reactor, and high temperature gas reactor small modular reactor designs. The results of the study will be used as an input for the future IAEA safety standards review process in order to reflect practises in this area and foster the practical applicability to SMRs.