Safety assessment: perspectives for next generation nuclear plants

Safety assessment and risk analysis are recognized as a priority in the development of next gen-eration nuclear systems (Generation-IV reactors and full-scale fusion reactor –DEMO-) and demand a recon-sideration of the safety philosophy currently applied to the existing nuclear stations. Since their innovative physics and technology and the preliminary design phase of some of the concepts, their safety assessment has to rely on the basis of nuclear safety and technological neutral methodology. In order to satisfy this necessity, a bibliographic survey on nuclear and non-nuclear international standards and best practices is performed. By comparing them, this work tries to reach a new and more systematic approach, based on functional safety, suitable for dealing with the unique challenges of the innovative nuclear facilities, in order to guarantee that safety achievement is intended to be “built-in” rather than “added-on” by influencing the concept evolution from its earliest stages.