Towards an Operational Concept for Advanced Nuclear Power Plants

Advanced nuclear power plants currently being designed are characterized by structural, functional and operational features that are uncommon in the current generation of plants worldwide. Due to the long worldwide hiatus in the development of new nuclear power plants most of these issues and the implications of new operational concepts have never been evaluated in detail. This paper is a summary of the results a four-year project at the Idaho National Laboratory to develop a systematic process to analyze the operational requirements of new plants. The paper describes a method to produce reliable information for the design of robust and resilient systems that allow dynamic collaboration between operators and plant systems. It also provides examples of the application of this method to the development of an operational concept for advanced nuclear power plants, with examples from sodium fast reactors (SFRs).