It is essential that nuclear sites achieve compliance with the latest industry regulation whilst meeting budgetary constraints, however each safety case must also encompass the specific requirements of a nuclear site – making each one unique.
With this in mind, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers organises a regular forum for safety professionals to share best practice and outline examples of recent nuclear industry safety cases. Taking place every two years, the Fit For Purpose Safety Cases in the Nuclear Industry seminar provides a key opportunity for all those involved with site safety to benchmark their existing safety cases and ensure that they remain robust for new builds, operational and decommissioned sites.
Building on previous successful events, 2019 will see UKAEA, National Nuclear Laboratory, Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd, EDF Energy and LLWR share the lessons learned from recent projects that peers in the industry can use to enhance their safety case design and implementation.
We caught up with event committee member Richard Derrett-Smith to find out more about the specific challenges facing nuclear safety professionals, key areas for consideration and the importance of joining others.
Q: Please can you kindly explain your role and involvement with nuclear safety cases.
Richard Derrett-Smith (RDS): Senior risk consultant specialising in PSA (QRA). PSA is an important part of the safety case and is used to augment the existing case especially for beyond design basis accidents and is also used to support the demonstration of ALARP.
Q: What is the number one challenge for those designing and carrying out safety cases, in your opinion?
RDS: It depends on the nature of the project. For new build facilities, it can be difficult to obtain sufficient information on the design and/or intended operation to ensure fidelity of the safety case and avoid making overly conservative assumptions which can result in overly complex or over-engineered designs. For existing facilities, making safety cases usable and practical and helpful in ensuring safe operation is a major challenge especially given the severe cost pressures the industry is facing now.
Q: What is the most important development in this field at the moment, either within your organisation or in the industry in general?
RDS: We are seeing some significant strides forward in uncertainty modelling and, through use of improving computational resources, our ability to simulate and model complex inter-linked scenarios across a range of cases. This enables increased insights into the factors that affect risk where significant uncertainty is present either in the nature/frequency of the initiating event, the plant response or human behaviour.
Q: Where do you see the future of this topic going in the next 5 – 10 years?
RDS: It all depends on the industry and its future direction as a part of the energy mix. If nuclear can pick itself up off the canvas and start to play the significant role it should as part of a low carbon energy mix then safety and safety cases will need to become more efficient, more usable and more insightful to help owners design and operate their facilities in a safe and cost-effective manner.
Q: What can attendees expect from your presentation at this year’s seminar?
RDS: A healthy mix of insights from all sectors of the industry including the regulator, existing facilities, new build and decommissioning sites. I think all speakers and organisations will be keen to stress the vitally important role that nuclear has to play in our future energy generation mix.
Q: What other topics are you looking forward to hearing about and discussing at the upcoming seminar?
RDS: Apart from the above, I will be interested to hear how the decommissioning industry is managing the nuclear legacy in the most cost-effective way to minimise the overall lifecycle cost of nuclear plants. What new technology is being researched to dispose and store nuclear waste in a safe and cost-effective manner?
Q: Why do you feel it is important for all nuclear industry professionals to join this seminar?
RDS: Apart from the obvious networking opportunities, I think it is important for nuclear professionals operating in a specific part of the industry to learn how their work fits into the overall nuclear context and why it is important. It is all too easy to get sucked into whatever you are doing and not realise the bigger impact and big picture view that your work is having on the industry as a whole and I think it is healthy and necessary for all professionals to have that holistic view especially those at the younger end of the spectrum.
It is also important to hear about other ways of doing things and how an approach from a different part of the sector can help you or your organisation in what you are trying to achieve. Sharing knowledge, learning and feedback is critical to ensure that we don’t continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. With the pressures the industry is facing right now, this is something we can ill afford to tolerate.
Fit for Purpose Safety Cases in the Nuclear Industry takes place in Birmingham on 4 June 2019.
Attend this seminar to:
- Understand the fundamentals of fit for purpose safety cases whilst hearing about integrated practical examples.
- Gain an understanding of how best to develop safety cases which are suitable and sufficient for their purpose whilst also satisfying the regulator.
- Exchange knowledge on best practice from industry case studies
- Join various nuclear stakeholders in this specialist one day seminar.
Early bird ends 12 April 2019, for full details and registration visit the event website,
www.imeche.org/fitforpurpose.