2018 International Severe Accident Management Conference

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
October 15–18, 2018

Hosted by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) and the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), the 2018 International Severe Accident Management Conference (ISAMC 2018) aims to bring together international experts in the field of severe accident management (SAM), in order to exchange current practices and challenges in SAM implementation. The conference will focus on recent advances made in the understanding, development, implementation and verification of SAM.

The conference will result in a summarized report documenting major best international practices, which will be disseminated to the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI).

(ISAMC 2018) activities will be held in parallel to the 7th International Workshop on CANDU Safety Association for Sustainability (CANSAS-2018). Since the two events will be at the same location, participants from ISAMC-2018 and CANSAS-2018 will be able to attend speaking series from both events.

Conference format

Presentations on current practices and challenges in SAM implementation are currently being solicited. Several presentations followed by discussion will be planned according to the suggested topics below. The preliminary schedule for the conference is as follows:

• Day 1: Post-Fukushima enhancements of the SAM requirements, principles, strategies and procedures.
• Day 2: Equipment for accident management.
• Day 3: Human factors considerations under accident conditions.
• Day 4: Use of Research and Development (R&D) results in strengthening accident management effectiveness. This day will also be used to provide an overall summary of the conference and discuss the way forward on the above topics.

More details on these topics follow in the next section.

Background

Since the Fukushima Daiichi accident, SAM practices have been developed substantially. Sharing information on these developments will benefit a wide spectrum of participants, including nuclear power plant personnel, developers of SAM guidelines, researchers in severe accident phenomenology, regulators and other experts.

This conference will promote sharing of the best practices in the development, implementation and verification of severe accident management. It will also foster international harmonization of approaches and understanding of the national specifics in SAM implementation, and enable identification of the current trends and potential challenges for future work.

Each theme of the conference will be addressed in one day. It begins with a plenary session and followed-up by three parallel sessions. The conference topics are organized as follows:

• Day 1: Post-Fukushima enhancements of SAM requirements, principles, strategies and procedures, including:
  • SAM development, implementation, update and maintenance
  • techniques used to evaluate SAM effectiveness (with consideration to Design Extension Conditions (DEC), multi-units aspects of SAM and spent fuel bays)
  • long-term impact and recovery considerations
• Day 2: Equipment for accident management, including:
  • use of, and requirements for, portable equipment and fixed dedicated equipment (i.e. emergency mitigating equipment (EME) and flex)
  • equipment operability in severe accident conditions (i.e. containment filter venting system (CFVS), passive autocatalytic recombiners (PARS), hydrogen risks and instrumentation needs)
  • application of DEC to SAM (i.e. design, assessment and survivability)
• Day 3: Human factors considerations under accident conditions, including:
  • human performance under accident conditions
  • organizational capabilities to manage the unexpected
  • interfaces between accident management and emergency preparedness
• Day 4: Plenary session on the use of R&D results in strengthening accident management effectiveness and conference closure.

Call for presentations

Closed.

Location and accommodations:

ISAMC-2018 will be held in Canada's capital, Ottawa, Ontario.
Ottawa Old City Hall
111 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada

To learn more about where to stay and what to do while in Ottawa, visit:
Ottawa Tourism

Language of the seminar and proceedings material

All presentations and discussions will be in English. A USB containing all presentations will be compiled and distributed at the end of the conference. Presentations may be published on the CNSC's website.

Key dates at a glance

• Presentation abstracts due by: June 1, 2018
• Last day for participation registration: July 1, 2018
• Extended summary and presentations due by: September 3, 2018
• Conference program emailed to participants by: September 28, 2018
• Conference: October 15–18, 2018

Registration and participation

Closed.

Contact information

For assistance with administrative details or for further information, please contact:

Suzanne Charron
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
280 Slater Street
P.O. Box 1046, Station B
Ottawa, ON K1P 5S9
Canada

Telephone: +1 613 947-0517
suzanne.charron@cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca