Initial Startup of Advanced Reactors Working Group

The Reactor Physics Division is hosting a panel discussion of the need for and development of a standard to address the initial fuel loading and startup testing of a demonstration first-of-a-kind reactor. Members of this expert panel will include program leaders from actual past reactors. The panel will include commercial reactor physics software developers with NQA-1 software quality experience. The panel will also include regulatory authority on advanced reactor licensing. Modeling software being used to design advanced reactors (fission batter, micro-, SMRs) today is typically validated using pre-existing peer reviewed integral benchmarks. Although benchmarking activities are very rigorous, the propagated uncertainties for as-built reactor systems can still be quite large. Additionally, the advanced reactor systems being considered today frequently have significant differences when compared with the historical reactor systems for which benchmarks are founded. Physics testing during reactor startup is the final opportunity for characterizing data uncertainty before hot full power operation. Therefore, a best practices standard is needed to provide guidance on how to leverage traditional startup procedures with software validation methods.