Safety improvements through lessons learned from operational experience in nuclear research facilities

Abstract

The French nuclear safety authority (NSA) and its technical support (IRSN) started very early a process aimed at producing experience feedback to enrich initial safety analyses of nuclear research installations. The evolution of the regulatory framework dealing in France with experience feedback was very progressive. A technical and administrative organisation has been set up. Simultaneously, an important event database has been made available. NSA also plays a crucial role to liven up experience feedback between different operators. Finally, this paper presents the assessment and evaluation by NSA of the operational experience feedback from research nuclear facilities in France. © 2006 Springer.