Severe accident mitigation strategy for the generation II PWRs in France – Some outcomes of the on-going periodic safety review of the French 1300 MWe PWR series

The 3rd Periodic Safety Review of the French 1300 MWe PWRs series includes some modifications to increase their robustness in case of a severe accident. Their review is based on both deterministic and probabilistic approaches, keeping in mind that severe accidents frequencies and radiological consequences should be as low as reasonably practicable, severe accidents management strategies should be as safe as possible and the robustness of equipment used for severe accident management should be ensured.Consequently, the IRSN level 2 probabilistic safety assessment (L2 PSA) studies for the 1300 MWe reactors have been used to re-assess the results of the utility's L2 PSA and rank them to identify the containment failure modes contributing the most to the global risk. This ranking helped the review of plant modifications.Regarding strategies for accident management, the EDF management of water in the reactor cavity during a severe accident for the 1300 MWe PWRs is presented as well as the IRSN position on this strategy: this is an example where the optimal severe accident management strategy choice is not so easy to define.Regarding the robustness of equipment used for severe accident management, the interest of a diversification or redundancy of the French emergency filtered containment venting opening is one example among many others.This paper presents the analysis conducted by IRSN during the 3rd periodic safety review of the French 1300 MWe PWRs. Future NPP upgrades to limit radioactive releases in case of containment filtered venting, to prevent containment venting and basemat melt-through are analysed in another framework (post-Fukushima and long-term operation projects).