| Abstract: | The IAEA Symposium on Fire Protection and Fire Fighting in Nuclear Installations covered a large scope in the field in order to provide the opportunity for screening all aspects of present technology, research and development, standardization, licensing and fire fighting practices. Although application to any nuclear facility was within its scope, the majority of presentations concerned nuclear power plants. The approach to fire protection is the classical one in all plant designs: reduction of fire loads, appropriate zoning, manual and automatic extinguishment. However, methods of analysis and consequence prediction are changing. Computerized fire modelling is becoming a powerful tool in this area; probabilistic analytical methods are being improved, though they are not yet used widely for fire hazards. Differences in opinion were revealed in the definition of barrier resistance, the prediction of cable insulation behaviour and the optimal design of extinguishing systems. Greater international co-operation, especially in these areas, may be a good way of optimizing results with limited resources. Discussion contributions showed interest in exchange of experience in more specialized topics and encouraged the IAEA to increase its activity in the area of fire protection. |
