TABLE OF CONTENTS The study of the operating experience available on similar installations is one of the principal sources of guidance criteria for the optimization of plants.
During the design, operation and safety evaluation phases of every plant, data should be continuously collected to give information which can be recycled into future activities. The following question should be asked about the occurrence of an event at a plant: Could it happen in the plant I am considering now? If the answer is yes then appropriate measures of prevention/mitigation should be taken, within the minimum technical times but without unjustified haste.
Various sets of design and safety criteria require that, during the important phases of a plant's life, the collection and recycling of experience are systematically performed within the responsible organization (see Appendix 3).
The first source of data, because of its universal nature, is the Incident Report System (IRS). This is jointly operated by the OECD and by the IAEA with information on events supplied by member countries. Often the contribution of the various countries is not in proportion with the respective number of operated plants due to local organization problems. Hopefully this situation will improve.
The next source is the private service supplied by the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) to its members. It represents a responsible and commendable response of the nuclear operators worldwide to the need to pool the available experience in order to attain ever safer plant operation.
The Licensee Event Report (LER)...
