Quality Assurance in Sustaining Reliability of Nuclear Reactor Safety Systems

In nuclear reactors, a tremendous amount of thermal energy and radioactivity is generated due to fission reactions. Safety is in general an important aspect for any industry; however, the emission of significant nuclear radiation into the environment during an accident causing harm to humans both at the reactor site and off-site is the main safety concern. The three major nuclear accidents releasing radiation to the environment were–Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. To avoid these accidents in future, the demand for safety in nuclear installations has become more important. Nuclear industry from these accidents has learned and taken stringent steps toward ensuring a better reliability of safety systems that ensure cooling of reactor and fuel storage pond, shutting down of reactor and containing the radioactivity. Plant experience indicates that quality assurance during design, procurement, operation, maintenance, surveillance and human resource management have a direct bearing on the reliability of these safety systems. Based on a philosophy that effective quality assurance is inseparably linked to the fostering of an excellent safety culture and ensuring reliability, the implementation of quality management system based on IAEA standard is needed to achieve the desired safety and reliability objective. This paper presents the detailed activities carried out in quality assurance programme in a nuclear reactor to enhance the safety and reliability of nuclear reactor safety systems.