The Role of the Engineered Barrier System in Safety Cases for Geological Radioactive Waste Repoitories: An NEA Initiaive in Co-Operations with the EC, Process Issues and Modeling

The Integration Group for the Safety Case (IGSC) of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Radioactive Waste Management Committee in co-operation with the European Commission (EC) is conducting a project to develop a greater understanding of how to achieve the necessary integration for successful design, construction, testing, modeling, and assessment of engineered barrier systems. The project also seeks to clarify the role that the EBS plays in assuring the overall safety of a repository. A framework for the EBS Project is provided by a series of workshops that allow discussion of the wide range of activities necessary for the design, assessment and optimization of the EBS, and the integration of this information into the safety case. The topics of this series of workshops have been planned so that the EBS project will work progressively through the main aspects comprising one cycle of the design and optimization process. This paper seeks to communicate key results from the EBS project to a wider audience. The paper focuses on two topics discussed at the workshops: process issues and the role of modeling.