Inspectors in our Fault Analysis specialism assess the fault analysis work undertaken by dutyholders.
The dutyholders’ fault analysis identifies all the potential events that can affect the safety of their facility, determines their potential consequences, and identifies suitable and sufficient means to prevent, protect or mitigate against them.
Our fault analysis specialism includes the following sub-specialisms:
- Fault Studies – these inspectors consider the analysis of physical processes to predict how potential faults progress and determine how the identified safety measures will respond.
- Fuel and Core – these inspectors consider the safety analysis of the nuclear fuel used within a reactor core; inadequate performance could lead to a reactor which is difficult to control or susceptible to overheating.
- Probabilistic Safety Analysis – these inspectors consider the development and use of probabilistic models by dutyholders to justify the safety of a facility and to risk inform its design and operation.
Our inspectors’ work is vital to ensuring safety at nuclear sites as it is essential that the dutyholder has correctly determined the safety performance of nuclear fuel. They must also understand how potential faults progress and control the risks from their operations.