The EC MUSA Project on Management and Uncertainty of Severe Accidents: Main Pillars and Status

Luis Enrique Herranz (1) , Sara Beck (2) , Victor Hugo Sánchez-Espinoza (3) , Fulvio Mascari (4) , Stephan Brumm (5) , Olivia Coindreau (6) , Sandro Paci (7)

1 CIEMAT - Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas
2 GRS - Gesellschaft für Anlagen - und Reaktorsicherheit [Köln]
3 KIT - Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
4 ENEA - Agenzia Nazionale per le nuove Tecnologie, l’energia e lo sviluppo economico sostenibile = Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development
5 JRC - European Commission - Joint Research Centre [Petten]
6 IRSN/PSN-RES/SAM/LETR - Laboratoire d'étude de transfert des radioéléments
7 University of Pisa - Università di Pisa

In the current state of maturity of severe accident codes, the time has come to foster the systematic application of Best Estimate Plus Uncertainties (BEPU) in this domain. The overall objective of the HORIZON-2020 project on “Management and Uncertainties of Severe Accidents (MUSA)” is to quantify the uncertainties of severe accident codes (e.g., ASTEC, MAAP, MELCOR, and AC2) when modeling reactor and spent fuel pools accident scenarios of Gen II and Gen III reactor designs for the prediction of the radiological source term. To do so, different Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) methodologies are to be used for the uncertainty and sensitivity analysis. Innovative AM measures will be considered in performing these UQ analyses, in addition to initial/boundary conditions and model parameters, to assess their impact on the source term prediction. This paper synthesizes the major pillars and the overall structure of the MUSA project, as well as the expectations and the progress made over the first year and a half of operation.

Mots clés: nuclear fission; safety; severe accidents; BEPU; accident management; uncertainty quantification; source term

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]; Statistiques [stat]

Luis Enrique Herranz, Sara Beck, Victor Hugo Sánchez-Espinoza, Fulvio Mascari, Stephan Brumm, et al.. The EC MUSA Project on Management and Uncertainty of Severe Accidents: Main Pillars and Status. Energies, 2021, 14 (15), pp.4473. ⟨10.3390/en14154473⟩. ⟨irsn-04114010⟩