General Safety Criteria for the Korean Next Generation Reactor

In Korea, an evolutionary reactor called the Korean Next Generation Reactor (KNGR) is being developed. Safety and Regulatory Requirements and Guidance (SRRG) are also being developed for the regulation of the KNGR. The hierarchy of the SRRG consists of five tiers: Safety Objectives, Safety Principles (SP), General Safety Criteria (GSC), Specific Safety Requirements (SSR), and Safety Regulatory Guides.

The GSC set out general and comprehensive criteria used to determine that SP are complied with in the design and to provide fundamental bases for the development of SSR.

In this paper, the development approach, structure, and contents of the GSC are introduced. Particularly, the major features adopted for the safety enhancement of the GSC are addressed regarding such issues as severe accidents, human factors, shutdown and low-power operations, reliability, periodic safety review, radiation protection, and environmental-effect design bases.

The GSC have been reviewed by the experts of various fields. The finalized GSC were at the preannouncement stage of the legislation process in 2001 and are expected to contribute to ensuring the enhanced safety level of the KNGR.