Nuclear Safety Research

The Nuclear Safety Research Programme is divided into three topic areas: Nuclear Reactor Safety, Safety of Nuclear Waste Disposal, and Radiation Protection.

The Nuclear Reactor Safety topic involves work on reactor and plant design as well as on phenomena and processes in the case of incidents within or events beyond the design basis. International developments are studied and co-designed under the aspects of reactor safety, new safety concepts, new technologies and minimising radioactive wastes, and are assessed in comparison with existing reactors.

For the topic Safety of Nuclear Waste Disposal, work is being done, on the one hand, on immobilising highly radioactive wastes by means of vitrification and on reducing the radiotoxicity of the minor actinides by means of partitioning and transmutation. On the other hand, various final disposal concepts in deep geological repositories are being studied. An important aspect here is to define and validate standards for certifying the long-term safety of final repository systems based on geochemical criteria, independent of site, but considering the specific utilisation. In radiation protection research, scientists are developing methods for determining person-specific radiation dosages and recommend measures for radiation protection when radionuclides are identified in the environment, in foods, as well as in cases of radiation exposition in medical treatment, plus emergency protection following possible nuclear facility incidents.