Updates to the IAEA Guide on Fuel Reliability and Performance

The IAEA Nuclear Energy Series (NES) Guide on the quality and reliability aspects in nuclear power reactor fuel engineering (NF-G-2.1) was published in 2015. The guide was intended to provide an overview of the interconnected issues of design, manufacturing and operation in fuel quality and reliability assurance. After the Fukushima Daiichi accident in 2011, the IAEA Safety Standards on the design of the reactor core has been fully revised as a new specific safety guide (SSG-52) which has been published in 2019. Therefore, the IAEA Guide NF-G-2.1 has been updated to reflect state of the art information on fuel reliability and performance issues, to maintain consistency with the recommendations stated in the new IAEA Safety Standards on the design of the reactor core (SSG-52) and to apply to newly developed advanced technology or accident tolerant fuels (ATFs) for light water reactors (LWRs) or fuels for LWR-based small modular reactors (SMRs). This revision provides comprehensive recommendations on fuel design changes, fuel manufacturing, qualification, in-reactor operation, and on-site services, with the objective to assist the IAEA member states to achieve excellence in fuel reliability and performance. This paper presents the major updates to the IAEA Guide NF-G-2.1 Revision 1.