ARCSC

Advanced Reactor Codes & Standards Collaborative

About

Mission

The mission of the Advanced Reactors Codes and Standards Collaborative is to ensure the development, alignment and timely availability of U.S., Canadian and international codes and standards needed to support large-scale advanced reactor deployment.

Background

This Advanced Reactors Codes and Standards Collaborative was created to meet the needs of stakeholders supporting the advanced reactors designs currently planned or in progress. This Collaborative will ensure coordination and engagement among Standards Development Organizations (SDOs), reactor designers, regulators, and other interested stakeholders to develop a roadmap of needs for new or updated codes and standards, to record which SDO is undertaking specific activities, and to track the progress of new and revised standards development. To assist the advanced reactor developers and designers in meeting their objectives and schedules, the development of consensus standards must move forward with a sense of urgency.

Objectives

The following objectives shall be the Collaborative’s primary focus:

  1. Facilitate information sharing as to the development of advanced reactor codes and standards underway within SDOs, and between SDOs, industry, regulators, and research organizations.
  2. Identify and gather advanced reactor developer standards needs from advanced reactor vendors, and from the national and international industry, regulators, and research organizations.
    1. Allow SDOs to identify if the needs for standards are currently being addressed and identify where there is a gap that requires additional resources to address the need.
    2. Facilitate an assessment on needed codes and standards, provide a prioritization of the results, and identify additional actions to be pursued.
  3. Inform and complement international and national efforts on advanced reactor codes and standards (e.g., IAEA NHSI, WNA).
  4. Provide information to the North America Advanced Reactor Roadmap Implementation Board to align near and long-term C&Ss collaborative actions with the NEI/EPRI Advanced Reactors Roadmap Codes and Standards building block.

Note: ARCSC considers harmonization to be the process of increasing alignment and consistency in requirements in codes and standards to enable their acceptance across jurisdictions. Harmonization should support equivalency and convergence towards alignment of common outcomes and safety objectives, but it does not necessarily mean that all requirements or means to achieve those outcomes must be made identical.

Membership

Membership of the Collaborative includes individuals from the Nuclear Energy Institute, Electric Power Research Institute, SDOs (e.g., American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Nuclear Society, CSA Group, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, etc.), U. S. Department of Energy, World Nuclear Association, International Atomic Energy Agency, regulators, advanced reactor developers, nuclear suppliers and operators, research laboratories, and other stakeholders as appropriate.