Current expertise methodology (3D3P method) as well as tools to assess source terms used in France (PERSAN) and in Sweden (RASTEP) were extended to these 5 European NPPs designs. The extension of these method and tools was improved and validated through a training session which was organized in May 2018 in Paris and gathered 38 participants from 22 European or non-Europeans countries. The project partners also worked on the inclusion of functionalities to produce or integrate atmospheric releases data in a standard format (IRIX) in order to link them with other initiatives focused on atmospheric transport, radiological consequence assessments and data assimilation.
In addition, an accident scenarios database was developed and contains more than one hundred description of scenarios including assessment of atmospheric releases performed by partners using reference codes (ASTEC, MELCOR and MAAP) for the 5 European NPPs and a generic concept of SFP.
At the end of the project, a comprehensive set of emergency exercises was developed and proposed to a large set of partners in order to demonstrate the operational capabilities of the FASTNET method and tools for emergency response. This demonstration was achieved through two distinct exercise activities:
(i) A first exercise addressed source term evaluations, to be compared to the reference source terms from the scenario database. It was held in December 2018, 23 participating organizations were registered (18 using PERSAN, 19 using RASTEP and 13 using both);
(ii) A second exercise focused on the main emergency objective of protecting the population. It was organized on February 22, 2019 in Vienna, 17 participating organizations were registered (5 using PERSAN, 9 using RASTEP and 3 using both).
These FASTNET method and tools will enable Emergency Centres to provide a fast, organized and reliable prediction of accident development and the anticipation of the atmospheric releases in order to better protect the population around most of European NPPs.
The high ambition of this large project was met through the organization of numerous meetings, workshops, trainings and exercises, to enhance the interaction between experts from the areas of severe accident management and of emergency management. All these occasions gave them the opportunity to develop a common language and facilitate their appropriation of the FASTNET tools and method. The implementation of the two exercises added an enormous value of the project.
