European contribution to the ITER licensing

The DAC file (Demande d'Autorisation de Creation) is the principal document supporting the application for the licensing of ITER. It includes the Preliminary Safety Report (RPrS - Rapport Preliminaire de Surete) and the "Impact Study". On January 2008, the DAC was officially submitted to the French Nuclear Authority (ASN). To cope with the requests and recommendations given by the ASN to the earlier ITER Safety Options Report (DOS), CEA had taken commitments dealing with complementary information to be integrated into the RPrS. The necessary work had been implemented by EFDA (European Fusion Development Agreement) and, since its existence, by F4E (Fusion for Energy), in the EISS activities (European ITER Site Study) and in the European Safety Technology Work Programs. The executants of the work have been CEA-AIF (Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique -Agence ITER France), several European Associations (CEA, CIEMAT, ENEA, FZK and VR/Studsvik) and industry. All of them have been working in full cooperation with ITER Organization (IO). In addition some long term R&D tasks, which will have to be performed in parallel to ITER construction, have been defined and their implementation started. Typical examples are dust management (production, mobilization, diagnostic and removal), combined hydrogen/dust explosion models development and validation, demonstration of the feasibility of prevention/mitigation of in-vessel hydrogen/dust explosions and studies on magnet arcing behaviour and consequences. The final writing of the DAC and the related studies has involved the equivalent to 35 man-years of effort. Most of the resources have been focused on the fulfillment of the supporting files for the RPrS: lessons learnt from fusion experiments, R&D status of the fusion technology, safety operational limits, definition of the safety control system, development of a maintenance program, analysis of occupational radiation exposures, incorporation of human factors into the design, categorization of incidents and accidents, definition of design and safety codes and standards, criteria for design reviews, configuration control, waste management dismantling and demolition, safety analysis of internal and external hazards and security concerns. The remaining licensing effort has been dedicated to the environmental impact of the project and the coordination, preparation and presentation of documentation to the Safety Authorities. This paper summarizes the main outcomes of the European contribution to the ITER licensing process and the related ongoing and planned supporting R&D activities.