Development of the methodology and approaches to validate safety and accident management Original Research Article

The article compares the development of the methodology and approaches to validate the nuclear power plant safety and accident management in Russia and advanced industrial countries. It demonstrates that the development of methods of safety validation is dialectically related to the accumulation of the knowledge base on processes and events during NPP normal operation, transients and emergencies, including severe accidents. The article describes the Russian severe accident research program (1987–1996), the implementation of which allowed Russia to reach the world level of the safety validation efforts, presents future high-priority study areas. Problems related to possible approaches to the methodological accident management development are discussed.