Nuclear Energy for New Europe 2009

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No: 302

Conference: Nuclear Energy for New Europe 2009

Title: Education of PSA Engineers at EDF : Lessons Learned from a Pilot Training Session

Theme: Probabilistic Safety Assessment

Author(s): Dominique Vasseur, Anne Marie Bonnevialle, Jean Jacques Le Mignot

Contact : Dominique Vasseur

E-mail: dominique.vasseur@edf.fr

Address: Electricité de France
92140 Clamart

Country: France

Today, EDF has a PSA reference model (level 1+ internal events) for each series of French nuclear power plants: the 900 MW series (34 units), the 1300 MW series (20 units), and the 1450 MW series (4 units). The scope of these models is currently under development and a lot of resources are also devoted to PSA applications. Since the first EDF model developed in 1990 for the 1300MW series, PSA models and their results have played an increased role at EDF, in conjunction with deterministic data, in the decision making process for design and operation. In order to back up the technical adequacy of PSA models and applications, a Fundamental Safety Rule has been written in 2002 by the French Safety Authority and EDF. But producing PSA models and applications of quality requires also a high level of competence among the PSA practitioners as it is stated by law for activities regarding nuclear safety (“Arreté qualité 10 aout 1984”).
Currently, EDF risk professionals mainly learn what they need to know about PSA by on-the-job training. There are some general training courses about nuclear safety, reliability methods and tools, … But until now, no global and consistent PSA-specific education programs were available. Under those conditions, EDF new PSA engineers needed about 3 years to get a comprehensive knowledge of PSA and sufficient practical experience. Moreover staff mobility has increased the last few years and makes it very difficult to maintain a high level qualification in the PSA teams.
Those are the reasons why EDF has decided to develop a curriculum of courses that can make EDF PSA engineers be quickly operational. Our goal is to reduce the qualification time from about 3 years to 1 year.
First, this article presents the organization we adopted to build the program : need analysis, definition of scope and specific goals in terms of master knowledge and practical abilities, proposal of a particular pedagogical answer, development of courses, launching of the first class. We went through those different steps in one year.
Then the pedagogical solution is described. We aimed to make sure that students will be really operational at the end of the program. We also tried to find solutions to make them take part in the courses and not only attend them.
Finally, the main lessons learned are identified and some feedback analysis is given on the first course series which occurred in April 2009.

No:	302
Conference:	Nuclear Energy for New Europe 2009
Title:	Education of PSA Engineers at EDF : Lessons Learned from a Pilot Training Session
Theme:	Probabilistic Safety Assessment
Author(s):	Dominique Vasseur, Anne Marie Bonnevialle, Jean Jacques Le Mignot
Contact :	Dominique Vasseur
E-mail:	dominique.vasseur@edf.fr
Address:	Electricité de France 92140 Clamart
Country:	France

Today, EDF has a PSA reference model (level 1+ internal events) for each series of French nuclear power plants: the 900 MW series (34 units), the 1300 MW series (20 units), and the 1450 MW series (4 units). The scope of these models is currently under development and a lot of resources are also devoted to PSA applications. Since the first EDF model developed in 1990 for the 1300MW series, PSA models and their results have played an increased role at EDF, in conjunction with deterministic data, in the decision making process for design and operation. In order to back up the technical adequacy of PSA models and applications, a Fundamental Safety Rule has been written in 2002 by the French Safety Authority and EDF. But producing PSA models and applications of quality requires also a high level of competence among the PSA practitioners as it is stated by law for activities regarding nuclear safety (“Arreté qualité 10 aout 1984”). Currently, EDF risk professionals mainly learn what they need to know about PSA by on-the-job training. There are some general training courses about nuclear safety, reliability methods and tools, … But until now, no global and consistent PSA-specific education programs were available. Under those conditions, EDF new PSA engineers needed about 3 years to get a comprehensive knowledge of PSA and sufficient practical experience. Moreover staff mobility has increased the last few years and makes it very difficult to maintain a high level qualification in the PSA teams. Those are the reasons why EDF has decided to develop a curriculum of courses that can make EDF PSA engineers be quickly operational. Our goal is to reduce the qualification time from about 3 years to 1 year. First, this article presents the organization we adopted to build the program : need analysis, definition of scope and specific goals in terms of master knowledge and practical abilities, proposal of a particular pedagogical answer, development of courses, launching of the first class. We went through those different steps in one year. Then the pedagogical solution is described. We aimed to make sure that students will be really operational at the end of the program. We also tried to find solutions to make them take part in the courses and not only attend them. Finally, the main lessons learned are identified and some feedback analysis is given on the first course series which occurred in April 2009.