The area’s main objective is to train personnel capable of formulating and analyzing safety problems in industrial installations in general and in PWR-type reactors in particular.
Researches developed by the area aim to provide:
- Elements of assessment for the various problems related to the safety of nuclear installations to the responsible authorities;
- An independent view of the risks associated with such facilities to the general public.
Lines of research currently underway in the area are as follows:
- Application of Generalized Perturbation Theory (GPT) to safety systems reliability engineering problems;
- Stochastic modeling for analyzing the unavailability of industrial facilities protection systems;
- Application of probabilistic fracture mechanics to the analysis of structural reliability of pressurized vessels;
- Application of efficient numerical methods to reliability engineering problems, in the context of non-Markovian reliability models;
- Application of stochastic models to the reliability analysis of repairable components of nuclear power plants;
- Application of parametric models for the treatment of common cause failures;
- Application of genetic algorithms and optimization problems for inspection and testing of safety equipment, from the point of view of reliability;
- Deterministic safety analysis, addressing safety-related modeling of nuclear power plant components and systems, to simulate transients and accidents, even considering beyond design basis accidents.
