Nuclear Safety Case

Tender description

The GDF design, construction and regulatory approval will be based on a number of safety cases which will be developed by NWS. The business does not have the internal capability to self deliver and the requirement is not enduring througout the GDF programme and beyond. <br/><br/>The business has identified a need to have access to specialist support on nuclear safety cases and associated capability.<br/><br/>A multi-Lot framework agreement providing the best access to a broad range of specialist capability from a range of suppliers providing both competition and resilience in the marketplace. Lot 1: Lot 1 - Safety Case Authors Safety case authors able to deliver top level safety reports, and effectively summarise more detailed, underlying documentation from the wider safety case. At this time, the main requirement will be for generalist safety case authors who have experience in the hazards arising from the handling of radioactive waste. Lot 5: Lot 5 - Operational Environmental Operational Environmental Safety Assessment/ development of the preliminary BAT case, including:<br/>• Understanding of the regulatory context, environmental permitting and land-use planning requirements <br/>• Understanding of atmospheric dispersion modelling and key features of specific software packages<br/>• Understanding of dispersion modelling with respect to non-radiological pollutants and environmental behaviour of non-radiological pollutants<br/>• Understanding of principles of biosphere modelling, including human and non-human biota<br/>• While this framework is primarily focussed on the safety case for the Operational Phase of the GDF (including construction), skills and experience relevant to the Post-Closure safety case would also be desirable, although not essential Lot 6: Lot 6 - Conventional Safety The GDF will be a large scale construction project with significant hazards especially those associated with underground working, mining, fire etc. Early consideration of these hazards will be required outlining the key conventional safety issues and summarising the work done to date to develop appropriate Hazard Management Strategies. Although early in the process, sufficient information needs to be developed to build confidence that conventional safety risks can be adequately managed going forward. Lot 2: Lot 2 - Radiological At this stage (pre-concept), assessment will be limited to high level identification of potentially viable Hazard Management Strategies and broad scoping studies. Skills will be required in the following areas:<br/>• Radiological Safety (Fault) Assessment (deterministic and probabilistic)<br/>• External Hazards<br/>• Internal Hazards <br/>• Radiological Consequence Assessment<br/>• Dose and Shielding Assessment<br/>• Hazard Identification (HAZOP) Lot 3: Lot 3 - Criticality Safety Assessment Requirement is for criticality HAZAN authors and specialists in criticality modelling (code drivers) to undertake review of existing criticality studies with the aim of demonstrating a criticality case can be made based on the proposed nuclear waste inventory. There will also be the need to start to develop criticality hazard management strategies. Lot 4: Lot 4 - Human Factors Human factors will be an important consideration within the design process, and it is anticipated that it will place a number of important requirements on the design. However, at this early stage in the design process human factors input is going to be at a principle level rather than anything specific, probably around initial thoughts on a HF implementation plan.