This Safety Guide provides recommendations and guidance based on international good practices in the construction of nuclear installations, which will enable construction to proceed with high quality. It can be applied to support the development, implementation and assessment of construction methods and procedures and the identification of good practices for ensuring the quality of the construction to meet the design intent and ensure safety. It will be a useful tool for regulatory bodies, licensees and new entrant countries introducing nuclear power plants and other nuclear installations.

This publication was prepared under the IAEA’s programme for Safety Standards and complements other Safety Guides that deal with all safety considerations in site evaluation regarding the effects of external events and population distribution. It supplements and provides recommendations on meeting the requirements for nuclear installations established in the Safety Requirements publication on Site Evaluation for Nuclear Installations (IAEA Safety Standards Series No. NS-R-3) in terms of the safety aspects to be considered during the stages of the selection process of a site for a nuclear installation.

This Safety Guide provides recommendations and guidance on instrumentation and control systems and software important to safety for research reactors, including instrumentation and control system architecture and associated components, from sensors to actuators, operator interfaces and auxiliary equipment. It also provides recommendations on computer based systems and software, including software requirements and design, verification and validation, integration, and operation. This publication also addresses safety classification, design, implementation, qualification and operation of instrumentation as well as control systems. The recommendations and guidance apply to both the design and configuration management of instrumentation and control systems for new research reactors and the modernization of the instrumentation and control systems to existing research reactor facilities. In addition, this Safety Guide provides recommendations and guidance on human factors engineering and human-machine interfaces, and for computer based systems and software for use in instrumentation and control systems important to safety.

This Safety Guide provides recommendations on meeting the requirements established in the IAEA International Basic Safety Standards, for protection of the public against exposure indoors due to natural sources of radiation. Guidance is provided on the application of the requirements for justification and optimization of protection by national authorities in considering control of natural sources of radiation indoors such as radon and radionuclides of natural origin in materials used for the construction of dwellings, offices, industrial premises and other buildings. The Safety Guide provides recommendations and guidance to be followed by the regulatory body and by other authorities and organizations with responsibilities in relation to exposure to radiation from natural sources.

This Safety Guide aims to aid users of radioactive material and regulators by providing a listing of relevant requirements of the regulations (IAEA Safety Standards Series No. SSR-6) as applicable to the type of radioactive material, package or shipment. Once a consignor has properly classified the radioactive material to be shipped (following the recommendations provided in Section 2 and Fig. 1 of this Safety Guide), the appropriate UN number can be assigned and the paragraph numbers of specific requirements for shipment can be found in the corresponding schedule.

This Safety Guide provides recommendations and guidance on achieving and demonstrating compliance with IAEA Safety Standards Series No. SSR-6, Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material (2012 Edition), which establishes the requirements to be applied to the national and international transport of radioactive material. Transport is deemed to comprise all operations and conditions associated with and involved in the movement of radioactive material, including the design, fabrication and maintenance of packaging, and the preparation, consigning, handling, carriage, storage in transit and receipt at the final destination of packages. This publication supersedes IAEA Safety Standards Series No. TS-G-1.1 Rev. 1, which was issued in 2008.

This Safety Guide provides recommendations on the basis of international best practices, as currently followed in IAEA Member States, on how to meet commissioning requirements for nuclear power plants. These requirements enable the commissioning of a nuclear power plant to proceed safely and to a high quality. The recommendations will also enable the necessary assurances to be provided that the plant has been constructed in accordance with the design intent and can be operated safely.

This Safety Guide provides guidance and recommendations on how to meet the relevant requirements for ensuring subcriticality when dealing with fissile material and for planning the response to criticality accidents. The guidance and recommendations are applicable to both regulatory bodies and operating organizations. The objectives of criticality safety are to prevent a self-sustained nuclear chain reaction and to minimize the consequences of this if it were to occur. The Safety Guide makes recommendations on how to ensure subcriticality in systems involving fissile materials during normal operation, anticipated operational occurrences, and, in the case of accident conditions, within design basis accidents, from initial design through commissioning, operation, and decommissioning and disposal.

This Safety Guide provides recommendations and guidance on how to meet the requirements established in Specific Safety Requirements No. SSR-2/1 and in General Safety Requirements No. GSR Part 4 for the identification of structures, systems and components (SSCs) important to safety in nuclear power plants and for their classification on the basis of their function and safety significance. This Safety Guide is intended primarily for use by organizations involved in the design of nuclear power plants, as well as by regulatory bodies and their technical support organizations. The Safety Guide can also be applied to other nuclear installations subject to appropriate adjustments relevant to the specific design of the type of the facility being considered.

This Safety Guide provides recommendations and guidance on how to plan and perform monitoring and surveillance programmes for disposal facilities for radioactive waste. The Safety Guide considers monitoring and surveillance for near surface disposal facilities, for geological disposal facilities and for facilities for the disposal of waste from mining and from mineral processing. The publication provides recommendations on how to use results from the monitoring and surveillance of radioactive waste disposal facilities over their entire lifetime. It covers the different objectives of monitoring and surveillance for the different periods of the lifetime of disposal facilities, from the initiation of work on a candidate site to the period after closure of the disposal facility.

This Safety Guide provides recommendations on how to meet safety requirements on the disposal of radioactive waste. It is concerned with the disposal of solid radioactive waste by emplacement in designated facilities at or near the land surface. The Safety Guide provides guidance on the development, operation and closure of, and on the regulatory control of, near surface disposal facilities, which are suitable for the disposal of very low level waste and low level waste. The Safety Guide provides guidance on a range of disposal methods, including the emplacement of solid radioactive waste in earthen trenches, in above ground engineered structures, in engineered structures just below the ground surface and in rock caverns, silos and tunnels excavated at depths of up to a few tens of metres underground. It is intended for use primarily by those involved with policy development for, with the regulatory control of, and with the development and operation of near surface disposal facilities.

This Safety Guide is issued in support of Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material (IAEA Safety Standards Series No. TS-R-1, 2009 Edition). It lists the paragraph numbers of the Transport Regulations that are relevant for specified types of consignment, classified according to their UN numbers. It does not provide additional recommendations. The intended users are consignors and consignees, carriers, shippers, regulators, and end users involved in the transport of radioactive material. A person or organization intending to transport a particular type of consignment of radioactive material must meet requirements in all sections of the Transport Regulations. This Safety Guide aids users by providing a listing of the relevant requirements of the Transport Regulations for each type of radioactive material, package or shipment. Once a consignor has classified the radioactive material to be shipped, the appropriate UN number can be assigned and the paragraph numbers of the requirements that apply for the shipment can be found in the corresponding schedule.