Confidential

We supported our international Client through the engineering substantiation process required for the UK Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process.

To best assist this Client, we chose to form a multi-disciplined team of Engineers and Safety specialists to perform the pre-GDA. The personnel had a range of experience covering the Design, Build, Licensing and Operation of Nuclear Reactors and other nuclear facilities. Members of the DBD team also had past experience of supporting other international reactor vendors to undertake the UK GDA process.

A technical review of the Design and Safety aspects of the vendor’s Reactor Technology was performed. This high level assessment was focused on identifying any issues that might arise due to discrepancies between UK Design, Operational and Safety standards and the vendor’s reactor proposal.

The DBD team produced a suite of documents describing the application of the GDA process to the Client's proposed technology in terms of the requirements of key steps, deliverables, decision points, milestones and the roles of the organisations involved. These documents illustrated in a concise manner the scope of the commitment required from the international vendor.

DBD produced the following documents during the exercise:

• Timelines illustrating the key steps, deliverables, decision points and milestones throughout the GDA process. The timelines were mapped out in ‘swim lanes’ to identify the roles of the vendor, regulator and stakeholder organisations etc. within each of the steps;


• Organisation charts for the UK- and vendor organisations, indicating the individual roles and responsibilities required within each phase of the GDA process;


• A report to accompany the timelines and organisation charts, detailing the key steps, roles and responsibilities, support functions and practicalities of working within the UK

A set of technical review documents covering the following topics:

• UK Licensing and Process Design and Safety principles


• Equipment Classification and Qualification


• Safety Assessment (hazard identification and analysis, environmental impact assessment, radioactive waste generation, security, radiation protection etc.)


• Engineering Design (control, electrical & instrumentation, civil, process, mechanical, fuel design and reactor chemistry etc.)


• Construction, Installation, Commissioning, Operations and Maintenance


• Other topics such as Organisational Structure, Implementation Plans and Risk Registers etc.