INGSM-15, 2014 A.J. Wickham, Nuclear Technology Consultancy, Builth Wells, UK and The University of Manchester, UK F. Reitsma, IAEA, Vienna, Austria

162 Member States 2557 staff €344 million budget in years of international service Director General Yukiya Amano appointed Dec 2009

 Nuclear Safeguards (major part of budget)  The Nuclear ‘Police’ Force... negotiates protocols and makes inspections  Support for Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy  Documentation to provide guidance to Member States... NOT to make policy or to prescribe procedures  Databases  Knowledge Bases  Technical Meetings  Collaborative Research Programmes (‘CRPs’) ALL 4 OF THESE COVER NUCLEAR GRAPHITE ...ALL 4 OF THESE COVER NUCLEAR GRAPHITE

Crystal structure ‘a’ spacing x m ‘c’ spacing x m Density g/cm 3  a = x K -1 ( o C)  c = 26 x K -1 ( o C) ‘ab’ stacking Graphite has a unique structure

Irradiation Damage by Neutrons

We seek to learn from the behaviour of existing graphites how new graphites will behave and how existing graphites will perform at fluences we have not yet reached

 1995: issue of potential ‘loss’ of knowledge highlighted at IAEA Specialist Meeting in Bath, UK  IAEA commissions AJW to prepare a proposal for debate at IWGGCR – accepted, but no funding  UK nuclear regulator recognises value for UK reactor life extension and agrees to fund the development and start-up

 Debated at several IAEA meetings (principally with UK, Germany, USA, Japan, France, China and Russia interested)  Database formally commenced in 1999 with UK handing full development and IPR to IAEA  For different reasons, France and Russia do not formally participate at present: the current membership is: Germany (FZJ), Japan, Rep. Of Korea, Lithuania, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, The United States of America, P.R. China, Ukraine

Consequently, the current version of the Database uses Microsoft Excel Over 34,000 lines of data

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Quality Assurance cannot be applied retrospectively to old data sources, but the technical steering committee reviews all source reports on the basis of its collective experience... Rigorous QA is applied to the data-input process

Decision taken to collect the historical and current documents relating the irradiation behaviour of nuclear graphites to assist the next generation of nuclear engineers: newly-written overview documents being created at two levels – relatively simple for public consumption, and detailed technical level for project participants

Restricted Knowledge Base Levels of access -Project members Detailed Reports -Current technical reports -Historical scanned reports Navigation -Context searching -Tagging -Related documents

Restricted Knowledge Base: Principal Topic Areas accessible through Individual Folders Plus Definitions Codes

One stop shop for historical and current knowledge - Incorporating the numerical database - Linking related initiatives (INGSM, CRPs etc.) Immediate access to recent knowledge updates - Recently acquired knowledge - Scanned historical publications Strengthening the global community - Relevant position on graphite research and/ or operating experience in participating member states - Enabling access to satellite knowledge bases Knowledge Base Benefits

 Used as repository for CRP documents on ‘Irradiation Creep in Graphite’  Development of other sections into ‘topic folders’  BUT: had to be hosted externally with significant costs until...  IAEA introduced Sharepoint on own servers (mid-2012)  Transfer effected with IAEA departmental funding for further software development  Subsequently, no hosting charges  BUT: major issues between MicroSoft SharePoint security and IAEA firewall for external users! Led to a delay of over one year in progressing the ‘population’ of the Knowledge Base

 Thanks to the efforts of IAEA Nuclear Energy Division and IT staff, these problems appear to have been overcome  The problem has been addressing reference documents via hyperlinks on Excel spreadsheets... Solution seems to be to replace these with direct URLs opening in a new window...  So NOW is the time to address who the users of 2015 and the future will be, and what their needs are... And that means YOU!

 Bibliographies (UK Environment Agency proposal on i-graphite investigations being one example)  Additional reference books (subject to copyright issues)  Archive documentation from research investigations (including, but not limited to, CRPs)  Personal memoirs... ...more material waiting to be added very shortly following a major review of the system and how it is operating (in December 2014)

 A special meeting is being held in Vienna in December (11 th -12 th ) with IAEA IT people to make sure we are getting the It right  This is NOT limited to the formal Technical Steering Committee (TSC) – anyone who would like to participate and can make a useful contribution is welcome to ask for an invitation  TSC will convene March 26 th -27 th 2015 to resume the business of populating the KB

In the first instance contact either: (scientific secretary) or (current chairman, technical steering committee)

Go to: click ‘NUCLEUS’ tabwww.iaea.org Register (first time), or log on Go to KB URL ( First time, complete ‘request for access’ You will quickly be notified that access is available Thank you for your attention!