DEVELOPMENT OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANT SIMULATORS FOR SOVIET-DESIGNED NUCLEAR REACTORS.

The US Department of Energy (US DOE), under the US government's International Nuclear Safety Program (INSP), is implementing a program of developing and providing simulators for many of the Russian and Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) manage and provide technical oversight of the various INSP simulator projects for DOE. The program also includes a simulator technology transfer process to simulator design organizations in Russia and Ukraine. Training programs, installation of new simulators, and enhancements in existing simulators, are viewed as providing a relatively fast and cost-effective technology transfer that will result in measurable improvement in the safety culture and operation of NPPs. A review of this program, its present status, and its accomplishments are provided in this paper