Fuel Incident Notification and Analysis System (FINAS)
Background
What is FINAS?
FINAS is a system to exchange lessons learned from operating experience gained in participating Member States. The main objective of FINAS is to assure proper feedback on events of safety significance on a worldwide basis to help to prevent the occurrence or recurrence of incidents or accidents.
Fuel cycle facilities relevant for FINAS are: uranium and thorium mines and milling, refining facilities, conversion facilities, enrichment facilities, fuel fabrication facilities, radioisotope production facilities, waste treatment and conditioning facilities, fuel handling and intermediate storage facilities, reprocessing facilities, and fuel cycle research and development laboratories.
FINAS activity includes the collection, evaluation and dissemination of event reports, and the organization of meetings and workshops for participating Member States.
For further information please contact Geoffrey Jones.
How does FINAS operate?
FINAS is a system based on the voluntary commitment of participating Member States, which are responsible for selecting events to be reported to FINAS in a timely manner.
Participating countries designate a FINAS national co-ordinator for the receipt and distribution of information received from FINAS within his country, and for the transmission of information to the IAEA FINAS technical officer.
After review of the completeness of the report and conformance with FINAS Guidelines, the IAEA technical officer distributes the reports to FINAS national co-ordinators.
Why participate in FINAS?
It is understood that the systematic sharing of lessons learned from safety events is of prime importance to improve the operational safety of nuclear fuel cycle facilities.
For each safety significant event, its description, cause analysis, lessons learned including the implemented corrective actions provide valuable information to organizations professionally involved in the nuclear fuel cycle industry, such as regulators and their technical support, operating organizations, vendor companies such as design firms, engineering contractors, manufacturers, and research establishments working in the fuel cycle field.
Who is eligible to participate in FINAS?
Any Member State with:
- One or more fuel cycle facilities in operation, or
- A fuel cycle facility which is not operated but is not decommissioned, or
- A project to build a fuel cycle facility.
What should be reported?
Events of safety significance for the international community in terms of causes and lessons learned.
