RINA: Guide for Nuclear Installation on Board of Marine Units

Classification society RINA has published the Guide for Nuclear Installation on Board of Marine Units.

This Guide was published on February 16th, 2023, and is effective from February 1st, 2023.

The purpose of this Guide is to provide some general requirements on nuclear installation on board marine units and establish basic requirements independent of the particular technology of the reactor or the type of marine unit on which the nuclear installation will be foreseen.

For this reason, this Guide will be completed in the next future by other publications dealing with:

1. specific technologies such as Pressurized Water Reactors, Molten Salt Rector, Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor and so on, establishing goals and functional requirements to reach
2. specific types of ships, such as passenger ships and ro-ro passenger ships, in particular regarding their safe return to port capabilities.

The basic philosophy of this document is to provide guidance for the arrangement and installation on board nuclear installation with the aim of minimizing the risks to the unit, its crew, and the environment in such a way that the safety, reliability, and dependability of the nuclear installation is equivalent to that achieved with new and comparable conventional oil-fuelled main and auxiliary machinery.

This Guide addresses areas that need special consideration when nuclear installation is installed on board with specific reference to Hull, Stability, Fire Protection, Machinery, Electrical, and automation systems.

This Guide applies to marine units, such as Nuclear Ships and Floating Facilities (Units), having on board nuclear installations to produce power for their own needs or for delivery to third parties.

This Guide highlights the safety issues connected to the nature of nuclear installation on board that could have harmful effects on the crew, passengers, people on board in general, the population, and the environment.

This Guide recommends safety standards and criteria for Units having on board nuclear installation, their classification principles and procedure as well as design and testing requirements to be met to ensure safety.

Safety standards and criteria, systems, and arrangements alternative to those indicated in this Guide can be considered, provided that they meet an equivalent level of safety.

The equivalence is to be demonstrated through documented comparative risk analysis to be submitted to the Society for review.