Baseline design criteria. Each prospective applicant or licensee shall address the following baseline design criteria in the design of new facilities. Each existing licensee shall address the following baseline design criteria in the design of new processes at existing facilities that require a license amendment under § 70.72. The baseline design criteria must be applied to the design of new facilities and new processes, but do not require retrofits to existing facilities or existing processes (e.g., those housing or adjacent to the new process); however, all facilities and processes must comply with the performance requirements in § 70.61. Licensees shall maintain the application of these criteria unless the analysis performed pursuant to § 70.62(c) demonstrates that a given item is not relied on for safety or does not require adherence to the specified criteria.

Quality standards and records. The design must be developed and implemented in accordance with management measures, to provide adequate assurance that items relied on for safety will be available and reliable to perform their function when needed. Appropriate records of these items must be maintained by or under the control of the licensee throughout the life of the facility.

Natural phenomena hazards. The design must provide for adequate protection against natural phenomena with consideration of the most severe documented historical events for the site.

Fire protection. The design must provide for adequate protection against fires and explosions.

Environmental and dynamic effects. The design must provide for adequate protection from environmental conditions and dynamic effects associated with normal operations, maintenance, testing, and postulated accidents that could lead to loss of safety functions.

Chemical protection. The design must provide for adequate protection against chemical risks produced from licensed material, facility conditions which affect the safety of licensed material, and hazardous chemicals produced from licensed material.

Emergency capability. The design must provide for emergency capability to maintain control of:

Licensed material and hazardous chemicals produced from licensed material;

Evacuation of on-site personnel; and

Onsite emergency facilities and services that facilitate the use of available offsite services.

Utility services. The design must provide for continued operation of essential utility services.

Inspection, testing, and maintenance. The design of items relied on for safety must provide for adequate inspection, testing, and maintenance, to ensure their availability and reliability to perform their function when needed.

Criticality control. The design must provide for criticality control including adherence to the double contingency principle.

Instrumentation and controls. The design must provide for inclusion of instrumentation and control systems to monitor and control the behavior of items relied on for safety.

Facility and system design and facility layout must be based on defense-in-depth practices. 1 The design must incorporate, to the extent practicable:

1 As used in § 70.64, Requirements for new facilities or new processes at existing facilities, defense-in-depth practices means a design philosophy, applied from the outset and through completion of the design, that is based on providing successive levels of protection such that health and safety will not be wholly dependent upon any single element of the design, construction, maintenance, or operation of the facility. The net effect of incorporating defense-in-depth practices is a conservatively designed facility and system that will exhibit greater tolerance to failures and external challenges. The risk insights obtained through performance of the integrated safety analysis can be then used to supplement the final design by focusing attention on the prevention and mitigation of the higher-risk potential accidents.

Preference for the selection of engineered controls over administrative controls to increase overall system reliability; and

Features that enhance safety by reducing challenges to items relied on for safety.