A set of very general design criteria is useful in licensing by providing a check list for licensing authorities; however, it does not give the designers any design guidance because there are many different ways of satisfying the criteria. So to further these general rules, a set of Specific Design Criteria must be prepared, a number to each of the general criteria.

These specify how the particular system will do the job and they might even enlarge on the protection provided. For example, the specific criteria for number 60 will detail separate gaseous, liquid, and solid waste criteria for low, medium, or high radioactivity levels during normal operation and during accident conditions. These criteria will specify numerical levels of radioactivity in various storage locations and even possibly detail volumes and rates of effluent release. These are then immediately useful to the designers and they provide the safety engineer with a detailed yardstick for measuring the safety of the design against his own safety evaluation.

Of course the safety engineer will also have to satisfy the AEC that the specific set of criteria do indeed satisfy the intent of the general set.