Session: 04-05: SMRs, Advanced Reactors and Fusion

Paper Number: 138751

138751 - Challenges in the Analysing the Next Water Smr Evolution 

Abstract: 

Several activities are ongoing in European Union (EU) to prepare the country members on Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technologies with particular attention on the feasibility to license them in the host locations. These technologies offer solutions on the energy demand offering a strong nuclear safety resilience due to their passivity and their approach in taking into account the power density with different solutions (such as Helium, Metal Liquid, Molten Salt and Super Critical Water as main coolant) than the classic Light Water Reactor (LWR). Among those concepts, there are the SMRs based on Generation IV International Forum (GIF) which are supported by a research agreement between several different countries worldwide. For this reason, some of EU member countries started several initiatives to be ready to license the Gen. IV reactors modifying the actual legislation based on the LWR technology.

In particular, a joint consortium between Europe, China and Canada is developing a SMR based on Super Critical Water as coolant and moderator. The project financed by Europe, Canada and China is named ECC-SMART. The consortium is composed by several institution and research units, which has a consolidated experience in the super critical water technology. In particular, the ECC-SMART Work Package 5 (WP5) is dedicated to develop the pre-licensing study of the conceptual design with particular attention on the limitation in the actual legislation adopted in Europe and underlying the issues regarding the development of such complex facility. In the WP5, two of the four tasks are completed and ongoing for an evaluation the maturity of the design, a description of issues in the legislation, and generally open problematics, which need to be resolved. For an example, it is going to be analyzed technological challenges such as the Deteriorated Heat Transfer in the transition from sub critical and super critical regimes, the materials used to manufacture fuels and components and peak power factor in comparison the adopted legislations.

Aim of this paper is to introduce the safety-related features and issues regarding some regulations implemented in the consortium member countries analyzed in the WP5 as main reference for a possible installation of a super critical water SMR in the local grid. Additionally, some issues and safety-related features regarding the super critical water technology will be introduce in order to give a complete overview of the stage of development of the ECC-SMART SMR. At the end, the paper will also introduce the next step in the roadmap to develop the SMR based on the super critical water technology.

 

Presenting Author: Guido Mazzini Centrum výzkumu Řež s.r.o.

Presenting Author Biography: later

Authors:

Guido Mazzini Centrum výzkumu Řež s.r.o.
Jiří Duspiva Centrum výzkumu Řež s.r.o.
Jan čAda Centrum výzkumu Řež s.r.o.
Monika šÍpová Centrum výzkumu Řež s.r.o.
Andrej Prošek Jožef Stefan Institute
Leon Cizelj Jozef Stefan Institute
Ivan Otić Karlsruher Institut für Technologie
Alberto Saez Maderuelo CIEMAT
Juan Carlos De La Rosa Blul European Commission (JRC-Petten)
Attila Kiss Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Szabolcs Czifrus Budapest University of Technology and Economics