Enhancing Experimental Support for Advancements in Nuclear Fuels and Materials

Introduction

The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) is pursuing an agenda to enhance innovations in the nuclear arena to move new technologies to application more rapidly. In this context, the Nuclear Science Committee (NSC) has launched an initiative to strengthen experimental capabilities to test evolutionary and innovative nuclear fuels and materials. As a follow up to this initiative, the NSC will hold its international workshop to encourage stakeholders from industry, safety organisations, research institutions and experimental facilities for the purpose of ensuring best practices in experimental support for current and innovative fuels and materials and providing optimal use of experimental infrastructure.

Background

During the last decade, major improvements in the fields of materials science, instrumentation and large-scale simulation occurred, while the ability to evaluate the merits of innovations proposed by these improvements lagged behind, owing to the dwindling of experimental infrastructure. How best to utilise the existing and new experimental capabilities in order to support the deployment of fuels and materials remains an open question, key to improving the safety and economics of nuclear power. In the context of limited expertise, manpower and funding, there is the need for a concerted effort to harmonise approaches used in experimentation and optimise resources and deployment times. Building on the success of its activities and ongoing joint projects, the NEA is in a good position to help co‑ordinate these efforts.

Objectives

The goal of the workshop is to reach a consensus on how best to reduce the time required to deploy evolutionary and novel fuel and material concepts in commercial nuclear reactors, while at the same time maintaining or strengthening safety.

Topics that will be explored during the workshop include:

• mechanisms to enhance communication between industry, regulatory bodies, technical support organisations, research organisations and experimentalists in order to reach a mutual understanding of the requirements of the validation/qualification process for fuel/materials testing;
• industry drivers for evolutions and innovation; short- and long-term drivers in the area of safety and economics;
• safety perspective for the operation of current and innovative fuels and materials;
• potential added value of state-of-the-art instrumentation and the interaction between the data and advanced modelling and simulation;
• scientific and technological advances, issues and gaps in experimental infrastructure and techniques;
• optimal utilisation of existing infrastructure to support testing and qualification of fuels/materials;
• role of NEA and other international organisations in developing an international consensus on best practices in the area of fuels/materials testing and qualification.

Format

The 2.5-day workshop will cover five technical sessions featuring presentations by invited speakers from industry, TSOs, research institutes and experimental facilities. The workshop will also include discussions centred on the workshop objectives.

Agenda

Download the draft programme .

Contacts

Please send an e-mail to Dr Tatiana Ivanova () and Ms Lorella Pecorale () for any enquiries about the workshop.

Last reviewed: 17 January 2018