RPD Projects

Current projects

EU Management and Uncertainties of Severe Accidents (MUSA) Project (2019-2023) (http://musa-h2020.eu/)

  • Assessing the capability of SA codes when modelling SA scenarios for Gen. II/III/III+ reactor designs and SFPs by using the UQ methods.
  • Effect of existing/innovative SAMs on accident progression and ST mitigation
  • Establishment of a harmonised approach for the analysis of uncertainties and sensitivities associated with severe accident (SA) analysis among EU and non-EU entities.

ASTEC COMmunity (ASCOM) project

  • NUGENIA + project with focus on ASTEC development and validation as a fully reliable tool for SA analyses and SAM in a wide range of nuclear safety applications.

WAME Project (2019-2023): ‘Maintaining competence in nuclear technology (KEK) of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi)’

  • Development of a novel real-time program system to improve decision making in severe accident events in nuclear power plants (PhD).

IAEA CRP I31033 on  Advancing the State-of-Practice in Uncertainty and Sensitivity Methodologies for Severe Accident Analysis in Water Cooled Reactors (2019-2024).

  • Explore UQ-methodologies and their application to severe accident codes
  • KIT involvement: provide test data of QUENCH-06 and perform uncertainty quantification of ASTEC for the simulation of the QUENCH.06 test.
  • Application of UQ-tools to the assessment of the uncertainties of severe accident codes performing plant analysis
  • Other participants will use RELAP/SCDAP, SOCRAT and the UQ-tools such as RAVEN, SUNSET, URANIE and SUSA.  

H2020 Project McSAFER (High-Performance Advanced Methods and Experimental Investigations for the Safety Evaluation of Generic Small Modular Reactors): www.mcsafer-h2020.eu

  • Start: 1.9.2020 - 31.8.2023
  • Coordinator: KIT (Dr. V. Sanchez Espinoza)
  • Partners: The consortium consists of 13 partners  from EU and Latin America including nine countries e.g. Germany, France, UK, Belgium, Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, Spain, and Argentina
  • Scientific goals: The main objective of the McSAFER project is to advance safety research for Small Modular Reactors (SMR) by combining experimental investigations and innovative numerical simulations. Safety-relevant experiments are performed on European thermal hydraulic test facilities at KIT (COSMOS Facility), LUT (MOTEL facility) and KTH (HWAT facility). Experimental investigations of SMR-specific safety-relevant phenomena e.g. subcooled boiling, critical heat flux, cross-flow, transition from forced to natural circulation will enhance the understanding and provide important data for code validation. Advanced computational tools developed in previous European projects also coordinated by KIT e.g. HPMC and McSAFE will be applied to assess the safety features of the different SMR-concepts under investigations.

CAMIVVER (Codes and Methods Improvements for VVER Comprehensive Safety Assessment): www.camivver-h2020.eu

  • Start: 1.9.2020 - 31.8.2023
  • Partners: FRAMATOME (Coordinator), CEA, EdF, KIT, UPISA, Energorisk, INRNE
  • Scientific goal:  The main objective of the CAMIVVER project is to develop and improve codes and methods for VVER comprehensive assessment. Hence, neutronics and thermal-hydraulics and safety analysis codes used for the simulation of the VVER-plants under normal and accidental conditions will be improved, validated and applied to safety-relevant scenarios.

EU Artificial intelligence for the Simulation of Severe AccidentS (ASSAS) Project (2022-2026)

  • Partners: IRSN, JSI, KIT, KTH, TECNATOM S.A., ENEA, TU Delft, PHIMECA, IVS, CIEMAT, LLC ENERGORISK, BEL V, CS GROUP
  • Development of a proof-of-concept SA (severe accident) simulator based on the Accident Source Term Evaluation Code (ASTEC)
  • Demonstrating the feasibility of developing different types of fast-running severe accident simulators, while keeping the accuracy of the underlying physical models
  • First-of-its-kind extensive use of artificial intelligence algorithms for developing fast-running surrogate models for severe accident modelling

EU Safety Analysis of SMR with PAssive Mitigation strategies - Severe Accident (SASPAM-SA) Project (2022-2026)

  • Partners: ENEA, CIEMAT, CNRS, EDF, FZJ, GRS, INRNE, IRSN, KIT, KTH, LEI, POLIMI, RATEN, RUB, SINTEC, SSTC-NRS, SURO, TRACTEBEL, TUS, UNIROMA1, VTT, PSI, JRC
  • Investigating the applicability and transfer of the operating large-LWR reactor knowledge and know-how to the near-term deployment of Integral Pressurized Water Reactor (iPWR), in the view of severe accident and Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) European licensing analyses needs
  • Identification of plausible severe accident scenarios for iPWR designs
  • Studying the applicability of the existing experimental database to iPWR and identify new experimental needs
  • Assessing the capability of internationally recognized computational tools to describe the behaviour of the most promising iPWR designs during severe accident scenarios and to predict the resulting radiological impact on- and off-site

EU SEvere Accident Research and Knowledge ManagemenT (SEAKNOT) Project (2022-2026) (https://seaknot-project.eu/)

  • Partners: UPM, IRSN, CEA, LGI, ENEA, UNIPI, KIT, BECKER Technologies, FZJ, FRAMATOME GmbH, JSI, KTH; UJV; VTT; TRACTEBEL; PSI
  • Shaping up a roadmap for severe accident research in the coming ten years to achieve a substantial reduction of remaining uncertainties and measurable progress in the practical elimination of radiological consequences
  • Identifying the future experimental research needs required to support and further optimise SA mitigation measures
  • Strengthening the background and skills of young generations in the field

Past projects

  • McSAFE: High performance methods for reactor safety: http://www.mcsafe-h2020.eu/: The overall objective of the McSAFE project is to move the Monte Carlo based stand-alone and coupled solution methodologies to become valuable and widespread numerical tools for realistic core design, safety analysis and industry-like applications of LWRs of generation II and III including advanced depletion, optimal coupling of MC-codes to thermal-hydraulic solvers, time-dependent Monte Carlo and methods and algorithms for massively parallel simulations
  • HPMC: High-Performance Monte Carlo nuclear reactor core analysis: http://www.fp7-hpmc.eu/
  • FP7 CESAM Project: Code for European Severe Accident Management consisted  of  17 partners from 12 countries.