ESFR-SIMPLE

The ESFR-SIMPLE Project (European Sodium Fast Reactor - Safety by Innovative Monitoring, Power Level flexibility and Experimental research) aims at challenging the current European Sodium Fast Reactor (ESFR) design to improve its safety and economics through implementation of innovative technologies in accordance with the ESNII roadmap. The project has 5 specific objectives:

  1. Rethink the ESFR design in order to simplify it and make it more cost-competitive, while still achieving resource sustainability and having safety reinforced by intrinsic behavior. This can be accomplished through reducing the size of the reactor, which will also allow taking advantage of Small Modular Reactors in terms of transportability, modularization, standardization, and flexible operation, all ultimately leading to improved economics.
  2. Assess impact of alternative technologies, such as metallic fuel and compact secondary system design, for the large-size ESFR on the economics and safety.
  3. Propose, develop and assess advanced methods of monitoring and processing operational data using Artificial Intelligence, e.g., to optimize fault detection in steam generators at an early stage.
  4. Produce new experimental data in order to assist in qualification of innovative components, such as expansion bellows, core catcher and thermo-electric pumps.
  5. Ensure that the knowledge generated in the project is shared not only among the project partner institutions, but also a wide of stakeholders in Europe and internationally. The project activities will also be informed by the public and other stakeholders’ perception of risks and benefits of ESFR technology. 

INR works on the assessment of the optimized secondary cooling system design for ESFR and studies pros and cons of using the new fuel type (metallic). The metallic fuel behavior in ESFR core will be analyzed based on unprotected loss of flow (ULOF) and unprotected transient overpower (UTOP) transients. We are also active in the small modular reactor (SMR) safety analysis. Accident prevention analyses deal with the investigation of transition from forced to natural circulation, the analysis of decay heat removal capabilities using decay heat removal (DHR) system(s) and the evaluation of the possibility of sodium boiling in the core. SMR flexibility enhancement studies will focus on the preliminary design and demonstration of the additional benefits of a flexible SMR-SFR based on thermal energy storage (TES) coupled to the secondary cooling loop. The main focus of the related experimental activities at INR is the ongoing preparation of the KARIFA facility operation at KIT, where sodium boiling can be achieved and single sodium bubbles can be produced by pulsed laser heating. Our experts will be active also improving related educational tools, thus compiling computational benchmarks, which will be selected by the project experts and adapted specifically for training purposes, focusing on skills and best practices of modelling SFRs.