Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

SiC composite claddings: LWR performance optimization for nominal and accident conditions

Project description

Innovative cladding will enhance nuclear reactor safety during normal and adverse conditions

Nuclear energy will play a key role in reducing emissions and mitigating climate change. In water-cooled reactors, the most critical part of fuel assemblies is the cladding. It encapsulates the fuel, retains fission products and transfers heat generated by the fuel to the surrounding water. Current cladding is prone to failure during accidents. Accident tolerant fuels (ATFs) are novel fuel and cladding materials concepts developed to withstand loss of coolant for longer or even indefinitely compared to current technologies. The EU-funded SCORPION project will address important weaknesses in promising silicon carbide fibre (SiC)/SiC matrix composite cladding material concepts for ATFs by highly innovative material tailoring on the nanoscale.

Objective

The Fukushima Daiichi event in 2011 demonstrated the need for enhanced nuclear energy safety, becoming a major driving force for global investments in accident-tolerant fuels (ATFs) over the past decade. Candidate ATF cladding material concepts that are being developed in replacement of the standard zirconium-based alloy (zircaloy) fuel cladding materials used in light water reactors (LWRs) must outperform commercial zircaloys under nominal operation, high-temperature transient (<1200°C) and accident (>1200°C) conditions. SiC/SiC composites are a rather revolutionary ATF cladding material concept exhibiting inherent refractoriness, pseudo-ductility, and a lack of accelerated oxidation during a loss-of-coolant scenario. Due to their unique potential in meeting the stringent property requirements of the ATF cladding application, SiC/SiC composites have already claimed large global investments. Despite these investments, all state-of-the-art variants of the SiC/SiC composite cladding material concept must still overcome inherent shortcomings prior to their perspective deployment. Two important weaknesses are their inadequate compatibility with the coolant (water and steam) and the early (<2 dpa) saturation of radiation-induced swelling during nominal operation. SCORPION strives for a radical improvement in the performance of SiC/SiC composite fuel claddings by highly innovative material tailoring on the nanoscale, so as to limit hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling, while also modifying the fibre/matrix interface for better stability under irradiation and in high-temperature oxidizing environments. SCORPION is an ATF application-driven international collaboration between Europe, the USA and Japan, which combines multidisciplinary scientific excellence, stakeholder know-how, and cutting-edge manufacturing approaches to produce proof-of-concept SiC/SiC composite cladding materials with a radically optimized performance for Gen-II/III LWR service environments.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

EURATOM-RIA - EURATOM Research and Innovation Actions

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) HORIZON-EURATOM-2021-NRT-01

See all projects funded under this call

Coordinator

FONDAZIONE ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI TECNOLOGIA
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 252 500,00
Address
VIA MOREGO 30
16163 Genova
Italy

See on map

Region
Nord-Ovest Liguria Genova
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 252 500,00

Participants (12)

Partners (3)

My booklet 0 0