Project description
New models and experiments to increase safety of pressurised water reactors
Accurate modelling is crucial for ensuring nuclear reactor safety. Over the past two decades, advanced multi-physics solvers have been developed to improve simulations of pressurised water reactors (PWR) by leveraging the increased computer power available. Despite their potential, these tools are not sufficiently utilised owing to lack of experimental data for validation. The EU-funded EVEREST project’s main objective is to validate advanced multi-physics models by producing dedicated experimental data. The project will seek to demonstrate the usefulness of advanced multi-physics simulation for long-term operation applications of PWR (including Russian WWER), and specifically for the reactor pressure vessel fluence calculations. Project results could help enhance scientific knowledge for climate-neutral energy production, improve nuclear plant safety, and enable increased power output.
Objective
"The safety of a nuclear reactor relies heavily on modelling. In the last two decades, making use of the increased computer power available, advanced multi-physics solvers have been developed to reduce the level of conservatism when simulating pressurized water reactors. These tools rely on a first-principles based approach and produce solutions with a much finer spatial resolution. However they are seldom used in practice due to, amongst other things, the lack of dedicated experimental data for validation, especially when it comes to their improved spatial resolution.
The EVEREST project intends to address this issue by quantifying the impact of using advanced MP models for the modelling of a VVER reactor (""usefulness""); by demonstrating the accuracy of their results, especially the improved resolution through the production of dedicated experimental data (“trustworthiness”); and by promoting them to key groups of the nuclear engineering community (students, utilities, regulators). The consortium is built around the necessary research facilities and expertise from all the required actors of the nuclear industry, both within Europe and outside.
In terms of impact, the project will produce scientific knowledge towards producing electricity using a climate-neutral energy system, in a safe and efficient way. The advanced models will provide more accurate and detailed information about the current safety margins in nuclear reactors enabling more informed decisions on setting the regulatory limits; and resulting in an improvement of the plant safety as a whole. A better understanding of the safety margins for a nuclear power plant could also allow power uprate. The same approach can be envisioned for research reactors and allow more users to carry out research activities. Finally, the EVEREST project will have a long-term impact on knowledge preservation through the organization of a summer school and trainings as well as the funding of mobility grants."
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.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyother engineering and technologiesnuclear engineering
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencescomputational sciencemultiphysics
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EURATOM-RIA - EURATOM Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
50667 Koln
Germany