The release of radionuclides during a nuclear incident can lead to widespread environmental contamination, with these radionuclides eventually finding their way into plants, animals, and food products. In the post-accident phase, the primary risk to the population comes from exposure through the consumption of food contaminated with radioactive deposits. This risk assessment is based on the...
The prevention of nuclear accidents is partly sized by a precise assessment of the quantity of radionuclides potentially emitted from nuclear fuel and transported into the environment for a given accidental sequence. LAMIR (a French acronym for Laboratory for the Analysis of the Migration of Radioelements) has specialized for many years in the development of experimental devices deployed in...
In case of a severe accident in a Sodium Fast Reactor (SFR), several successive physical phenomena, such as temperature rise, sodium boiling, in-vessel pressure increase, relocation of UO2 molten core and neutron fluxes evolution, are coupled. These phenomena can lead to power excursions. In order to inhibit potential power excursions in SFR core in the case of a hypothetical severe accident,...
The Severe accident experimental lab of CEA IRESNE in Cadarache (LEAG) is a laboratory whose main mission is to increase the knowledge of corium behavior and thermophysical properties and performs experiments on its PLINIUS platform. “Corium” refers to melted core materials and by extension, to other melted materials gradually included all along the severe accident in the nuclear power plant....
A Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) in a nuclear reactor, where coolant levels drop significantly, can lead to core overheating and hydrogen generation through chemical reactions between the hot zirconium cladding and water. However, LOCA is not the only scenario where hydrogen production becomes a concern. Severe overheating, core melt scenarios, and even the radiolysis of water by intense...
Stable, accurate, and precise temperature measurements are critical for efficient reactor operation, reactor lifetime extensions, and for the advancement or reliable modeling and simulation routines. In addition, traditionally implemented thermocouples experience decalibration and drift when they are exposed to the high temperatures and neutron fluence, common to the next generation nuclear...
