Jules Horowitz Reactor: a high performance material testing reactor

Abstract

The physical modelling of materials' behaviour under severe conditions is an indispensable element for developing future fission and fusion systems: screening, design, optimisation, processing, licensing, and lifetime assessment of a new generation of structure materials and fuels, which will withstand high fast neutron flux at high in-service temperatures with the production of elements like helium and hydrogen. JANNUS and other analytical experimental tools are developed for this objective. However, a purely analytical approach is not sufficient: there is a need for flexible experiments integrating higher scales and coupled phenomena and offering high quality measurements; these experiments are performed in material testing reactors (MTR). Moreover, complementary representative experiments are usually performed in prototypes or dedicated facilities such as IFMIF for fusion. Only such a consistent set of tools operating on a wide range of scales, can provide an actual prediction capability. A program such as the development of silicon carbide composites (600–1200 °C) illustrates this multiscale strategy. Facing the long term needs of experimental irradiations and the ageing of present MTRs, it was thought necessary to implement a new generation high performance MTR in Europe for supporting existing and future nuclear reactors. The Jules Horowitz Reactor (JHR) project copes with this context. It is funded by an international consortium and will start operation in 2014. JHR will provide improved performances such as high neutron flux ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:msup> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> <mml:mn>15</mml:mn> </mml:msup> <mml:mtext> </mml:mtext> <mml:mtext>n</mml:mtext> <mml:mo stretchy="false">/</mml:mo> <mml:msup> <mml:mtext>cm</mml:mtext> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msup> <mml:mo stretchy="false">/</mml:mo> <mml:mtext>s</mml:mtext> </mml:math> above 0.1 MeV) in representative environments (coolant, pressure, temperature) with online monitoring of experimental parameters (including stress and strain control). Experimental devices designing, such as high dpa and small thermal gradients experiments, is now a key objective requiring a broad collaboration to put together present scientific state of art, end-users requirements and advanced instrumentation.