SAMOFAR

Safety Assessment of the Molten Salt Fast Reactor - SAMOFAR

The grand objective of SAMOFAR is to prove the innovative safety concepts of the MSFR by advanced experimental and numerical techniques, to deliver a breakthrough in nuclear safety and optimal waste management, and to create a consortium of stakeholders.

The SAMOFAR consortium consists of 11 participants. This fundamental part is mainly executed by universities and research laboratories, like CNRS, JRC, CIRTEN, TU Delft and PSI, thereby exploiting each other’s unique expertise and infrastructure.

Leader: SAMOFAR Project
Headquarters: Delft, Netherlands
Reactor type: Molten Salt Fast Reactor
Start of operations: 2015
Main investors: European Commission
Website: SAMOFAR.eu

Partners
CNRS is a research institute with many branches and with strong expertise on the MSFR reactor design and integral safety assessment, and on experimental research with molten salts, both in the field of physics (loop experiments) and chemistry (chemical separation processes). JRC is leading in Europe with fundamental experimental research on molten salt thermo-dynamics and chemistry. It has an excellent infrastructure to investigate actinide-containing molten salts. CIRTEN has a strong reputation in experimental thermal-hydraulics and loop-dynamics as well as in numerical reactor design. TU Delft is an expert in fundamental experimental thermal-hydraulics and computational reactor physics. PSI is the leading Swiss institute on nuclear research with broad expertise, like the structural mechanics effects of some transients. CINVESTAV is the Mexican institute with strong materials expertise. All academic partners also strongly contribute to the education and training part of SAMOFAR.

Industry
Besides the work of fundamental nature, the input of TSO’s, industry and utilities is part of SAMOFAR as well. IRSN is the leading French TSO contributing strongly to the design of the integral safety assessment method. AREVA is Europe’s largest nuclear industry with huge experience on the reactor design, safety assessment and industrial standards. KIT and EDF will contribute with the industrially adopted safety assessment code SIMMER. CEA has many multi-disciplinary experts who will contribute to the complex multi-disciplinary design of the chemical plant combining chemical, nuclear, radiological and other industrial process technologies. The combined approach of the academic and industrial partners ensure the uptake of fundamental results into the industrial design processes and standards needed for the successful exploitation of the results.

SAMOFAR starts in August 2015

Goals for 2015 - SAMOFAR

The grand objective of SAMOFAR is to prove the innovative safety concepts of the MSFR by advanced experimental and numerical techniques, to deliver a breakthrough in nuclear safety and optimal waste management, and to create a consortium of stakeholders. SAMOFAR will prove the key safety features, like: