ECC-SMART Project

Joint European Canadian Chinese development of Small Modular Reactor Technology

DESCRIPTION of the ECC-SMART Project

This project has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2019-2020 under grant agreement No 945234.  This website contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

The ECC-SMART is oriented towards assessing the feasibility and identification of safety features of an intrinsically and passively safe small modular reactor cooled by supercritical water (SCW-SMR), taking into account specific knowledge gaps related to the future licensing process and implementation of this technology.

The main objectives of the project are:

  • to define the design requirements for the future SCW-SMR technology,
  • to develop the pre-licensing study and guidelines for the demonstration of the safety in the further development stages of the SCW-SMR concept, including the methodologies and tools to be used and to identify the key obstacles for the future SMR licencing,
  • and propose a strategy for this process.

To reach these objectives, specific technical knowledge gaps were defined and will be assessed to achieve the future smooth licensing and implementation of the SCW-SMR technology (especially behaviour of materials in the SCW environment and irradiation, evaluation of the codes and design of the reactor core will be developed, associated simulations and experiments).

The ECC-SMART project consortium consists of EU, Canadian and Chinese partners to use the trans-continental synergy and knowledge developed separately by each partner.

The project consortium and project scope were created according to the joint research activities under the International Atomic Energy Agency, Generation-IV International Forum umbrella and as many data as possible will be taken from the already performed projects.

This project brings together the best scientific teams working in the field of SCWR using the best facilities and methods worldwide, to fulfil the common vision of building a SCW-SMR in the near future.

VISIT THE PROJECT WEBSITE:

The main project website can be found at this link: https://ecc-smart.eu/

PROJECT NEWSLETTER

1st Issue = March 2021

2nd Issue = December 2021

3rd Issue = August 2022

4th Issue = August 2023

3rd in-person meeting! 22-24 April 2024, Brussels, Belgium

1st in person meeting after the project start! 21-23 September 2022, Prague, CVR premises

Organization of the Work

The work plan is built up to follow the basic project approach – to identify the knowledge gaps essential for future SMR-SCWR licensing and propose and validate methodologies for proper assessment in the future licensing process.

All the conclusions from the technical WPs will be assessed by the team of WP 5 to prepare the set of recommendations for the future licensing of SMR-SCWR.

The work of the proposed project will be divided into the following 6 work packages (WPs):

  • WP1 “Project Coordination” will be dedicated to project coordination.
  • WP2 “Materials Testing” will address material issues of the SCW-SMR (with a quite large test program) and will cover development and validation activities for online in-situ methods for corrosion monitoring in SCW.
  • WP3 “Thermal Hydraulics and Safety of the SCW-SMR” will address analytical, numerical and experimental evaluation of relevant thermal-hydraulic correlations and models in SCW and specifically the safety concept of the SCW-SMR.
  • WP4 “Neutron Physics of the SCW-SMR” will address the determination of neutron physics quantities in SCW environment and reactivity feedback coefficients;
  • WP5 “Synthesis and Guidelines for Safety Standards” will summarize the results and conclusions of the WPs 2, 3 and 4 and based on these will define science-based guidelines for the demonstration of the safety of the proposed SCW-SMR concept.
  • WP6 “Dissemination and Communication” covers all activities related to communication about the project and its content and dissemination of its results. Activities of WP6 include project website, exchange server for consortium members to exchange reports, the publication of project results at conferences and in scientific journals papers, organisation of workshops, training courses and symposia on the project content and organisation of an exchange program for young scientists.

PARTNERS

N° Participant organization name Short name Country
1 CENTRUM VYZKUMU REZ SRO CVR Czech Republic
2 JRC -JOINT RESEARCH CENTREEUROPEAN COMMISSION JRC Belgium
3 CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIONES ENERGETICAS, MEDIOAMBIENTALES Y TECNOLOGICAS-CIEMAT CIEMAT Spain
4 INSTITUT JOZEF STEFAN JSI Slovenia
5 UNIVERSITA DI PISA UNIPI Italy
6 THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD USFD United Kingdom
7 SLOVENSKA TECHNICKA UNIVERZITA V BRATISLAVE STUBA Slovakia
8 EUROPEAN NUCLEAR EDUCATION NETWORK ENEN Belgium
9 BUDAPESTI MUSZAKI ES GAZDASAGTUDOMANYI EGYETEM BME Hungary
10 THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM UNOTT United Kingdom
11 REGIA AUTONOMA TEHNOLOGII PENTRU ENERGIA NUCLEARA – RATEN RATEN Romania
12 IPP CENTRE LLC IPP Ukraine
13 Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy VTT Finland
14 CANADIAN NUCLEAR LABORATORIES LTD CNL Canada
15 SHANGHAI JIAO TONG UNIVERSITY SJTU China
16 KARLSRUHER INSTITUT FUER TECHNOLOGIE KIT Germany
17 KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN KTH Sweden
18 VYSOKA SKOLA CHEMICKO TECHNOLOGICKA V PRAZE VSCHT Czech Republic
19 UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BEIJING USTB China
20 NUCLEAR POWER INSTITUTE OF CHINA NPIC China

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