www-cadarache.cea.fr/rjhcontact : rjh@cea.fr

CEA Cadarache 13108 Saint-Paul-lez-Durance

Current partnerships within the JHR consortium: research centres and industrial companies - 2015

An international projectThe JHR project gathers within an international consortium around the CEA, French industrial partners EDF and AREVA, the European Commission, together with Belgian, British, Czech, Finnish, Indian, Israeli, Spanish and Swedish research institutes, the CEA being the owner, nuclear operator and contracting authority.

In exchange of their financial participation, JHR consortium members will benefit from guaranteed access to experi-mental capacities of the facility to carry out their own research on material behaviour under irradiation.

Associated partner

NUCLEAR ENERGY DIVISION

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Studies related to fuel and material behaviour under irradiation are a fundamental challenge in terms of safety and competitivity of current and future nuclear power plants and their lifetime extension.

The JHR will allow these studies to be performed quickly and safely. With its technical and scientific platform and the broad scale of tests proposed, the JHR will be a unique experimental tool for observing and understanding material behaviour in an extreme nuclear environment.

The worksite and the economical impact

The JHR construction will, on average, generate 100 to 300 direct jobs and 300 to 1,000 indirect jobs depending on the different phases of the project. Nearly 150 people will be needed during the operation phase (scheduled for 50 years).

The JHR is scheduled to be commissioned by the end of the decade.

The successful installation of the reactor dome in December 2013 was a major mile-

stone of the reactor construction process.

A research reactorfor industrial and scientific applications

www-cadarache.cea.fr/rjh

The Jules Horowitz research Reactor (JHR), a project conducted by the Nuclear Energy Division, is an answer to a key technological and scientific challenge: testing fuel and material behaviour under irradiation in support of current and future nuclear reactors.

JHR, under construction at CEA Cadarache site, will represent in Europe a unique experimenting tool available to nuclear power industry, research institutes, nuclear regulatory authorities and their technical supports.It will also ensure the production of radioelements for nuclear medi-cine and non-nuclear industry.

JHR, Material and Fuel Testing Reactor for 21st Century Nuclear R&D

A major challengeStakeholders of the nuclear sector must be able to guarantee good integrity of reactors to enhance safety and competitivity of current nuclear reactors and develop new generations of even more efficient and reliable ones.

It is therefore fundamental to be able to test and qualify structural materials implemented and fuels used in reactor core. The JHR will allow this need to be met by performing irradiation programmes in a safe, quick and simple manner.

A unique experimental platformLocating the JHR at CEA Cadarache research centre falls within the solid nuclear research tradition developed for over 50 years on the site.

The exceptional scientific environment and the presence of several expert analytical laboratories have established Cadarache as a renowned experimental platform in Europe.

A very efficient research toolThe JHR is an experimental reactor. As opposed to a production reactor, it is not intended to generate electrical power, but only to provide scientific data concerning nuclear fuel and material behaviour when they are exposed to very high stresses (high neutron fluxes).

The JHR will submit the samples of components that researchers or industrial partners would like to test under an intense neutron flux. Within JHR experimental devices, these samples may also be exposed to extreme pressures and temperatures if required.

These components will thus undergo accelerated aging, and will be pushed beyond the limits of their normal use, if required up to incidental and accidental situations, which will allow an experimental qualification before their use in industry.

A supplier of radioelements for the nuclear medicine sectorThe JHR will also be used for nuclear medicine. It will supply hospitals with short-lived radioelements used by medical imaging units for diagnostic purposes. These radioelements, such as technetium-99m, have a limited lifetime of a few hours.

They therefore need to be produced on an ongoing basis. The JHR will contribute to 25% of the European production of these radioelements on a yearly average or even up to 50% if required.

Enhanced safety standards for research reactorsThe JHR is built in compliance with the highest level of safety required by the French nuclear safety authority (ASN):

> Increased resistance to seismic loading

> Containment building resistant to external hazards

> Separated emergency diesels

> Emergency heat sink in air

> Backup control panel

Environmental monitoring The JHR, like all other Cadarache nuclear facilities, will undergo chemical and radiological monitoring under the supervision of Government authorities. The cooling water in particular will be constantly checked (temperature and absence of radioactivity).

Seven thousand analyses per year will be performed offsite to monitor the quality of air, water, sediments, plant life and agricultural productions.

TESTING

ANALYSING

UNDERSTAND

DIAGNOSING

QUALIFY

Hot cellsThese hot cells will be used to prepare and analyse experiments through non-destructive examinations, as well as to package the radioelements intended for medical applications

Dampierre-en-Burly: 2nd-generation

nuclear power plant

Bone scan of pelvis

Map of environmental sampling points around CEA Cadarache for

environment monitoring

Computer modelling anddesign of a new nuclear fuel

Fuel examination and analysis of experimental results

Fuel irradiated in Osiris Material Testing Reactor at Saclay and characterised in Leca hot laboratory at Cadarache

Reactor core

Storage poolsSpent fuel pools for storage

before shipment to AREVA NC La Hague reprocessing plant

The reactorThe core, of around 60 cm in diameter and height will be contained in a closed vessel and submerged in a pool

View of the construction site at CEA Cadarache research centre (2015)

Aseismic bearing padsThese devices are damper blocks on which the entire

building structure rests