Trends in severe accident research in Europe: SARNET network from Euratom to NUGENIA

Abstract

SARNET (Severe Accident Research Network) was set up under the aegis of the Framework Programmes of the European Commission from 2004 to 2013 and coordinated by IRSN to perform R&D on severe accidents in water-cooled nuclear power plants. The network self-sustainability was achieved through integration mid-2013 in the NUGENIA European association devoted to R&D on fission technology of Generation II and III. The SARNET activities continue in the technical area “Severe accidents” through technical workshops, ranking of R&D priorities, improvements of severe accident codes, ERMSAR international conferences, and education and training courses. Six technical domains are addressed in this technical area: in-vessel corium/debris coolability, ex-vessel corium interactions and coolability, containment behaviour including hydrogen risk, source term released to the environment, impact of severe accidents on the environment and emergency management, and severe accident scenarios. The ranking of research priorities in the NUGENIA R&D roadmap that was published in 2015 underlined the need to focus efforts in the next years on the improvement of prevention of severe accidents and on the mitigation of their consequences, as highlighted by the Fukushima Dai-ichi accidents. Several current projects on mitigation of severe accident consequences in Euratom or NUGENIA frame are shortly described in this paper.