The ESPRESSO-G4 (European Simulation Platform for Reactor Evaluation, Safety and Source-term Outputs for Gen4 reactors) project grand objective is to support Small Modular Reactors (SMR) deployment and safety demonstration in Europe in the short to mid-terms. It will address the safety of Advanced and innovative Modular nuclear Reactors (AMR), promoted in Europe by policymakers and industry leaders. ESPRESSO-G4 plans to develop a first European sovereign simulation platform for Gen IV AMR source term evaluation in accidental transients, with the ambition that it becomes a European reference tool for regulatory authorities, technical support organizations, designers, vendors and utilities. The platform will integrate and interface well-known European tools used to analyse fuel performance (TRANSURANUS), neutronics (Serpent and DYN3D), reactor accidental transients (ASTEC) and fission products behaviour and chemistry in irradiated fuel at mesoscale (MFPR-F) developed by JRC, VTT, HZDR and ASNR.

ESPRESSO-G4 will strengthen Europe’s leadership in innovative nuclear technology safe deployment by:

• Developing a flexible computational platform addressing AMR new safety challenges and evaluating the source term to support their safe licensing and deployment;
• Promoting harmonization of accident analysis and source term evaluation methodologies to reduce duplication of licensing efforts across EU and facilitate the regulatory readiness for AMR deployments;
• Reinforcing the European expertise in AMR safety promoting the collaboration between research organizations, industry, AMR designers, TSOs and regulators;
• Increasing the societal acceptance and stakeholder confidence in AMRs through more transparent safety assessments, greater stakeholder engagement and better preparedness for accident scenarios.

Key highlights of ESPRESSO-G4 are:

• An European sovereign simulation platform for AMR safety assessment;
• Safety methodologies covering Liquid Metal Reactor, High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor and Molten Salt Reactor technologies;
• Advanced source term modelling for reference accidental scenarios;
• Integration and extension of established European simulation tools for Gen-IV applications.

ASNR / ENEA / ARB / Copenhagen Atomics / EPFL / Energorisk / Framatome / HZDR  /  Hexana /  JRC / KIT / NCBJ / Newcleo / Otrera / PSI / POLIMI / RATEN / VTT

Project coordinator:

Nathalie Girault (nathalie.girault@asnr.fr)

Technical coordinator  

Laurent Laborde (laurent.laborde@asnr.fr)