Development of the European safety analysis platform (ESAP) for integrated core and safety analysis of nuclear reactor systems

The European Safety Analysis Platform (ESAP) is a computational platform, with the objective to perform an integrated core and safety analysis of nuclear reactor systems. The current components of ESAP include: MCNP5 for neutron transport calculations, COBRA for core and sub-channel analysis and FRETA for fuel thermal-mechanical behaviour studies. Currently, the platform is able to perform safety design studies and has been applied to Sodium cooled Fast Reactors for both fuel assemblies and for the whole core. This will be extended later to other reactor types including the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor. The objective is to be able in the long run to perform safety design and transient analysis of most nuclear energy systems. The paper describes the present structure of the platform as well as its architecture and data exchange. Examples of first applications of ESAP within the European Sodium Fast Reactor (ESFR) project are also provided. (authors)