The belgian MYRRHA ads project: recent developments and future perspectives

Since 1998 SCK•CEN is developing the MYRRHA project as an accelerator driven system (ADS) based on the lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) as a coolant of the reactor and a material for its spallation target. MYRRHA is a flexible fast-spectrum pool-type research irradiation facility, also serving since the FP5 EURATOM framework as the backbone of the Partitioning & Transmutation (P&T) strategy of the European Commission concerning the ADS development in the third pillar of this strategy. MYRRHA is proposed to the international community of nuclear energy and nuclear physics as a pan-European large research infrastructure in ESFRI to serve as a multipurpose fast spectrum irradiation facility for various fields of research. In this paper, we present the current design of MYRRHA and the updated implementation strategy. (authors)