Research and Development on nuclear fission

Research and development activities on advanced and innovative reactors are performed within a domestic programme and international initiatives. The ongoing New Nuclear Fission National Programme is synergic and complementary to the International Nuclear Energy Initiative (INERI) and EURATOM framework programmes and is managed by ENEA through a specific agreement signed in June 2007 by the Italian Ministry for Economic Development (MSE). The activities concern an integral advanced pressurised light-water-cooled reactor (IRIS nuclear power plant [NPP]) and several Generation-4. fast reactors: lead-cooled, very high temperature and sodium-cooled. A summary of the main results achieved in 2007 follows. In the framework of the INERI programme ENEA and other Italian organisations are involved in the design of the International Reactor Innovative and Secure (IRIS NPP), particularly in the design certification. An appropriate integral testing programme will be performed in the SPES-3 facility to be built at the SIET laboratories in Piacenza. The facility will be located inside the building of the decommissioned Emilia oil-fired power plant. Once erected, the facility will simulate IRIS at full height, full pressure and temperature, and with volumes and power scaled by factors of 1:100 and 1:150, respectively. The activity will be carried out in a collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), USA under an international initiative concerning cooperation in the field of nuclear-related technologies of mutual interest. In 2007 activities were mainly devoted to the conceptual design of the SPES-3 facility, the development of SPES-3 nodalization and the seismic isolation analysis of the IRIS auxiliary building