Osiris, an irradiation reactor for material and nuclear fuel testing

Since 1966 the Osiris reactor located at Saclay has been participating in French and international irradiation programs for research and development in the field of nuclear fuel and materials. Today the French atomic commission (Cea) pursues irradiation programs in support of existing reactors, mainly PWR, strengthening its own knowledge and the one of its clients on fuel and material behaviour under irradiation, pertaining to plant life-time issues and high burn-up. For instance important programs have been performed on pressure vessel steel aging, pellet-clad interaction, internal component aging and mox fuel qualification. With the arising of the Generation 4 research and development programs, the Osiris reactor has developed capacities to undertake material and fuel irradiation under high temperature conditions. Routine irradiations such as the doping of silicon or the production of radio-nuclides for medical or imaging purposes are made on a daily basis. The specificities of the Osiris reactor are presented in the first part of this paper while the second part focuses on the experimental devices available in Osiris to perform irradiation in light water reactor conditions and in high temperature reactor conditions and on their associated programs