US EPR Tests Performed to confirm the Mechanical and Hydraulic Design of the Vessel Internals

The EPR is an Evolutionary high-Power Reactor which is based on the best French and German experience of the past twenty years in plant design construction and operation. In the present detailed engineering phase of the plant under construction in Finland (Okiluoto 3) or scheduled in France (Flamanville 3), a few actions are still ongoing mainly to complement equipment validation files. Design and validation of the main EPR components were performed within Framatome ANP's engineering teams and its two Technical Centers located in France and Germany, which develop state of the art methods in the field of thermo hydraulic testing. The Reactor Pressure Vessel internals are mainly derived from components already implemented on presently operating plants, but they differ in some features from the design used in French N4 or German Konvoi. The aim of this paper is to present the tests performed to confirm the hydraulic and mechanical design of the EPR vessel internals. - Four different mock-ups are presented to illustrate these tests: - JULIETTE for the reactor pressure vessel lower internals; - ROMEO for the reactor pressure vessel upper internals; - MAGALY for the design of the skeleton-type control rod guide assembly; - HYDRAVIB for the vibratory response of the reactor pressure vessel lowers internals. (authors)