Improving reactor safety through simulation

In this interview the director of the French institute for radiation protection and nuclear safety (IRSN) details the research priorities to prevent future nuclear accidents. The first of all is to continue studying what happens when a reactor core melts and assesses whether we can act to regain full control of the nuclear fuel despite the lack of cooling. The second priority is to get a better understanding of what happens on a more or less contaminated area that is partially habitable in order to optimize its management. The second priority implies a real cooperation between experts in radioprotection and sociologists in order to avoid situations that generate a lot of anxiety in the local population when an accident happens as we have seen in the Fukushima accident. The ASTEC software simulates nuclear reactor functioning and has enabled IRSN to be the first organization in the world to propose the source term of the Fukushima accident. The Cabri research reactor has resumed activities in Cadarache in 2016, it will allow a real-time radiography of a spent fuel rod submitted to a reactivity surge. This experiment will allow a better understanding of the interaction of fuel pellets with cladding. The Mircom facility will provide a particle micro-beam that will be used to study the effect of a single electron impinging on a cell nucleus. (A.C.)