ANSELMUS - Advanced Nuclear Safety Evaluation of Liquid Metal Using Systems 

ID Call: HORIZON-EURATOM-2021-NRT-01 - Nuclear Research and Training 

Sapienza's role in the project: Affiliated entity

Scientific supervisor for Sapienza: Fabio Giannetti

Department: Astronautical, Electrical and Energy Engineering

Project start date: September 1, 2022

Project end date: August 31, 2026

Project Abstracts:

The importance of low-carbon energy sources in actions against climate change makes nuclear energy part of a sustainable energy mix. Even if water-based reactors are reliable and safe, a switch to advanced nuclear designs will ensure improved performance, particularly with regard to intrinsic safety and reduced nuclear waste production. Systems using heavy metals as coolant, e.g. the lead fast reactor (LFR), combine the advantages of a fast reactor, which reduces the production of radioactive waste, with inherent safety properties such as high boiling point, chemical inertia and improved heat transfer. ANSELMUS aims to contribute significantly to the safety assessment of the ALFRED and MYRRHA reactors, as they are included in the roadmap for developing advanced systems in Europe. The maturity of both projects will be used to create two detailed Phenomena Identification and Ranking Tables (PIRT), which identify all verification and validation needs and are used for further safety assessment. The project will validate, also experimentally, the main safety-related subsystems, including the safety rods, the detection of failed fuel rods and the primary coolant chemistry control system. A further objective will be the validation of numerical models describing the fuel assembly through experiments and simulations, working on reactor safety monitoring and inspection of heavy-liquid-metal (HLM) systems, focusing in particular on the inspection of high-temperature tanks. Through the CIRTEN consortium, Sapienza's role will be to contribute to the thermohydraulic analysis of incident transients for the ALFRED reactor in support of PIRT.