Methodology for Designing a Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor with Inherent Safety
Résumé
Sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) remain the favorite
candidate in France for a Generation IV (Gen IV)
reactor fleet to be deployed within this century. Compared
with earlier generations (Phénix, Superphénix, and
European fast reactor), Gen IV SFRs require attractive
economics together with enhanced safety and nonproliferation
criteria. An innovative approach named Mathematical
Estimation of Transients for Reactor design
Orientation (METRO) has been developed with the objective
of taking into account both SFR core economic
performance and SFR transient incident behavior at an
early stage of the core design process. Loss-of-flow, lossof-
heat-sink, and overpower transients are evaluated. Simplified
modeling of transients has been developed and
benchmarked against reference calculations with satisfactory
results. The METRO approach to assessing the
efficiency of design orientations is described in the following
and applied to a carbide-fueled reactor core.