Industrial Perspective on Nuclear Data

Abstract

Even in the phase of maturity reached by nuclear industry, the industrial needs for nuclear data are numerous.

For present plants, improving competitiveness, satisfying increasingly stringent safety requirements, increasing the fuel burnup, facing the ageing of plants, designing compact interim storage, reprocessing, etc. are sources of many needs for new or improved data.

For the middle term, replacing the present industrial facilities may include some innovations, mature for industrialisation, like HTRs or inert matrix fuel in LWRs. Using new materials, aiming at ultra high burnups, burning different types of fuel (e.g. thorium cycle), induces new data requirements.

For the long term, other innovative technologies must be available, for keeping the fast reactor option open, transmuting wastes, minimising waste production in integrated fuel cycles (e.g. with molten salt reactors), increasing the coolant temperature (> 900°C), etc. For such options, only the data needed for answering key feasibility issues are necessary now.

The “Comité Français des Données Nucléaires” is working at a very restrictive high priority list of data needs selected following criteria of importance for industrial applications and feasibility. As advances in nuclear data are resulting from international efforts, such approach, which can guide the research priorities, must be internationalised.

Keywords:

• industrial needs
• innovation in nuclear energy
• request list for nuclear data measurement and evaluation
• international co-operation
• MICHELANGELO Network