Topic 2 Reactor Safety

Reactor safety research focuses on the development of computational methods for the core and overall plant analysis for Light Water Reactors (LWRs) including Small Modular Reactors (SMR) on LWR basis, but as well on Innovative Concepts such as Fast Reactors or Advanced Modular Reactors (AMR). The research questions include fundamental safety aspects and understanding of the plant behaviour in both normal and abnormal situations, including phenomena relevant to accident progression and the resulting consequences. In addition to general method development for complex physical phenomena, the tools need to be validated by own internationally renowned large-scale experimental facilities

Subtopic 2.1 Design basis Accidents and Material Research
KIT’s focus is on LWR safety research and on the investigations of Innovative Reactor Concepts. The specific scientific objectives are to develop, validate and improve the calculational tools dealing with the different physical domains of reactor safety. for LWRs and innovative reactor concepts such as ADS (Accelerator Driven System), LFR (Lead-cooled Fast reactor), SFR (Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor) and MSR (Molten Salt reactor). Material research focuses on the one hand on cladding material of fuel elements for LWR, and on the other hand on material investigations for innovative reactor concepts.

Subtopic 2.2 Beyond Design Basis Accidents & Emergency Management
The KIT strategy is to develop a computational platform for a realistic assessment of fission product release and the dispersion into the environment in case of severe accidents. These tools focus on LWR-Nuclear Power Plants, but will be developed for new reactor concepts as well. ASTEC and MELCOR codes are used for the analysis of various possible accident scenarios. ASTEC is intensively used to perform deterministic and probabilistic safety analyses for existing reactors and new build. ASTEC is also used to determine the source term for emergency preparedness and response purposes. The emergency management support tool JRODOS (Jave-based Real-time On-line DecisiOn Support), developed at KIT, is used in the specific case of a release of radioactive material after nuclear or radiological accidents. The main task is to provide all the information required to decide on measures to protect the population quickly, continuously, consistently and comprehensively.  JRODOS is at present operational in more than 40 countries and installations in another 10 countries are underway.


KIT Scientific Spokeperson Topic 2
Dr. Th.W. Tromm
KIT Spokeperson Program NUSAFE
KIT Energy Center

KIT Institutes
Institute for Thermal Energy Technology and Safety – ITES
Institute for Neutron Physics and Reactor Technology - INR
Institute for Pulsed Power and Microwave Technology – IHM
Institute for Applied Materials - Applied Materials Physics – IAM-AWP
Institute for Applied Materials - Mechanics of Materials and Interfaces – IAM-MMI