Project members visit IRSN experimental facilities.
Initiated in October 2021, the QUENCH-ATF NEA Joint Project provides a comprehensive four-years-long experimental programme dedicated to the integral testing of promising novel cladding materials, also called advanced technology fuels (ATF) claddings, against various temperature and pressure transients, to test their enhanced behaviour even in off-normal operation conditions. Throughout the project, a total of three bundle experiments will be performed at the QUENCH facility at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, as well as accompanying single-effect tests and in-depth associated pre- and post-transient examinations. A cross-comparison numerical exercise is also organised, which allows to assess the capabilities of various modelling codes – respectively developed by the projects’ partners - to capture the physico-chemical phenomena at stakes, and to improve further their prediction capabilities.
The QUENCH-ATF project members gathered in July 2024 in Aix-en-Provence, France, to share the most recent project findings and to prepare the upcoming tests and examination. The meetings were hosted by the Institut de Radioprotection et Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) and brought together around 40 top-level experts from 15 organisations in 7 countries. IRSN is a project member and provides some post-test examinations to support the interpretation of the experiments’ results. The experts also had the opportunity to visit IRSN's experimental facilities and to learn more about the wealth of experimental studies led by IRSN, with a focus on fuels and materials studies, studies of hypothetical off-normal transients in reactors and used fuel pools, and aging of various materials including concrete.
The QUENCH-ATF project is expected to continue with new tests scheduled to trial other types of such advanced cladding materials under even more severe transient scenarios.
