https://doi.org/10.1051/epjn/2025071
Regular Article
Identification of European experimental facilities for severe accident research within EU SEAKNOT-project: Analysis and mapping
1
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Hermann-vom-Helmholtz-Platz-1, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, 76244, Germany
2
French Alternative Energies & Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), IRESNE, Centre de Cadarache, Bat.219-D, St Paul Lez Durance cedex, 13108, France
3
Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (CIEMAT), Nuclear Safety Research Unit, Department of Energy, Madrid, 28040, Spain
* e-mail: victor.sanchez@kit.edu
Received:
10
June
2025
Received in final form:
20
October
2025
Accepted:
20
October
2025
Published online: 1 December 2025
Experimental facilities play a central role in reactor safety research for both design basis and severe accidents (SA). They are key to demonstrate the effectiveness and appropriateness of specific safety features of reactor designs and providing data for the validation of different models implemented in numerical tools used for safety demonstration. Hence, a well-designed and equipped experimental infrastructures in Europe is a fundamental pillar of European roadmap on reactor safety research. One objective of the EU SEAKNOT (Severe Accident research and KNOwledge management) project, is the analysis and mapping of European severe accident research facilities currently under operation. The responses to a questionnaire sent to European institutions were evaluated and the information collected about each facility was synthesized covering different issues such as age, design features, main phenomena addressed by latest research programs, including advanced technologies like Advanced Technology Fuels (ATFs) and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). The extensive review of the collected information allowed the identification of critical conditions (human resources; preservation and enhancement of experimental competences, etc. that might jeopardize the current and forthcoming European experimental capabilities for severe accident research, according to the Severe Accident roadmap that is being built in SEAKNOT. This paper describes the methodology and major outcomes of this analysis.
© V.H. Sanchez-Espinoza et al., Published by EDP Sciences, 2025
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
