Projet SOTERIA (H2020)

Résumé / Présentation

The overall aim of the SOTERIA project is to improve the understanding of the ageing phenomena occurring in reactor
pressure vessel (RPV) steels and in the internal steels (internals) in order to provide crucial information to regulators and
operators to ensure safe long-term operation (LTO) of existing European nuclear power plants (NPPs). SOTERIA has set up a
collaborative research consortium which gathers the main European research centres and industrial partners who will combine
advanced modelling tools with the exploitation of experimental data to focus on four technical objectives: i) to carry out
experiments aiming to explore flux and fluence effects on RPV and internals in pressurised water reactors, ii) to assess the
residual lifetime of RPV taking into account metallurgical heterogeneities, iii) to assess the effect of the chemical and radiation
environment on cracking in internals and iv) to develop modelling tools and provide a single platform integrating developed
modelling tools and experimental data for reassessment of structural components during NPPs lifetime. Building on industryspecific
key questions and material, SOTERIA will fill current gaps in safety assessment related to ageing phenomena, by
providing a set of modelling tools directly applicable in an industrial environment. Guidelines for better use of modelling,
material testing reactors and surveillance data will also be an output of paramount importance. Another important parallel
objective is the education of the nuclear engineering and research community of SOTERIA results to improve and harmonise
knowledge about NPPs ageing and thereby ensure a high impact of project results. The knowledge and tools generated in
SOTERIA will contribute to improving EU nuclear safety policy, to increasing the leadership of the EU in safety related
equipment and information and to contribute to improved NPP safety world-wide. The SOTERIA proposal received the NUGENIA
label on 10 August 2014.

Responsable / porteur / P.I. : Marie-France Barthe

Lieu principal : Orléans

Périmètre d'action : International

Tutelle : CNRS

Laboratoires impliqués : CEMHTI

Site web secondaire : http://www.soteria-project.eu/