With a cooperation agreement signed today, the IAEA has designated the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, as an IAEA Collaborating Centre to support IAEA Member States in increasing their modelling and simulation capabilities in the field of advanced reactors.
“The Collaborating Centre scheme is one of the IAEA’s key cooperation mechanisms, focusing on research, development, training and cooperation across Member States,” said Mikhail Chudakov, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Energy. “I am happy that the proposal of the Swiss delegation during the IAEA annual General Conference last September has come to fruition and that we have a new Collaborating Centre. The research and development work will contribute to enhancing Member States’ capabilities in scientific and technology development of advanced reactors.”
The signing ceremony marks the beginning of a four-year period of close cooperation between EPFL and the IAEA in the area of Advanced reactor experiments and high-fidelity multi-physics nuclear simulation techniques for open-source code development and validation. The aim is to create an international network of research and academic institutions that will develop and validate a cutting-edge, open-source simulation software for the analysis of advanced nuclear power reactors. The work will focus on three major areas: modelling and simulations, experimental reactor physics and education and training. The planned activities will also assist the IAEA in implementing its own projects on advanced water-cooled reactors, small and medium-sized or modular reactors, fast reactors and gas-cooled reactors, thus supporting technology development in Member States.
"The designation as an IAEA Collaborating Centre is a great honour and a strong recognition of EPFL’s reputation, the high nuclear safety standards in our country, and the excellence of nuclear research in Switzerland”, said Andreas Mortensen, Vice President for Research at EPFL. “We will produce new, open and high-quality validation data at our CROCUS experimental reactor. This will put the EPFL reactor on the map of outstanding nuclear facilities and open fruitful pathways to global collaboration.”
Education and training are very important to prepare the next generation of nuclear workforce. The creation of such high performance simulation platforms with modern computational tools will attract many young professionals.
