Design and Manufacturing of the UGXR Bench Underwater Part of the Jules Horowitz Reactor

France

The Jules Horowich Reactor (JHR) is a European research reactor due to be built on the Cadarache site, scheduled to be operational in 2017. This reactor is intended to study materials and fuel for current and future nuclear power reactors and for production of radioactive isotopes in order to be used in medical diagnosis and therapy. IDOM was selected to provide the design, purchasing, manufacturing, inspection, assembly and testing of two mechanical Benches UGXR (Underwater Gamma and X-Ray) to be used to hold and move the inspected JHR test devices containing irradiated nuclear fuel.

The design and manufacturing of the reactor is performed in international cooperation for which a consortium has been established in March 2007. The Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA) has appointed AREVA-TA as the prime contractor of the JHR and it has entrusted its Finnish partner VTT, under an in-kind contribution agreement, with the design and manufacturing of experimental instruments including two underwater Benches (underwater photon emission and transmission tomography), one in a reactor pool referred to as Jules Horowitz Reactor Pool (RER) and the other in a storage pool called Irradiated Component Storage Pool (EPI).

IDOM was selected to provide the design, purchasing, manufacturing, inspection, assembly and testing of two mechanical benches to be used to hold and move the inspected JHR test devices containing irradiated nuclear fuel. These Underwater Gamma and X-Ray (UGXR) Benches will possess the capability of vertical and transverse motions and rotation. The UGXR Benches are used to carry out Non-Destructive Examinations (NDE) of the several test devices used to perform JHR experiments. A test device is a structure used to support, implement and place under representative conditions, fuel or sample material introduced into the JHR core or in the periphery of the core.

Other Nuclear Applications