[en] Within the IAEA's Activities in Fast Reactor Knowledge Preservation Knowledge preservation activities for KNK II reactor are initiated. Test Reactor KNK II, operated quite successfully for 17 years until 1991 as a national project. Available documentation concerned with KNK-II reactor design, operation, maintenance, shutdown, decommissioning was collected and submitted as full text into INIS (International Nuclear Information System) Database. This paper describes the work done. It includes the following article: Programme Nuclear Safety Research, Statistics, Measures to Keep Competence, Recruitment of Young Scientists, Future Needs by Joachim U. Knebel from Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe

[en] The OECD/NEA Nuclear Science Committee (NSC) has identified the need to establish international databases containing all the important experiments that are available for sharing among the specialists and has set up or sponsored specific activities to achieve this. The aim is to preserve them in an agreed standard format in computer accessible form, to use them for international activities involving validation of current and new calculational schemes including computer codes and nuclear data libraries, for assessing uncertainties, confidence bounds and safety margins, and to record measurement methods and techniques. It is a significant saving results from disseminating a standard benchmark set to be used worldwide. A framework for professionals that use the standard benchmark set to validate and verify modeling codes and data for radiation transport, criticality safety and reactor physics applications guarantees a comparative set of analyses. It represents also a good basis for pinpointing important gaps and where efforts should be concentrated and ensures knowledge and competence preservation, management and transfer in nuclear science and engineering. A large number of experimentalists, physicists, evaluators, modelers have devoted large amounts of their efforts and competencies to produce the data on which the methods we are using today are based. These data are far from having been exploited fully for the different nuclear and radiation technologies. This wealth of information needs to be preserved in a form more easily exploitable by modern information technology and for use in connection with novel and refined computational models with limitations of the past removed. These data will form the basis for the studies of more advanced nuclear technology, will be instrumental in identifying areas where there is a lack of knowledge and thus provide support to justifying new experiments that would reduce design uncertainties and consequently costs. Improvement of comprehensiveness of the databases, experiment re-interpretation and re-evaluation using state-of-the-art methods will require a large further effort and all laboratories wishing to manage and share this knowledge are invited to contribute. Co-operation with the IAEA covers mainly fast reactor experiments and water reactor lattices

[en] Recognizing the ultimate value of fast reactor information of all types for use in future nuclear power programs for electrical generation and waste processing, and recognizing that much has been lost, and is being lost, the urgency of collecting, verifying, cataloguing, and securely storing this information is unquestioned. Additional effort is required to transfer that knowledge to future generations. Fast Reactor Critical Experiment information is being accumulated through the NEA Nuclear Data preservation program. However, no funding exists to collect and preserve other information on fuel and materials, physics, safety, and operational data, therefore, work is being performed piecemeal under different programs and even on a voluntary basis. One proposal is that Argonne National Laboratory - West site in Idaho would be a suitable storage location for US information once secure facilities have been arranged and the appropriate infrastructure is in place. To date various parties agree with the proposal but no formal steps have been taken to implement the idea

[en] The meeting extended its scope beyond reactor physics to include all the main areas of fast reactor data retrieval and knowledge preservation (FR KP). The participants presented the status of the national FR KP efforts and the progress achieved since the kick-off meeting of the IAEA initiative (meeting hosted by ANL-West in Idaho Falls, Idaho, 2-4 April 2002). Details are given in Section 2. The Scientific Secretary of the Technical Working Group on Fast Reactors (TWG-FR) presented the Agency activities (KNK II data and documentation retrieval and preservation), and recalled the Agency's role in this initiative: - Coordination of the national efforts - Ensuring the collaboration with other International Organizations (mainly OECD/NEA) - Establishing and maintaining the access means to the ultimate goal of the initiative, the 'fast reactor knowledge base'. The integration of specific activities relevant to the FR KP initiative, which are planned within the framework of the TWG-FR, was discussed. It was agreed to implement the following as TWG-FR tasks with clear relevance to FR KP initiative: - Japanese 'Proposal from Monju relevant to Fast Reactor Knowledge Preservation Activity in the framework of the IAEA TWG-FR' - Proposal of a CRP on 'Generalization and Analyses of Operational Experience with Fast Reactor Equipment and Systems' - TM on 'Handling of Sodium Coming from Decommissioned Fast Reactors and from the Shutdown of Experimental Facilities' (if not already covered by the TECDOC being prepared by IAEA's Nuclear Waste Technology Section). While the responsibility for fast reactor knowledge preservation, data retrieval and interpretation, as well as quality assurance will rest with the individual Member States joining the FR KP initiative, the participants confirmed the Agency's role (see above). More specifically, the participants in the meeting recommended that the IAEA - support and coordinate data retrieval and interpretation efforts by the fast reactor experts (in many cases already retired or about to retire) in the various Member States. The most urgent tasks for these experts will be to identify the data and information that are in danger to be lost (destroyed), assess its importance and relevance, retrieve it, and ensure its preservation. As a concrete means for implementing these first tasks, it is recommended that the that the IAEA implement fact-finding missions to interested Member States joining the initiative aiming at mobilizing Member States to take concrete action, identify the key experts, and help focus the data retrieval and preservation activities; secure, provided funding is available, in some cases the experts' collaboration under the provision of 'Special Service Agreements'; convene, in regular intervals, coordination meetings , to ensure effective follow-up of the actions and commitments, organize coordinated research projects, and, ultimately, provide and maintain the portal to access the knowledge base

[en] The French Institutions involved in LMFRs development (EDF Utilities, CEA Research Institute and FRAMATOME-ANP Engineering) decided in 2000 year to preserve the R and D knowledge which was raised during the last four decades of the XXth century: the long term availability (some decades) of LMFRs experience should be maintained thanks to an extensive, everlasting and intelligible form which could allow future designers to use this great amount of knowledge. Among different types of architecture, the LMFRs Fund of Knowledge is being raised in 2001 and 2002 along two complementary ways: 1) the main one gives an overall vision of R and D work undertaken through 23 R and D items: a) an overall view of LMFRs conception, b) 9 items about Core R and D work : Safety, Working, Thermohydraulics, Thermomechanics, Design Rules, Materials, Fuel clad failure, Neutronics, Nuclear fuel, c) 13 items about Reactor R and D work : Safety, Working, Sodium Coolant, Sodium Technology, Thermohydraulics, cover gas Aerolics, Thermomechanics, Design Rules, in sodium equipment Mechanics, Materials, In Service Inspection and Repair, Sodium Fires, Decommissioning. 2) The other one deals with the Design of what can be a LMFR: Superphenix Plant was chosen as the largest and validated industrial size LMFR through the conception of its 41 systems: a) Core system, b) Monitoring systems, c) Protective and Shut-down systems, d) Primary systems, e) Secondary and Steam Generator Systems, f) Decay Heat Removal system, g) Primary and secondary Handling systems, h) Cleaning and Decontamination systems, i) Fuel Storage system. Each R and D item and each Superphenix system is described with a Documentary Form, written by French specialists : after a brief description of the different sub-items (some pages), the list of relevant references are listed (some dozens to some hundreds of synthesis reports, basic literature, specialist interviews, Superphenix measurement data, EFR Project synthesis...). Thus, the LMFRs Fund of Knowledge is made of the 64 Documentary Forms and of all the relevant bibliography (about 6,000 documents). It is made of paper documents and of computerised CD-ROMs. Bibliographic research can be made easily thanks to computerised organisation. The Fund is recorded under safe conditions by the CEA Record Office. Of course, accessibility and up dating are strictly limited. (author)

[en] Monju, an internationally valuable power plant of fast reactor, is expected to advance research and development for utilization of FR, transparently to both domestic and international researchers, as is remarked in the Long-Term Program for Research, Development and Utilization of Nuclear Energy of Japan. From this point of view, JNC will exert more effort to provide information on the design, construction and operation of Monju in 'Knowledge Preservation of Fast Reactors' by IAEA/TWGFR. On the other hand, if this activity, 'Knowledge Preservation of Fast Reactors' by IAEA/TWGFR is extended to make it clear what data are most desirable to be added for development and utilization of FRs in the near future based on the accumulated data, and the results are introduced to the Monju project, then the international contribution of Monju can become more effective and this contribution seems to correspond to expectation by the public in Japan

[en] In Germany, the project of a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SNR 300) was stopped in 1993 after 30 years of intensive research and development. Up to that date efficient fuel elements were developed which reached burn-ups of about 200 GWd/t. An essential prerequisite for that was the selection of suitable structural materials for fuel elements and wrappers. The behaviour of these materials under the extreme conditions of high accumulated neutron dose, which resulted in some completely new irradiation phenomena, i.e. swelling, irradiation induced creep and embrittlement, turned out to be a life-time-limiting factor. Fundamental scientific and technological work to develop, characterise and test appropriate materials for these components was carried out by a cooperation between the company Interatom/Siemens-KWU and Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, temporarily supported by contracts with international partners. From the beginning, in contrast to some other international fast reactor projects, the work concentrated on the group of stabilised, heat resistant austenitic steels for fuel element claddings, mainly on the material X10CrNiMoTiB 15 15 (W.-Nr. 1.4970). In numerous irradiation experiments neutron doses up to 3x10²³ n/cm² could be reached. Due to the abrupt stop of the German fast reactor programme it was not more possible to prove if the endeavoured goal of 4x10²³ n/cm² for a commercial reactor unit could be reached with an improved modification of the Ti-stabilized steel (W.-Nr. 1.4970 mod.) The following report will give a comprehensive assessment of all the results gained during the development of this material. It contains a description of the separate steps for the development, a rather extensive documentation of the examined properties and the most substantial items necessary for a technological application of the material. It also includes a summary of the irradiation experiments and performance tests. With regard to knowledge preservation, the report also wants to give a survey of all the research work for this type of structural material, which might thus be used for general application in reactor technology and also for future studies for advanced reactor systems. (author)

[en] To develop the spectrum of information that is required to develop, design, construct, operate and, eventually, decontaminate and decommission a plant and its facilities, it is necessary to consider a specific plant design. Here, it is assumed that we are speaking of a loop-type, liquid-metal-cooled, fast-spectrum reactor that is designed to generate electricity within the United States. Nevertheless, an equivalent spectrum of information required for a different plant design, say a pool design operating in Europe, would not change a great deal. Most of the general headings would remain the same - only details would vary