The JRC has co-authored a
report which sets out recommendations for how the EU should tackle nuclear
data research in the coming years.
High-quality nuclear data describing the nuclear reactions taking place in
advanced reactors and the fuel cycle are essential for the design and safe
operation of current and future nuclear power plants. The tight safety margins
envisaged for new, advanced nuclear energy systems, such as Generation IV, put
challenging constraints on the accuracy of nuclear data.
In anticipation of this need for an intensive programme of nuclear data
research, representatives from the research community and the end-users
(industry) of nuclear data came together in the collaborative project,
CANDIDE. Their final report sets out a set of recommendations, or a roadmap,
for sustainable nuclear data development:
A long term commitment to modern nuclear data evaluation in Europe
Support for the facilities that are capable to produce the required nuclear
measurements and stimulation of high-accuracy measurements on key reactions of
interest to advanced reactor development
To provide the capability for advanced nuclear model development
To ensure flexible implementation of improved nuclear data libraries in
nuclear technology and design
The most important recommendations for new measurements were:
Fast neutron actinide cross sections for both critical and sub-critical cores
Cross sections for transmutation and target design in ADS
Specific capture and fission measurements in the 1 eV to 1 MeV range for Am
and Cm isotopes
Well-chosen integral measurements for neutrons above 20 MeV
Assessment of uncertainties of high-energy data above 20 MeV
Nuclear data relevant for high burn-up systems
Fast neutron cross sections for structural materials and coolants
Download the
CANDIDE final report.
About the CANDIDE project
The Coordination Action on Nuclear Data for Industrial Development in Europe (
CANDIDE) project involved 13 partners from a wide range of industry and
research institutions. Four reactor construction or manufacturing
organizations were represented: Framatome-ANP/Areva (France), the BNFL group
(UK), the Skoda corporation in the Czech Republic represented via their
technical support organization, NRI Řež, and the Romanian nuclear power
industry represented via their technical support organization, CITON. Three
power utilities participated in the project: TVO (Finland), EdF (France) and
Slovenské Elektrárne (Slovakia). Fuel manufacturing was represented by
Nexia/BNFL and Framatome/Areva, while reprocessing was represented by
Nexia/BNFL. Well-known European teams for nuclear data validation (CEA
Cadarache, NRG Petten) and evaluation (CEA Cadarache, CEA Bruyères-le-Châtel,
NRG Petten) participated in the project. On the experimental side, JRC-IRMM
Geel and TSL Uppsala ensured co-operation and interaction with the
measurements community.