Joint European Canadian Chinese

Development of
Small Modular Reactor Technology

A transcontinental Project to bring the potential of supercritical water SMRs a step closer to reality

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PROJECT INTRODUCTION VIDEO

A short summary of the Projects’ ambitions

KEY WORDS OF THE ECC-SMART PROJECT

This Project will work on:

  • Supercritical water (SCW) technology

    Existing conventional power plants using supercritical water reach higher efficiencies. Considering it for a nuclear plant can bring in further advantages…

  • Small Modular Reactor (SMR)

    Small and modular mean they can be manufactured in a facility and brought on site to be assembled. Together with their enhanced safety features make them an interesting technological option.

  • Materials
    testing

    Checking how certain materials behave with supercritical water (i.e. high temperatures and pressures) will be a key area of this Project.

  • Thermal-hydraulics tehnology

    Modelling and studying the thermal-hydraulic behavior of a SCW-SMR is fundamental to develop a design and guarantee its inherent safety features. The properties of the fluid under such conditions are quite particular, which makes its modelling all the more interesting.

  • Neutronics and Reactor Physics

    The behavior of the reactor is very dependent on the thermal-hydraulics, which by considering SCW brings in some interesting subtleties compared to traditional light water reactors.

  • Licensing

    One of the main objectives of the Project will be to outline strategies towards the harmonization of the licensing process of SCW-SMR, a necessity to truly bring them a step closer to reality.

Consortium institutions