The objective is to continue work, advancing ability to predict lifetimes of Nuclear Plant components when subjected to Environmental Assisted Fatigue loading. Over the five years proposed for INCEFA-SCALE, EPRI in the USA is leading a series of component scale environmental fatigue tests. These are expected to advance data availability significantly; however, advances in addressing transferability of laboratory scale tests to real component geometries and loadings will still be constrained by limited test data. This knowledge gap is recognised worldwide as significant. INCEFA-SCALE will generate significantly increased understanding of the transferability of laboratory scale test data to component scale. The project strategy will be (1) the development of comprehensive mechanistic understanding developed through detailed examination of test specimens and MatDB data mining, and (2) testing focussed on particular aspects of component scale cyclic loading. Examples of tests possible include, uniaxial specimens with notches (to address complex loads), membrane tests (to address biaxiality), thermo-mechanical tests (to address thermal cycling and thermal gradient effects), and complex wave tests (to address real plant transient effects). The project will begin by “data mining” to extract maximum understanding from the vast amount of test data within JRC’s MatDB database (from the predecessor INCEFA-PLUS project, and from other external sources such as USNRC, EPRI, MHI and the AdFaM project). In parallel the test program needs will be agreed. Testing will commence after one year and run for 3 years. Finally, the project will deliver guidance on use of laboratory scale data for component scales. Industrial support, is demonstrated by over €3M matching funds and positive endorsements from EPRI, ENEN and NUGENIA. EC support will enable maximum consistency and coordination of testing and assessment.

GEMINI+ project proposal will be submitted to the European Commission addressing the 2016 Euratom call for proposals (deadline October 5th, 2016). GEMINI+ project will provide a conceptual design for a high temperature nuclear cogeneration system for supply of process steam to industry, a framework for the licensing of such system and a business plan for a full scale demonstration . It will rely on modular High Temperature Gas cooled Reactor (HTGR) technology, which is a mature technology with several industrial prototypes that have been constructed and operated in the world. Therefore the time scale for the industrial deployment of such nuclear cogeneration systems is the decade. With available materials and technology, such a system can provide steam to industrial steam distribution networks presently operating on industrial sites up to 550˚C, simply substituting to fossil fuel fired cogeneration plants, without any need for adaptation of the steam distribution infrastructure or of the industrial applications. In the longer term, HTGR technology can be further developed to provide higher temperature process heat. Based on its huge thermal inertia, its refractory fuel and core structural materials, on the use of helium, which is chemically inert, as coolant, and of a specific design limited to a few hundred Megawatts, modular HTGRs have a unique intrinsic safety concept preventing in any circumstances significant degradation of the nuclear fuel and consecutive radioactive releases, with no need of any human intervention. Beyond industrial cogeneration, the flexibility, robustness and simple design of modular HTGR will allow extending application of the system developed by GEMINI+ to small isolated electric grids, to electric grids with increasing proportion of intermittent renewables, to new nuclear countries, etc.