Gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR) is considered as one of the six most promising advanced nuclear reactor technologies, supported worldwide by the Generation IV International Forum and ESNII in Europe. It excels in versatility, combining very high core outlet temperatures and the possibility to close the fuel cycle, allowing for very efficient and sustainable electricity and industrial heat production. The SafeG proposal presents a Research and Innovation action aiming at connecting developers of the ALLEGRO reactor (V4G4) with European and international experts having experience in GFR and HTR research, who will utilize their unique expertise, knowledge and experience, bringing fresh ideas to the GFR development to the SafeG project will bring the GFR research and development in Europe a major step forward. It is divided into 7 Work Packages, four of them dealing with open research and development problems of GFRs, namely the core safety and proliferation resistance (WP1), advanced materials and technologies (WP2), decay heat removal (WP3), standardization and codes (WP4). Additionally, a major part of the effort (15 % of the total budget) will be dedicated to education and training activities sheltered by WP5. Dissemination and outreach activities are included in WP6 while WP7 ensures smooth management and execution of the project. The main objectives of the SafeG project are: - To strengthen safety of the GFR demonstrator ALLEGRO - To review the GFR reference options in materials and technologies - To adapt GFR safety to changing needs in electricity production worldwide with increased and decentralized portion of nuclear electricity by study of various fuel cycles and their suitability from the safety and proliferation resistance points of view - To bring in students and young professionals, boosting interest in GFR research - To deepen the collaboration with international non-EU research teams, and relevant European and international bodies

The PUMMA project will define different options for Pu management in Generation-IV systems and evaluate the impact on the whole fuel cycle in addition to safety and performance aspects. Fast neutron reactors with the associated fuel cycle strategy have been chosen to cope with these options because they are flexible: they offer the possibility of isogeneration, burning or breeding of plutonium. A wide range of Pu content (20 to 45%) corresponds to the highest concentration that can be encountered for plutonium multirecycling (~30-35% Pu to compensate degraded isotopic composition) and targeted plutonium burning (40-45%). The fuel cycle scenarios associated with the different strategies will be evaluated at different stages of the cycle in terms of impact on the facilities. These studies will be completed with dissolution tests as there is currently no dissolution data on fuels with very high plutonium contents. Studies to date have been limited to concentrations of less than 30%. Today, knowledge on MOX fuel behavior in Generation-IV reactors comes mainly from feedback on SFRs that have operated in the past in Europe, with Pu contents varying between 15% to 30% and Linear Heat Rate often in the 300 to 450 W/cm range. This knowledge is insufficient to cover future needs, whether in terms of reactor concepts (GFR, LFR, F-SMR ...), Pu management option or operating regime. PUMMA will provide complementary results on fuel properties and characterisations of 45%Pu-fuels irradiated in HFR and Phénix under nominal conditions and overpower. The safety standards will then be extended to this fuel composition as well as the fuel performance code validation. PUMMA will make the link between Europe and others international organisations: the fuel cycle studies at IAEA and OECD, the GEN-IV systems at ESNII and GIF, the fuel material studies at OECD. PUMMA will provide common data in E.U. for Pu management on : fuel cycle, fuel behavior, fuel properties and safety st-

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.

NFRP 1: 2016-2017 notes that “A number of current Generation II reactors should continue operating for a few decades and Generation III should still be in operation one century from now.” This requires a systematic ageing management procedure for justifying their safe long term operation (LTO). One fundamental part in this process is to demonstrate the integrity of the nuclear power plant components. The required safety margins are determined by considering various degradation and ageing mechanisms and postulated defects. This project focuses on open technology gaps, identified in the NUGENIA road map, related to piping components, not covered by other ongoing projects. Specifically this project will focus on developing: o innovative quantitative methodologies to transfer laboratory material properties to assess the structural integrity of large piping components, o an enhanced treatment of weld residual stresses when subjected to long term operation, o advanced simulation tools based on fracture mechanics methods using physically based mechanistic models, o improved engineering methods to assess components under long term operation taking into account specific operational demands, o integrated probabilistic assessment methods to reveal uncertainties and justify safety margins. ATLAS+ will have a significant impact on the safety of operational Generation II and III nuclear power plants. The project will demonstrate and quantify inherent safety margins introduced by the conservative approaches used during design and dictated by codes and standards employed through-out the life of the plant. The outcomes from ATLAS+ will therefore support the long term operation of nuclear power plants. This will be achieved by using more advanced and realistic scientific methods to assess the integrity of piping. The project will provide evidence to support the methods by carrying out large scale tests using original piping materials.