Education and Training Series #57: Experimental R&D in Russia to Justify Sodium Fast Reactors

These webinars, organised by the GIF Education and Training Working Group are streamed live monthly. The recordings and slide decks are accessible after the webinar on this website. These webinars cover a very broad range of technical and policy related topics. At the end of 2023 they have been viewed by more than 15000 people (approximately half of the views during the live streams and the other half views being of the archives on the public GIF website). In total, the GIF webinars have reached Generation IV enthusiasts, scientists, and engineers in more than 80 countries.

These webinars are organised and hosted by the GIF Education and Training Working Group (ETWG). 

Development of new reactor systems calls for justification of safety and operability. Not all the phenomena can be justified by way of calculations. Many systems have been developed for the first time, and some systems are functioning under the totally new conditions. The main requirement to the release of an engineering design is validity of the decisions made. In Russia, a fleet of test facilities has been designed for experimental studies in the area of liquid-metal cooled fast reactors. Most of the test facilities use liquid metal as a coolant, but there are test facilities where water is used as a coolant. In this webinar, the elements and systems of the Generation IV nuclear reactors will be discussed and illustrated by the BN-1200 reactor, and consideration will be given to the experimental R&D carried out in Russia to justify them.