Development of a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) based on MYRRHA Project and its economic evaluation using INCAS Code

During his master thesis entitled “Development of a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) design based on MYRRHA project and its economic evaluation using INCAS code” he get familiar with engineering design of nuclear reactors using the Monte Carlo transport code MCNP for reactor core design and optimisation. He also contributed to the optimisation of the nuclear power of the SMR combined with a very long fuel cycle leading to the design of what we call a battery-like SMR design. He also proposed a conceptual design of the primary system of the SMR including PHX conceptual design and primary pumps and global integration of all other components in a pool reactor design. In the second part of his master thesis Didier used the code INCAS (INtegrated model for Competitiveness Assessment of SMRs) to complete an economic evaluation of his designed SMR compared to a large scale nuclear reactor based on existing technology. The objective of this comparison is to assess the economic competitiveness of SMR’s and more particularly a lead alloy cooled SMR. During his stay at SCK•CEN he rapidly integrated the neutronic design team of MYRRHA and demonstrated his capacity to master complex engineering design problems, to implement them through modern programming tools supplemented by economical capabilities making use of financial and economic models.