OSIRIS REACTOR - Centre de Cadarache - CEA

38THE HOT LABS ASSOCIATED TO OSIRISCEA••• NUCLEAR ENERGY AUTHORITYTHE HOT LABS ASSOCIATED TO OSIRISThe OSIRIS reactor has the benefit of the infrastructure of the CEA and all of R&D facilities both from the point ofview of material studies with the LECI near the reactor at the Saclay centre, and from the point of view of fuel studieswith the LECA-STAR in Cadarache.LECIThe LECI, a hot laboratory located on the Saclay site and mainly designed for the study of irradiated materials, comprisesshielded cells in which destructive testing, non destructive testing, machining as well as conditioning and waste evacuationare carried out. These cells are used to house irradiated materials and short fuel rods.The R&D work and the related activities concern: The metallurgical and mechanical characterization of irradiated materials from power reactors, or experimental irradiations,in order to determine the change in their reactions under irradiation, Studies on irradiated metallic materials (interpretation of experiments and modelling), Studies on the corrosion behaviour of cladding materials, The manufacture of test specimens, samples and experimental fuel rods.The installation offers a wide range of scientific means and equipment to: prepare samples from irradiated materials (electroerosion machining, pressurization of fuel rod clad etc.), manufacture short experimental fuel rods using an irradiated sectionof a PWR fuel element (the Fabrice process),Uniaxial creep machine. carry out post-irradiation examinations of fuels, such as samplingfission gases, and metallography. The non-destructive examinationscarried out on the fuel rods use diametral metrology, zirconiathickness measurements, measurements of eddy currents byspecific wrap-around probes as well as gamma spectrometry, carry out post-irradiation examinations and measurements onmaterials such as:• Mechanical tensile, inflection, hardness, toughness,impact strength, uniaxial and biaxial creep tests,• Metallography,• Dimensional measurements by laser metrology.