The Commission’s Joint Research Centre and the Nuclear Research Group come together to establish innovative irradiation device for structural materials.
In the current landscape, it is widely accepted that access to irradiation data, particularly for advanced materials or manufacturing processes, could act as an enabler to the deployment of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). Against this backdrop, the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) Petten and the Nuclear Research consultancy Group (NRG) of the Netherlands are collaborating to develop an irradiation device targeted to structural materials.
The Materials Irradiation DevIce (MIDI) is currently being designed and expected to be available for irradiation during 2026. The facilities first irradiation will be a research and development activity, with the output of the irradiation to be published in internationally peer-reviewed journals or conference proceedings. NRG and EC-JRC are designing the facility to irradiate samples under inert conditions with average sample temperatures of 295°C and an approximate average target fluence of ~6 x 10^23 neutrons/m^2 (E>1MeV).
Importantly, organisations interested in providing contributions in-kind, such as, but not limited to the supply of materials for irradiation are kindly requested to fill in the ‘Materials template’ here and send to kolluri@nrg.eu by 7 March 2025 in order to arrange a time for further discussion and exchange of information on the topic.
Learn more here.