Current State of Research on Pressurized Water Reactor Safety

For more than 40 years, IPSN then IRSN has conducted research and development on nuclear safety, specifically concerning pressurized water reactors, which are the reactor type used in France. This publication reports on the progress of this research and development in each area of study – loss-of-coolant accidents, core melt accidents, fires and external hazards, component aging, etc. –, the remaining uncertainties and, in some cases, new measures that should be developed to consolidate the safety of today’s reactors and also those of tomorrow. A chapter of this report is also devoted to research into human and organizational factors, and the human and social sciences more generally. All of the work is reviewed in the light of the safety issues raised by feedback from major accidents such as Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi, as well as the issues raised by assessments conducted, for example, as part of the ten-year reviews of safety at French nuclear reactors. Finally, through the subjects it discusses, this report illustrates the many partnerships and exchanges forged by IRSN with public, industrial and academic bodies both within Europe and internationally

CASTOR status and evolution

In January 1999, CERN began to develop CASTOR ("CERN Advanced STORage manager"). This Hierarchical Storage Manager targetted at HEP applications has been in full production at CERN since May 2001. It now contains more than two Petabyte of data in roughly 9 million files. In 2002, 350 Terabytes of data were stored for COMPASS at 45 MB/s and a Data Challenge was run for ALICE in preparation for the LHC startup in 2007 and sustained a data transfer to tape of 300 MB/s for one week (180 TB). The major functionality improvements were the support for files larger than 2 GB (in collaboration with IN2P3) and the development of Grid interfaces to CASTOR: GridFTP and SRM ("Storage Resource Manager"). An ongoing effort is taking place to copy the existing data from obsolete media like 9940 A to better cost effective offerings. CASTOR has also been deployed at several HEP sites with little effort. In 2003, we plan to continue working on Grid interfaces and to improve performance not only for Central Data Recording but also for Data Analysis applications where thousands of processes possibly access the same hot data. This could imply the selection of another filesystem or the use of replication (hardware or software).Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 2 pages, PDF. PSN TUDT00

Le Projet SI–RIL et l’intégration de la technologie dans le réseau de la santé du Québec

Le Projet SI–RIL a pour objectif d’améliorer l’accessibilité, la rapidité et la continuité des services de santé à Laval en permettant un échange d’information clinique entre les établissements du réseau de la santé, les cliniques médicales et les services diagnostiques publics et privés de Laval. Ce projet bien qu’ayant reçu un avis favorable de la Commission d’Accès à l’Information du Québec soulève néanmoins certaines questions que le présent article vise à mettre de l’avantThe SI-RIL project has for objective to improve the accessibility, the speed and the continuity of health services in Laval by allowing a clinical exchange of information between the establishments of the health network, the private medical clinics and the public and private diagnostic services of Laval. Although the Commission d'accès à l’information du Québec issued a favorable opinion regarding the project, the Commission raises certain questions that this article aims to address

Adaptation and Evaluation of the Multisplitting-Newton and Waveform Relaxation Methods Over Distributed Volatile Environments

International audienceThis paper presents new adaptations of two methods that solve large differential equations systems, to the grid context. The first method isbased on the Multisplitting concept and the second on the Waveform Relaxation concept. Their adaptations are implemented according to the asynchronous iteration model which is well suited to volatile architectures that suffer from high latency networks. Many experiments were conducted to evaluate and compare the accuracy and performance of both methods while solving the advection-diffusion problem over heterogeneous, distributed and volatile architectures. The JACEP2P-V2 middleware provided the fault tolerant asynchronous environment, required for these experiments

LE MANAGEMENT DES STAGES DANS UN MASTER D'INGENIERIE. ASPECTS DE L'EVOLUTION DES PRATIQUES

International audienceThis paper presents the system of internship implemented for "Industrial Process and Innovation" Master students at the Faculty of Applied Sciences in Béthune. After mentioning a few consequences with regard to the management of these internships, we propose an analysis to report on the pedagogical, organizational and institutional skills involved and the methods used to rule them. Indeed, these internships are part of a sandwich training course with three interactive groups : first the institution (University and Company) second the organization (University and Company) and finally the people concerned (trainers and interns). This paper stresses the fact that approaching internships in terms of management means focusing on the dynamics used between the three groups. It also enhances that the methods of management are multiple, versatile, and strongly based on human relations and mainly rely on the team which manages the system.Cette communication rend compte du dispositif de stage du master " Process Industriels et Innovation " de la Faculté des Sciences Appliquées de Béthune. Après avoir brièvement exploré quelques implications du point de vue de la 'gouvernance', un cadre d'analyse est proposé pour rendre compte des propriétés pédagogiques, organisationnelles, institutionnelles et des modalités de régulation du stage en formation concerné ici. En ce sens, le stage est conçu comme faisant partie d'un système de formation en alternance à trois pôles en interaction : le pôle institutionnel (Ecole, Entreprise), le pôle organisationnel (école, entreprise) et le pôle actoriel (stagiaire, formateurs). Cette communication souligne le fait qu'approcher le stage en termes de gouvernance signifie de mettre l'accent sur les dynamiques à l'oeuvre entre les trois pôles du dispositif de formation. Elle met aussi en évidence que les modes de gouvernance sont multiples, changeants, éminemment humains et reposent fortement sur l'équipe qui gère le dispositif

Elements of nuclear safety – Research reactors

This publication gives a global overview of the diversity and complementarity of research reactors, some of which have been or are still being used to conduct experiments that are essential for the development and operation of nuclear power reactors, including in relation to safety issues. This work highlights the many uses of these reactors, which have very different designs, use highly varied quantities of radioactive substances with varying levels of risk for safety and radiation protection, and which — in many cases because they are old or have been shut down — require appropriate measures to control the ageing or obsolescence of some of their equipment, as well as, on an organisational and human level, to ensure that they continue to be operated safely. For some research reactors, safety and radiation protection aspects must be considered, taking into account that two types of operators are present at the same time within these reactors: reactor operating personnel and operators in charge of experimental devices using neutrons from the reactor for fundamental or applied research purposes. There are two specific chapters on the safety standards established under the aegis of the IAEA for research reactors and on serious accidents, notably those involving criticality and reactivity, in research reactors. The second part of the work focuses on French research reactors, including the regulations and official documents applicable to these reactors, on lessons learned in France from significant events and accidents — as well as abroad, such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in 2011 — on the consideration of reactivity accidents in the design of French research reactors, and on the ten-yearly safety reviews carried out in France