4. Safety

In terms of safety, the modular reactor projects have been designed with the aim of not having to evacuate the population in the event of an accident. This means that a dose level must be respected at the site boundary, whatever happens.

To meet this specification, it was decided that the best way to easily manage the fission products generated in the fuel was to keep them confined within the fuel. To achieve this objective, the power density and materials of the core, the nature of the coolant, and the means of evacuating residual power were chosen in such a way as to ensure that the temperature limit, beyond which the fuel is no longer able to retain fission products, is not exceeded. This must of course be verified under normal operating conditions, but also and above all whatever the accident envisaged, and taking into account a fraction of combustible particles...