Argentina’s National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA – Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica) said new milestones were achieved with the start-up of the first pump for the primary cooling circuit of the RA-10 multipurpose reactor at Ezeiza Atomic Centre (CAE – El Centro Atómico Ezeiza) in Buenos Aires province. In addition, dummy fuel elements were installed in the core.
The RA-10 project for construction of a 30 MWt open-pool research reactor was approved by the government and was officially started by CNEA in June 2010. Argentina’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority granted a construction licence in 2014 and civil works began in 2016. INVAP (from INVestigación APlicada – applied research) based in Bariloche is the main contractor. The assembly of the RA-10 pool, which houses the reactor core, was completed in August 2018. The pool was designed by INVAP and CNEA and built by metallurgical company SECIN.
The RA-10 will be used for the production of medical radioisotopes and key research and training. It is based on the OPAL radioisotope production reactor that INVAP supplied to Australia in 2007. The RA-10 will replace the 10 MWt RA-3 reactor on the same site, which began operations in 1967. The RA-10 will have associated facilities such as the Argentine Neutron Beam Laboratory (LAHN) and the Laboratory for the Study of Irradiated Materials (LEMI). It will also produce silicon doped by neutron transmutation, a raw material for the development of advanced electronic applications, and sources of industrial iridium. More than 80 companies in Argentina took part in the construction.
The tests now underway include the start-up of the first primary cooling circuit pump, one of the key systems of the RA-10. It is one of three pumps that make up this primary cooling circuit, the third remaining in reserve as a back-up. Start-up of the first pump made it possible to observe the circulation of the coolant through the primary circuit. CNEA said this enables comprehensive verification of the hydraulic performance of the system and its adaptation to the design and safety parameters. This is the beginning of progressive testing that will last approximately two months, until the total functional validation of the reactor’s primary cooling system is completed.
In addition, another key advance was made with the configuration of the RA-10 core, made up of dummy fuel elements without uranium but with the geometry and final arrangement of the final core. These elements were provided by the Fuel Elements Manufacturing Plant for Research Reactors (ECRI), located in the Constituciónntes Atomic Centre, within the framework of the supply agreement through which the CNEA manufactures both the fuel elements for the RA-10 and its prototypes. This core configuration enables necessary cold tests to be carried out to verify the performance of the refrigeration circuit under conditions representative of the operating configuration.
According to CNEA, “The reactor will ensure self-sufficiency of radioisotopes for medical use and will allow exports to cover up to 20% of global demand, in addition to enabling the production of doped silicon for industrial applications and opening a new horizon of research in basic sciences and advanced technologies based on neutron techniques.”
