France’s Authority for Nuclear Safety & Radiation Protection (ASNR – Autorité de sûreté nucléaire et de radioprotection) has inaugurated the PASTIS (Passive Systems Thermalhydraulic Investigations for Safety) project, a new €9m ($10m) research infrastructure at its Cadarache site. Backed by the French government’s France 2030 initiative, these modular testing facilities are designed to study the physical reliability of passive safety systems in light-water and small modular reactors (SMRs).
The expansion aims to equip regulators with the independent reference data and advanced scientific tools needed to evaluate tomorrow’s next-generation nuclear reactor safety dossiers.
The core focus is to study passive safety systems that can automatically safely shut down and cool a nuclear reactor during incident or accident scenarios without human intervention or external power support. The facility offers two priority testing platforms:
- ALCINA – a scalable thermal-hydraulic loop tracking pressure losses, forced convection, and natural circulation across single- and two-phase flows.
- Enclosure Immersion – a platform modelling condensation and convection dynamics when an SMR enclosure is fully submerged in a large safety pool.
The reference data will be used by ASNR to technically assess upcoming operator applications for next-gen designs, expanding their “Augmented Expertise” programme into data-driven and AI-assisted frameworks.
“State support within the framework of France 2030 was decisive in making PASTIS a reality,” said Sébastien Desmarest, PASTIS project manager. “This investment now allows us to have a unique research platform, designed to produce the scientific knowledge that safety expertise will need in the decades to come.”
The project also aims to promote national and international collaborations. The research carried out will contribute to sharing knowledge and the development of cooperation with other expertise and research organisations. Collaborations are notably underway with EDF R&D teams at national level as well as with various international partners, particularly within the framework of the Euratom programme financed by the European Union.
The EASI-SMR project (Ensuring Assessment of Safety Innovations for Small Modular Reactors) is a major four-year European initiative dedicated to evaluating and resolving safety challenges for light-water SMRs. The €24m project, coordinated by EDF and funded under the Euratom Research & Training Programme, launched in September 2024 and runs until August 2028.
Beyond the opening of a new infrastructure, the inauguration of PASTIS marks an important step in ASNR’s ability to produce the scientific knowledge necessary for independent public expertise, serving nuclear safety in the future.
