Inaugural speech

An introduction to the MAI

Inaugural speech pronounced at the opening ceremony of November 16, 2009

By an initiative of EDF R&D, a recognized authority on nuclear plant materials ageing management, the MAI was established in January 2008 by EDF (F), EPRI (USA) and TEPCO (J). The three founding members collectively bring together thousands of person-years of industrial experience with both boiling and pressurized water reactors to the initiative. Since then, two occasional members, MHI and CRIEPI (J) have joined the MAI and contribute to specific projects of the overall MAI R&D program.

Since the MAI is not permitted to handle radioactive material at the Renardières site, partnerships have been established to provide access to mechanical testing and analysis of irradiated or contaminated materials via Associate Laboratories. Current Associate Laboratories are Studsvik (Sweden) and VTT (Finland) and discussions are ongoing with CEA, SCK-CEN and PSI.

Part of the MAI research is carried out by a network of academic experts in the nuclear material science. This network helps in bringing forward new approaches and ideas, in keeping up-to-date with respect to the latest scientific developments. Close collaboration with academic research institutes also provides continuous peer-review of MAI work and further contributes to the education and training program for young engineers.

Applied science for focused research

The Materials Ageing Institute has been created in the slipstream of increasingly important issue of nuclear power plant life extension. As an illustration, 6 French PWR reactors reached their operational age of at least 30 years in 2009, and this number will increase to 12 in 2010 and to 22 in 2011. If we combine the USA, Japan and France, 76 reactors reached the age of at least 30 years in 2009 and 2 reactors over 40 years. The MAI contributes to a particular part of plant life management by increasing fundamental knowledge on ageing of materials, providing tools and methodology to support the effort.

The institute aims at understanding the fundamental processes responsible for ageing of materials, to model them using state-of-the-art theories and computational means and to use these models to anticipate further evolution of the material properties. The institute is unique in the sense that it has access to operational feedback of 42 % of all nuclear reactors worldwide (50 % of the nuclear power).

Other objectives are to capitalize and consolidate knowledge and data on material ageing in power plants; to share this knowledge among members and to facilitate exchange among experts and scientists. Accordingly, several times a year experts will meet to discuss technical and scientific issues during workshops, conferences and courses. And last, but not least, the MAI is heavily involved in several training sessions for students at engineer level, allowing to bring utility-related cases to the class room and prepare the future generation of employees or Ph.D. candidates for utility careers focused on material ageing problems.

MAI research: facilities and program

EDF R&D invested in modern research facilities for a total of 15 M€. The institute has been built inside the Renardières Site of EDF R&D in accordance with the latest “High Environmental Quality” standards. The institute includes offices, meeting rooms, a classroom and a microscopy laboratory.

Since the MAI is a major part of EDF R&D, it implicitly has access to all major R&D facilities, especially those which are present at the Renardières site. Some facilities worth mentioning are tensile, compression and bending tests, fatigue and creep laboratories, furnaces, about 60 autoclaves, nondestructive testing facilities, a tomographic atom-probe laboratory, SEM, ESEM, Dual Beam, EBSD laboratories… The FEI Titan 80-300 kV FEG STEM of the MAI is the world’s most powerful microscope, fully equipped and operational. The MAI also has several experimental loops, i.e. specific equipment to study material ageing in conditions similar to those of nuclear primary and secondary circuits.

About 80 scientists, engineers and technicians carry out research on material ageing processes in austenitic stainless steels (vessels, internal structures), nickel-base alloys (steam generator tubes and secondary circuit), Zr-base alloys (fuel cladding) and non-metallic materials such as polymers and concrete. In a nutshell, the processes studied for stainless steels and alloys are stress corrosion cracking (SCC), embrittlement of alloys due to irradiation, thermal ageing, fatigue, chemical and hydrodynamic corrosion and cladding failure. Also studied are chemical and mechanical degradation and creep for concrete and thermal or radiological ageing of polymers. Research is carried out according to an annually defined R&D program (2009 budget: ~9 M€).

Current state and outlook

Almost two years after the establishment of the consortium by the founding members EDF, EPRI and TEPCO, the MAI has become an internationally recognized institute supported by the largest nuclear electric power industries. Extended research facilities are available for collaborative research, including a new building serving as a central platform for exchange and communication among experts in material science and related topics. The Materials Ageing Institute has a specific focus on training of students and utility engineers and supports different Master Degree courses in France. These courses, as well as other short courses or workshops organized by the MAI are open to all MAI members – and beyond if possible. The current R&D program (which is defined on an annual basis) covers all major ageing processes relevant for nuclear reactor ageing. In 2009, many R&D results with data, methods, tools and related information are made available to the founding members, which support their life extension management. In addition, they provide knowledge beneficial to safety and general plant performance.

One major objective is to increase the number of full members. Discussions are ongoing with GDF-Suez, E-ON, Kansai Electric Power Co. and British Energy. The MAI also has discussions with CEA (F), SCK-CEN (B) and PSI (S) to join the MAI as Associate Laboratories. We sincerely hope that these and possibly even more partners will join us in 2010. The next objective will be to reach a steady-state regime, which would fulfill the expectations of the members. With a focus on long-term scientific research, the MAI strive at being responsive to emerging technical or operational issues, requiring input from experts. The organization of scientific meetings, workshops, courses and conferences will undoubtedly contribute to the dynamic and productive state that MAI aims to achieve.

These activities, extended research facilities and expertise in process modelling, combined with the utility-specific focus are factors that make the MAI a unique institute.

Dr. Jan van der Lee
MAI Director